Signora Giveret Synagogue

The Signora Giveret Synagogue on Havra Street is one of the best preserved of İzmir's nine surviving synagogues, and among the most historically significant. Built in the seventeenth century and renovated several times since, it serves the city's small remaining Sephardic Jewish community and occasionally welcomes organised heritage groups.

Access for non-Jewish visitors requires advance arrangement through the Jewish community (Yahudi Cemaat Vakfı). The exterior on Havra Street, with its distinctive arched entrance and Hebrew inscriptions, is visible freely. The synagogue is best understood in the context of the entire Havra Street complex — the concentration of Jewish heritage here is among the most important in the eastern Mediterranean.

things to do sight kemeralti
A story
The synagogue is named after a mysterious female patron known only as "La Señora" — an honorific title used in the Sephardic Jewish community for a woman of great wealth and influence. The identity of the original patron has been debated by historians for centuries; some have identified her with Doña Gracia Mendes Nasi, a Portuguese-Jewish merchant princess who helped thousands of Jews escape the Inquisition and eventually settled in the Ottoman Empire. Whether or not the identification is correct, the synagogue preserves her memory.

Other places in Things to Do