shul

n. Judaism.

A synagogue.

[Yiddish, from Middle High German schuol, school, from Old High German scuola, from Latin scola. See school¹.]

(lit. "school"). Yiddish term employed by Ashkenazi Jews to designate any traditional Synagogue. Because the educational role of the synagogue was common knowledge throughout the Roman world, Gentiles dubbed the Jewish house of prayer a schola; Catholic churchmen later made schola Judaeorum ("Jews' school") equivalent to the synagoga. In Middle High German the Latin term reappeared as Judenschule. German Jews fleeing to Poland subsequently retained shul in Eastern Yiddish, while others who moved to northern Italy found an analogous vernacular expression in Scuola. In Eastern Europe, where Jewish communal life had its focus in the local houses of prayer and study, shuI was a term normally employed by Mitnaggedim. Ḥasidic Jews worshiped separately in their Shtibl. A section reserved for female worshipers, above or to the rear of the main synagogue, was known in Yiddish as the Vaybershul ("women's synagogue").

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