I have never prayed in the synagogue in Dieren, the Netherlands. I don’t know the rabbi. I’ve never attended a Shabbat service there or celebrated a holiday with its congregation. I don’t receive its emails or know the people who walk through its doors each week.

And yet, every time I walk inside, I feel as though I belong.

I’ve felt a version of this before. There is something about walking into a synagogue almost anywhere in the world that feels familiar to me. The language spoken outside may be different. The melodies may change. The building may be hundreds of years old or part of a modern community center. But I know what I am looking at. I know the ark. I know the Torah. I recognize the prayers.

When the Torahs are placed back into the ark, I hear words I have heard throughout my life: Etz chaim hi lamachazikim bah. It is a tree of life to those who hold fast to it. In those moments, I feel connected to generations of Jews who stood in other synagogues, in other countries, saying the same words long before I was born.

But Dieren is different.

There, the connection pulls harder. Even before I walk through the door, Hebrew words curve above the entrance: “This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it.” I have passed beneath those words several times now, entering a synagogue where I’ve never prayed but somehow never feel entirely like a visitor.

Once inside, I am surrounded by pieces of a world I know mostly through stories and research: an old photograph of the street, the notice announcing the synagogue’s dedication in 1884, and an exhibition poster from my family’s gallery advertising a 1937 exhibition of Dutch masters. The gallery itself stood directly across the street. I can walk into this synagogue and find my family’s name hanging on the wall.

My family’s connection to the synagogue went much deeper than proximity. My great-grandfather served as its vice chairman, and the Katz family, along with another prominent Jewish family in Dieren, provided much........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)