Temple and Synagogue: seperate institutions

The Holy Temple in Jerusalem was the Beth haMiqdash. There was to be only one temple in the Land, the objective of all sacrifices and pilgrimages.

During late 2nd Temple days, local gatherings were held at a beth k*nesseth. It doubled as a beth t*fillah for communal prayer and a beth midrash for studies. The Greek word synagogue somehow became the vernacular for the beth k*nesseth. When the 2nd Temple was destroyed and 4th century plans to build a new Temple died with the Roman emperor Julian, only the synagogue survived as an institute for Jewish worship.

Until relatively recent times there were only three other temples. One in Upper Egypt in use between the 1st and 2nd Jerusalem Temple. One rival temple in Jordan. One that the Mishnah speaks in some length about was in Egypt's delta. Being a miqdash it was functionally (not architecturally) modeled after Jerusalem's Beth Miqdash. This temple operated for about 250 years, from the Hasmonean period until just after the siege at Masada.

From the historical perspective, synagogues were never spoken of as temples nor served the Mosaic Code functions of a temple. The Temple and the synagogue operated simultaneously for roughly two centuries. One for Moses' literal sacrifice and the other for Hosea's verbal sacrifice.

Calling the beth k*nessth a temple is an innocuous enough designation. Used mainly by liberal leaning congegrations the term is also, but very infrequently, used by traditional congregations as well, like the Sephardic Temple in Cedarhurst.