The Old Synagogue, built in the 14th century, contains two rooms, one for each sex (note the women’s windows along the west wall). The main room contains a medieval ‘holy of holies’, with geometric designs and trees carved in stone, and some beautiful stained-glass windows. The inscriptions on the walls date from 1490. There’s a reconstructed mikvah (ritual bath) in the courtyard as well as a plaque commemorating the devastation of Sopron’s Jewish community under the Nazis in 1944.
Új utca, on which the Old Synagogue stands, was known as Zsidó utca (Jewish St) until the Jews were evicted from Sopron in 1526, after being accused of plotting with Turks.
