Old Synagogue, Pretoria

The Old Synagogue, also known as The Pretoria Hebrew Congregation, is a former Orthodox Jewish congregation, synagogue, and apartheid-era court house on Paul Kruger Street in Pretoria, South Africa. It was consecrated in 1898 and closed as a synagogue in 1952, when the congregation moved to a larger site. The former synagogue building was subsequently expropriated and sold to the State for use as a Special Annex of the Supreme Court of South Africa between 1956 and 1977. In this period, Nelson Mandela was a defendant at the court in both the 1956 and the Rivonia treason trials. In 1977, it was the setting for an inquest into the death of Steve Biko. It is now a Grade II Provincial Heritage Resource and protected under the National Heritage Resources Act (25 of 1999). The building and site remains under the control of the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure.