THE GREAT SYNAGOGUES
The Third Destruction of the Temple

Exhibition project and idea: V. Dymshits, A. Sokolova Based on the field trips photography by M. Heifiz, A. Sokolova, D. Dashevsky (1989-2000) from the archives of Petersburg Judaica and Petersburg Jewish University. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee supported this exhibition project.

Exhibition hall of the Russian Institute of History of Arts,
Isaackievskaya square, 5
St. Petersburg, Russia.

Exhibition Opening Days: September 11 to October 15, 2000.
Information: tel. 812-314-40-34

Conception of the Exhibition

Shoa, Holocaust, and the Catastrophe - these are the words for referring to the massacre of six million European Jews. That list, paradoxically, does not include the Yiddish word for that tragedy, while five million victims out of the six spoke that language. The word, though, does exist, and it brings into bold relief the essence of the disaster: der driter Hurbm, the Third Destruction of the Temple.

The destruction of Jerusalem Temple has not just been registered in the collective memory of the Jewish people, in the rituals and the liturgy; the eternal symbol of that tragedy is the great ruin, the Western Wall. In the same way, the ruins of the great eastern European synagogues have become the embodiment of the Third Destruction of the Temple.

The synagogue in Satanov (photo of the early 20th century)

An enormous number of the synagogue buildings were destroyed in the 20th century, while those that are still there, even though devastated and deserted, overwhelm a chance traveler with their awesome beauty. These buildings, exquisite even in their present deplorable state, cannot but erase the stereotype of the meager and uninspiring culture of a Jewish shtetl.The dead synagogues tell the tale of the glory and the decline of the eastern European Jewish communities.

The architecture of the stone synagogues of the 16th -18th centuries is a unique, thrilling and still largely obscure page in the history of the European architecture. In the second half of the 16th - early 17th century in the so-called Golden Age of Polish Jewry, a unique type of synagogue building came into existence. The synagogues were used not only for religious practices, but also as fortifications. Stolid walls, narrow, elevated windows, loopholes in the attics, where cannons were positioned, turned the synagogue into a tower of a feudal castle. Such a building would be part of a city's fortification system, protecting the Jewish quarter and controlling one of the city's thoroughfares. Crowned with the attic, the synagogue would tower above the squatting houses that surrounded it, and thus proclaimed the high social status of the Jewish community.

The influence of the fortress-type synagogues architecture had continued up to the late 18th century, by which time the buildings had largely lost their function of fortifications. Yet, even the buildings topped with the high decorative slanted roof would retain the old, near-cube-shaped proportions of the main part.

The synagogue in Shargorod (photo of the early 20th century)

The focal points of the synagogue's interior are the Torah scrolls depositary, aron-kodesh, in the Eastern wall, and the podium for Torah recitation, bima, in the center of the hall. Several types of the prayer hall layout are in existence. The four massive columns supporting the vault often emphasize its centered arrangement. Another, more original composition would involve a pylon in the center of the hall, formed by four clustered columns. In that case, the bima would be located inside the pylon.

The walls of the prayer hall, aron-kodesh, bima were lavishly decorated with ornaments and carvings. Fragments of the decor have been preserved in some of the surviving buildings.

Having endured for several centuries, the stone synagogues proved unable to cope with the cataclysms of the 20th century. Their destruction started back in the days of the World War I. After the Revolution, the synagogues within the Soviet Union were closed down and looted. In 1920-30th a number of the buildings were devastated or completely destroyed by the Soviets. In the period of the Nazi occupation, the most historically important synagogues were blown up. The next wave of destruction came in the early 1960s, even though by that time the buildings of the synagogues had long been devoid of their religious significance. The destruction of the synagogues is still going on.