[1][2] Tradition holds that as an institution, it was founded by the scholar and Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, also known as Nachmanides or Ramban, in 1267, but at a more southerly location on Mount Zion,[4] to help rebuild the local Jewish community, that expanded because of the synagogue's presence.

[5][6] The synagogue was moved to its current location in c. 1400, where it was destroyed in 1474, rebuilt in 1475, and continued functioning until being closed by the Muslim authorities in the late 16th century.

[dubious – discuss][citation needed] The synagogue is located 3 m (9.8 ft) below street level, to comply with Muslim restrictions for Dhimmi houses of prayer not to be higher than mosques.

[8] The fifth one was removed and placed outside the southern entrance, in order to create space for the bimah,[9] which takes a central position but never stood under a dome.

[10] In an alleged letter to his son,[1] he described the Jewish community of Jerusalem devastated by the Khwarezmian "Tatars":[citation needed] "Many are its forsaken places, and great is the desecration.

"Seventy two years old, he undertook the effort to rebuild the Jewish community and chose a ruined house on Mount Zion[clarification needed] to reconstruct it as a synagogue.

[1] Many details in it are doubtful, starting with the questions on Nachmanides ever reaching Jerusalem, and continuing with doubts on the small number of Jews (just two) after Saladin's 1188 call to them to resettle Palestine, and on why a scholar of Nachmanides' rank would need to bring Torah scrolls from Nablus, the capital of the Samaritans, which Jews considered to be heretics.

[1] Obadiah Bertinoro, the next source on the synagogue, writes in 1488 about it without ever mentioning the name Ramban/Nachmanides in his description[1] In the first half of the 16th century there are already signs of the fictitious connection with the Ramban being circulated.

[7] Subsequently, the Sephardic community established their center in the adjacent place, where the academy belonging to the tanna Yochanan ben Zakai was said to have stood during the Second Temple period.

Ottoman authorities issued a firman to lock the synagogue door due to local complaints of 'noisy ceremonies' and further legal disputes were prohibited after the 1598 confiscation[clarification needed].

"The 1628 text quoted by Schwarz also mentions a qadi who, during that very year, extorted a large amount of money, 1000 grosh, from the Jewish community in order to recognise their property rights and stop the transformation of "Al Maraga" into a raisin mill, and the construction of several shops "out of the hall and front of the Synagogue".

[9] N. Roth wrote in 2014 that the building was completely destroyed by the Jordanian Arab Legion in 1948, with nothing remaining except for plans and photos produced before the May–July 1948 Siege of Jerusalem.

[2] As a result of the 1967 Six-Day War, Jews regained access to the property, and a synagogue with a beit midrash, or Torah study hall, was opened there.

[17] It made the headlines in 2016, when Carmit Feintuch became its communal leader, the first woman to be hired in this position at an Orthodox synagogue in Israel.