A synagogue is located on the first floor of the Plenum Wing for the use of the Members of Knesset, the Knesset staff and visitors. Initially, when the Knesset building was planned, the planners did not intend to make a synagogue in it, but rather a small prayer room.

Jerusalemite architect David Cassuto (born in 1937 in Italy) related that he had turned of his own accord to the Speaker of the Knesset, Kadish Luz, and offered to plan the interior of the synagogue in the Knesset building. Kadish Luz approached Emanuel Friedman, the planning and implementation coordinator for the Knesset building, who served as the Jerusalem District Engineer in the Public Works Department (Ma’atz). Friedman replied that there was no plan to build a synagogue in the Knesset building, nor would there be such a plan. Friedman said that if a synagogue were to be built, then a mosque and a church would also be built.

It should be noted that in Froumine House, which was the temporary residence of the Knesset between the years 1950–1966, there was no synagogue, and the religious MKs and Knesset workers used to gather to pray in a corner near the cafeteria. It was a representative of the Mapam parliamentary group, MK Yaakov Hazan, who insisted, saying that the Knesset building should not have merely a prayer room, but rather it should contain religious articles. The synagogue was ultimately designed by architect David Cassuto.



The synagogue contains a Torah Ark from the early 17th century, made of carved walnut wood in the style of the early baroque period. The Ark was brought to Israel thanks to an initiative by Dr. Shlomoh Umberto Nahon to bring to Israel Torah Arks and ritual objects from destroyed Jewish communities and install them in synagogues throughout Israel. Within this enterprise—to which there were many partners in Israel and in Italy, including the Ministry of Religious Affairs, the Jewish Agency, the Italian authorities and the Jewish communities in Italy—about 40 Arks were brought to Israel in the first years after the state was founded.



​ The synagogue doors were designed by graphic artist Zvi Steiner (1931–2021). He designed the symbols of the Twelve Tribes in the form of iron grillwork within wooden doors—six tribes in each door.

The architect, Cassuto, designed a small curtain (parochet) for the Ark, upon which conservator Olga Negnevitsky embroidered a Star of David and seven stars (inspired by Herzl’s proposal for the national flag). The curtain hangs on a rod inside the Ark, behind its doors, following Italian Jewish style. Dov Shilansky, who served as Speaker of the Knesset, later donated another curtain, and it was hung on the Ark from the outside.

In the past, a large Hanukkah menorah made of pure silver was displayed in the synagogue. The Hanukkah menorah is currently displayed on the third floor, near the entrance to the building used by Members of Knesset and workers. It is about one meter in height, and is decorated with flowers and designed in a modern style. In the center of the Hanukkah menorah hangs a small oil jug that serves to pour oil into the branches for lighting the menorah. It was donated to the Knesset in 1985 by the Zadok family, a Jerusalemite family dealing in silver goods.