The Ahrida Synagogue stands in Balat, Fatih, in Istanbul. Romaniotes, or Greek Jews, from Ohrid built it in the 1430s, and it was completed around 1430. The article describes a stone building in Ottoman and Byzantine style. It is one of the two ancient synagogues on the Golden Horn and one of the oldest in the city.
Its boat-shaped tevah, the reading platform, is its best-known feature. Sephardi Jews arrived in the Ottoman Empire from the Iberian Peninsula beginning in 1492 and soon outnumbered the Romaniotes, who assimilated into Sephardic culture.
Sabbatai Zevi, founder of the Sabbatean movement, prayed here, and it is the only Istanbul synagogue where he is recorded as doing so. It was renovated in 1694, 1732, 1840, 1893, 1926, 1955 and 1992, and it remains an active congregation following the Nusach Sefard rite.
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