(that's it:-))

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Clarification of Question by statestraveller-ga on 27 May 2005 12:01 PDT

Really???  There are several of them here in San Francisco, and when I
asked a Jewish friend of mine he didn't think it was an odd question,
although he didn't know the answer...

I've got a better question:

Why do you think they all are?  (they're not, BTW)

The Temples in San Francisco may have round roofs for the most part,
but Temples without ?round roofs? are plentiful in the rest of the
world.

http://yasui.anjiro.com/~anjiro/pictures/2004_europe/prague/07270005.jpg

http://www.usgennet.org/usa/in/county/vanderburgh/postcards/jewish_temple_1.jpg

http://www.gracemillennium.com/sojourn/winter98/graphics/holubph.gif

http://in005.urj.net/temple.JPG

If you are referring to the ?domes? that are commonly found on some
Jewish Temples, there are a number of speculations about that. Just as
many Christian Churches have steeples (but not all of them) enabling
the church to, in a sense, advertise it?s presence above all other
structures, a dome may simply identify a Temple and differentiate it
from other buildings.

On the other hand, the dome may be a carry over tradition and be
representative of the Dome of The Rock, or somethign similar.

Finally, perhaps the dome?s geometry has a more traditional meaning
rather than an architectural one. ?In many traditions a circle, and by
extension a dome represents spirit and the heavens while the square or
cube represents the physical world of humans or the earth.?

ART OF THE TIME
http://www.tcfn.org/timecapsule/html/the_art_of_time_5.html

If this has answered your question (to the extent that it CAN be
answered) please let me know.

Regards;
Tutuzdad-ga

"[T]he search for a style that could give form to a "Jewish
architecture" was a constant preoccupation of the planners of the new
temples throughout Western Europe. Egyptian, Romanesque, Byzantine,
Moorish, and Assyrian-Babylonian designs were introduced, usually in
hybrid forms. Contemporaries made explicit their search for exoticism,
and almost all the monumental temples of Europe were considered exotic
in their day.
....
"A hundred years before Church proprietors officially dismantled the
traditional Christian narrative regarding the Jews, the monumental
synagogues gave it the lie. They proclaimed that it was not God's
design that the Jewish people be downtrodden."
The Narrating Architecture of Emancipation
http://iupjournals.org/jss/jss6-3.html

And just to mix up the story a little,
Round domes are just as prevalent in Islamic architecture for mosques,
not only when the building is constructed with a domed roof, but as an
interior feature when the roof is not domed.
This is usually traced back to the conquest of Constantinople and
exposure to the great domed churches there (Hagia Sophia, and others)
with were turned into mosques.
(Hmmm? But the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem predates that conquest ...?)