Sephardic Bikur Holim Congregation In an anti-Semitic incident in September 2009, the synagogue was defaced with Nazi graffiti. Sephardic Bikur Holim Congregation Sephardic Bikur Holim Congregation (SBH) is a Sephardic congregation with a synagogue in the Seward Park neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. The name "Bikur Holim" (which can be transliterated various ways into English) means visiting or comforting the sick, an important mitzvah. The first official name of the congregation was Spanish Hebrew Society and Congregation Bikur Holim, shortened to "Sephardic Bikur Holim" ("Sephardic" to avoid confusion with Seattle's similarly named Ashkenazic congregation). For a time in the 1930s, after amalgamation with another congregation,
Four Sephardic Synagogues known as the Middle Synagogue, due to its location in the "middle" of the other three synagogues. Four Sephardic Synagogues The Four Sephardic Synagogues are located in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. They form a complex which comprises four adjoining synagogues which were built at different periods to accommodate the religious needs of the Sephardic community, each congregation practising a different rite. Today, most of them are in active use. With the closing of the Ramban Synagogue at the command of the Ottoman sultan in 1589, there ceased to be a Jewish house of prayer in