What is an "Old New" Synagogue?

Wednesday, April 7, 2010 (Part 7):

From the Klausen Synagogue, we next walked a short block, past the Quarter's own Town Hall, to the Old-New Synagogue. I still have not figured out what's behind this name, but this was clearly the oldest of the synagogues that we were in. And it is preserved to appear as it was in the earliest years of its use. Everything here is very old, including the benches along the perimeter of the room and a banner that hung above the cantor's stall in the center of the room. One particularly interesting feature here was the windows.

In the 15th and 16th centuries (and probably for many more years after that), women were not permitted to worship in the synagogues. These houses of worship were intended only for men. In this synagogue, special windows were built at street level to allow women on the outside to view and listen to the services. The windows were wider on the inside than on the outside - the idea being that sound from the inside was captured in the window openings and channeled to the outside.