The Baal Shem Tov's
synagogue in Mezibuz

It is the custom of the Jews of Mezibuz that one should not change the form of the ancient Synagogue of the Baal Shem Tov, since it is built reflecting the Temple in Heaven.

An ancient synagogue

About 300 years before the arrival of the holy Baal Shem Tov in Mezibuz, the members of the community built a synagogue out of wood and stone. With time, the community grew, and the synagogue became too small, and so they built a new, larger and beautiful synagogue, and the old synagogue was forsaken.

The Baal Shem Tov in Mezibuz

When the Baal Shem Tov reached Mezibuz, he decided to redeem the ancient forsaken synagogue and to reside there.
Here he worked his divine deeds, here he taught Torah and Hassidut, here he brought souls back to their roots, and from here he rose to protect and save his generation. He also explained his actions as follows: when the community left the synagogue, he said, the synagogue came before the Divine Court and claimed its shame. For 300 years Jews had prayed in it, and now they forsook it and left it stranded, and the voice of prayer is no longer heard in it, nor is it visited by Jews! The claims of the synagogue, continued the Baal Shem Tov, evoked a great prosecution in Heaven on the Jews, since it is directed to the divine Temple. and has great importance. In order to silence the prosecution, the Baal Shem Tov fixed his abode especially in this synagogue.
The walls of the ancient synagogue absorbed the echo of his Torah and holiness, and for many years it became the beating heart of the Hassidim of the Baal Shem Tov.

Reconstruction of the Synagogue

The synagogue lasted for hundreds of years until the holocaust, but was then destroyed by the Nazis.
At the end of 1989, Rabbi Israel Meir Gabai, head of the Ohalei Tzadikim Association, started clarifying the exact location of the synagogue, and in 1999, after delving in research, the cornerstone was laid for the reconstruction of the house, which was copied with perfect exactness according to pictures and ancient sketches, as it used to be during the life of the great Baal Shem Tov.