I have a question I kinda can’t believe I don’t know the answer too. I also thought that we face Jerusalem during prayer and also that we face east. So much so that the direction of prayer is just called mizrach, that makes sense since, for a large part of the Jewish world, Jerusalem is east. But I’ve just realized that for huge centers of Jewish life in Iraq and Iran, as well as the Jewish communities of India and maybe parts of the Ashkenazi world (parts of Ukraine and Russia), Jerusalem is west.
Does anyone know what the practices of these communities are/were? Did they face west or calculate a more precise direction of Jerusalem? Considering Iraq was the most important center of Jewish life for centuries after the destruction of the temple, the close identification of Jerusalem with “east” has to be post-Rabbinic, right?
submitted by /u/loselyconscious
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Source: Reditt
