The synagogue was built between 1897 and 1898. It was designed by Georgiy Shleifer. Sugar magnate and philanthropist
Lazar Brodsky financed its construction. For many decades, the
local and
imperial authorities forbade the construction of a monumental place of Jewish worship in Kyiv, as they feared that this would facilitate the growth of the Jewish community in the area, which, being a big trading and industrial city, would then become an important Jewish religious center. This was considered "undesirable" due to the symbolic importance of Kyiv, as the
cradle of
Russian Orthodoxy. It was only allowed to convert existing buildings into Jewish worship houses. In 1895, permission was given to build a
synagogue in the Podil district, a poor quarter of Kyiv. The location was however too far from the city center where the wealthy Jews lived such that they could not walk there on Sabbath. They wished a big choral synagogue in the city center, similar to those in
St. Petersburg,
Moscow and
Odessa. The permission was obtained, and the synagogue became an example of an
Aesopian synagogue. In 1926, the synagogue was closed down by the Soviet authorities. The building was converted into an artisan club. == Gallery==