This article explores the house of worship museum; a type often overlooked in house museum analysis. Due to the history and functioning of house of worship museums their interpretation, development, and upkeep have some issues that are very different from traditional residential house museums. The kinds of house of worship museum studied in this article are synagogues, which are used by the Jewish religion. Other house of worship museums of other faiths may produce different findings, such as churches of various denominations in Christianity, as well as mosques for Islam, and temples and shrines for other religions. Using synagogues as an example, this article suggests that studying house of worship museums can bring new ways of thinking about house museums as a whole, especially religious and ethnic minority groups who are often underrepresented.
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