“New Jerusalem” is an ultimate WordPress theme suitable for Synagogue website. Clean modern design with slight traditional touch. Multiple page templates allow to create the extended website with all necessary sections like prayer and holiday calendars, educational programs, staff profiles, photo galleries, video, audio and written sermons.
Developed after proper study of various Synagogue websites like Central Synagogue (New York), Beth Jaacov (Hamilton), Choral Synagogue (Saint-Petersburg) + more, in desire and attempt to satisfy the needs of Synagogue website.
Features
- Clean and elegant design
- Hebrew date (day, month, year)
- Shabbos candle-lightening times (according time zone) and weekly Torah portion
- Holiday calendar with High and minor Holidays
- Page templates (optional) for Home, Events, Staff, Location, Photo Galleries, Calendars, Courses, Donations, Contacts, Membership (14 page templates in total)
- 6 custom post types: Events, Staff, Galleries, Education, Sermons, Facilities
- 5 custom widgets
- 3 navigational areas + sliding panel with full menu on mobile
- Blog pages for featured and all news
- One page photo gallery and multiple galleries
- Full width Google map with Location page window (on hover)
- Subtle animations, elegant fonts, light colour scheme
- Fits fairly well any screen resolution
- Easy navigation with keyboard
- Landmarks / ARIA roles (for people with disabilities)
- Translation ready
- HTML Helper small metabox
- Backend with thumbnails
What is not
- No sliders and parallax effects
- No shortcodes
- No third party plugins
- No theme options
Tests and technical details
- OS: Windows, Mac (Leopard), iOS7
- Browsers: latest versions of Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, IE, Safari mobile
- Speed: according Pingdom tools it is 67% faster than other tested websites (“Your website is faster than 67% of all tested websites”)
- Weight: 2 MB (zipped, unminified, with image placeholders)
- Help file: PDF format
- Photographs: not included
- CSS files: 3
- Js files: 6
- Google calendar: 4 files
- Plugins: 11 (widgets, custom post types, metabox)
Credits
- Photographs used in layout: public domain images (Wikimedia Commons); in posts: Real Life Photographs, Ben Golan, medieval manuscripts, chrome prints circa 1900
- Fonts: Rosarivo and Source Pro (Google fonts)
- Sidr script: by Alberto Varela http://www.berriart.com/sidr/
- Hebrew calendar and date converter scripts: by Hebcal http://www.hebcal.com/
- Google calendar script: by Adam Show http://arshaw.com/fullcalendar/
“The New Jerusalem WordPress theme is literally one of its kind and I could not let it slip by unnoticed, never to be seen again.
There are many other “religious” themes on ThemeForest website, and of those, only a very few are specific to a certain denomination, however, I am pretty certain there has never been a theme like this one and while I am not Jewish myself, I am certain if you are, you can appreciate the time and effort that has gone into making this theme. For that reason alone, it is definitely worth of mention.
That being said, this theme is very well done and comes with an amazing amount of features and options such as Hebrew Dating, Shabbos Candle lighting times and a weekly Torah portion, Jewish holidays, donation options, an event calendar, 5 custom post types for events, staff, galleries, education, sermons, 5 widgets, 3 Navigation areas, blog page, one page photo gallery and multiple image galleries.
This theme was definitely created for a specific purpose and when you truly think about it, isn’t the reason most people search for a theme is because they are hoping to find something already done for them?
In this case, if you’re looking for a great theme for your synagogue, then New Jerusalem WordPress is definitely what you need.”
–Thank you, Peter, so much!
Update! 27.04.2014.
1) Holiday calendar based on hebcal.com mysteriously disappeared, hence now I replaced it with public Google Calendar 2) Released some room for statement under main image on Home page 3) candle light time and parashat Torah are now in sliding panel 4) tested on WP 3.9
Update! 04.02.2015.
Small updates for the theme were made.
- Due to recent changes in Hebcal script I have to fix Candle Light Time
- Added Social Links Widget (was not available in previous version)
- Adjusted layout for screens bigger than 1920px
