USA: The Walnut Street Shul in Chelsea, Mass., A Synagogue Full of History and Art (Part 1)

Chelsea, MA. Congregation Agudath Sholom/Walnut Street Shul. Sanctuary. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2018.

Chelsea, MA. Congregation Agudath Sholom/Walnut Street Shul. Sanctuary. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2018.

Chelsea, MA. Congregation Agudath Sholom/Walnut Street Shul. Sanctuary. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2018.

Chelsea, MA. Congregation Agudath Sholom/Walnut Street Shul. Sanctuary. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2018.

Chelsea, MA. Congregation Agudath Sholom/Walnut Street Shul. Sanctuary. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2018.

USA: The Walnut Street Shul in Chelsea, Mass., A Synagogue Full of History and Art (Part 1)

by Samuel D. Gruber

I have continued documenting American synagogue wall paintings - a project conceived in conjunction with the International Survey of Jewish Monuments and the Center for Jewish Art. This past week that meant a visit to the remarkable Congregation Agudath Sholom in Chelsea, Massachusetts; better known as the Walnut Street Shul.

I brought along two knowledgeable friends - Dick Bauer with whom I have previously explored former synagogues in Roxbury and Dorchester, and Jessica dello Russo, a native Bostonian (from the North End) who is president of the International Catacomb Society, and whose interest in the painting of Jewish sacred spaces stems in part from her knowledge of the Jewish catacombs of Rome (And yes, while there is no direct connection, both the Vigna Rondanini Catacombs in Rome and the Walnut Street Shul contain painted peacocks, and the Villa Torlonia and the Walnut Street Shul have curtains behind Torah Arks). Jessica joined me at Boston’s Vilna Shul for a visit a few years ago. The Vilna Shul, which was saved from demolition in the early 1990s, is an important painted younger "cousin" to the Walnut Street Shul, which was also founded by Litvak (Lithuanian) Jews.

Chelsea, MA. Congregation Agudath Sholom/Walnut Street Shul. Sanctuary. Peacocks on ceiling above Ark. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2018.

We three were given an enthusiastic welcome by congregation president Ed Medros and Board Secretary Richard Zabot, both who whom have deep knowledge of the building, the congregation, and the broader Jewish history of Chelsea. Ed, Richard, and their small but active board are working hard to maintain the building and to transition the Shul from a private congregation into a welcoming center of Jewish religion, history and culture for all of Chelsea and the larger community beyond. The building was significantly restored in 1991, and though there are some areas that need repair, especially the north stairway; overall it is in good shape. A big and expensive challenge will be to upgrade the electrical system and plumbing, parts of which are more than a century old.

There is so much history and art packed into this ample structure (it was built in 1909 with a sanctuary to seat more than 1100) and Ed and Richard have been filling it even more as they have allowed the Walnut Street Shul to become a repository of historical items small and large from the Chelsea Jewish community and from other synagogues in East Boston that have closed in recent years. What the synagogue will be in the future is not certain - and we all discussed this in some detail. There are lessons to be learned from the Eldridge Street Synagogue and Kehilla Kedosha Janina in New York, and the Vilna Shul right in Boston. The next few years will see some serious review of the facilities and planning for the future.

Meanwhile, Ed pulled out for us to view the recently received – but still in pieces – chandeliers from the  Revere Synagogue that recently closed and has been demolished. The plan is to curate this material with proper registration, conservation, and presentation, so that in time the Shul will also serve as museum of sorts of Jewish Chelsea. Qualified and enthusiast volunteers will be needs for a lot of this work.

Chelsea, MA. Congregation Agudath Sholom/Walnut Street Shul. Ed Medros shows recently acquired chandelier formerly in Revere Synagogue. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2018.

The most impressive art, however, is the wall decoration of the sanctuary, reputed to be the work of a Mr. Spector, about whom nothing else is known. The ceiling is painted in brilliant colors as a cloudy sky lit up with light - presumably at sunrise - since the sun is seen rising over the east wall immediately above the Ark. We see the sun and its rays.  Over all the sky resembles the painted ceiling of the Sons of Jacob Synagogue in Providence, Rhode Island, and for the rising sun I'm reminded of the sun painted in the apse of the Ark wall at the former Chai Adam Synagogue in Burlington). 

On the edge of the ceiling, effectively painted in trompe l'oeil perspective, are two peacocks looking west over the congregation. There is a long history of including birds in synagogue decoration. these ones remind me of the exotic parrots perched on the edge of the ceiling of Tsoir Gilod Synagogue in L'viv, Ukraine, painted in the 1920s.

Chelsea, MA. Congregation Agudath Sholom/Walnut Street Shul. Sanctuary. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2018.

L'viv, Ukraine. Tsori Gilod Synagogue, wall painting. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2006.

A large ornately painted circular medallion from which a chandelier descends is painted over the bimah, and a group of birds is also painted resting on the edge of this amidst flowering vegetation.

Chelsea, MA. Congregation Agudath Sholom/Walnut Street Shul. Sanctuary. Painted medallion on ceiling. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2018.

Chelsea, MA. Congregation Agudath Sholom/Walnut Street Shul. Sanctuary. Painted medallion on ceiling. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2018.

Above the west end of the women's gallery is painted a rectangular panel with a view of an ancient structure. I really wanted this to be a representation of a matriach's tomb corresponding to this exclusive women's space. The National Register of Historic Places nomination identifies the scene as Rachel's tomb, which is frequently painted, but this does not look like any such representation I am familiar with. Ed Medros thought it was Ruth's Tomb - a scene rarely represented - but definitely identified and visited in Hebron from at least the mid-19th century. After some research, however, I think it more likely that it represents the Tombs of the Kings of the House of David. The image is very close to a scene depicted in the center of a color Mizrah print, probably published in Germany ca. 1900. The Tombs of the House of David are not often represented, but they do show up in the murals of a prayer house in Krakow, about which I've posted in the past.

Chelsea, MA. Congregation Agudath Sholom/Walnut Street Shul. Sanctuary, looking west and showing all three sides with women's gallery suspended from ceiling. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2018.

Chelsea, MA. Congregation Agudath Sholom/Walnut Street Shul. Sanctuary. Ceiling painting of Holy Land scene. This has been identified as the Tomb of Rachel, but is more likely a representation of the Tomb of the Patrirachs/Matriarchs in Hebron. Or something else? Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2018.

Mizrah (exhibited in Trebic, Czech Rep). Probably printed in Germany, ca. 1890-1900. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2018.

Mizrah, detail (exhibited in Trebic, Czech Rep.). Probably printed in Germany, ca. 1890-1900. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2018.

Krakow, Poland. Beit Midrash Hevra Tehilim. Tombs of the Kings of the House of David. Photo: Sławomir Pastuszka 2008.

Chelsea, MA. Congregation Agudath Sholom/Walnut Street Shul. Sanctuary. Holy land scene and ladder and hole leading to synagogue roof (sorry, no genizah here!). Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2018.

The Walnut Street Shul Ark is a magnificent structure designed by local cabinet maker Samuel Katz, born in 1885 near L’vov, who emigrated to America in 1907.  Over the next decades he made at least two dozen Arks, including the one at the Adams Street Shul in Newton, Massachusetts (1912), and probably the Ark in the Vilna Shul in Boston  Over the Ark is a large painted red curtain, similar to ones that I have already written about, such as that in the Kupa synagogue in Krakow, Poland. The practice of painting curtains over an Ark is already seen in the work of Eliezer Sussman in the painted synagogue of Horb, Germany in 1735. The curtain opens to expose the Ark, so it should be seen as a representation of sorts of the parochet of the ancient temple before the Holy of Holies. There are more Arks on the first floor in the spaces sued for daily and Sabbath services (the main sanctuary has been reserved, at least for many decades, for the holidays).

The painted curtain falls onto two painted columns, one on each side. These have different capitals than the columns painted on the sanctuary side walls, and may refer to the Joachin and Boaz columns said to be on the facade of Solomon's temple (compare these to the columns and capitals in the former Chevra Linas Hazedek synagogue in the Bronx, NY). If so, the Ark wall painting conflates the Temple's exterior and interior.  Added this composition are two large blue six-pointed stars flanking the top level of the wooden Ark, and two bowls with flowers, painted in the wall space flanking the intermediate Ark level.

The curtain motif is common in synagogues and elsewhere. It appears in Catholic art, for example over shrines of the Madonna, and in secular rt also over royal portraits. The complete history of the use of her painted curtain in Jewish hart still needs further research. 

Chelsea, MA. Congregation Agudath Sholom/Walnut Street Shul. Sanctuary. View of Ark from women's gallery. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2018.

Chelsea, MA. Congregation Agudath Sholom/Walnut Street Shul. Sanctuary. View of Ark from women's gallery. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2018.

Chelsea, MA. Congregation Agudath Sholom/Walnut Street Shul. Sanctuary. Detail of painted capital flanking Ark. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2018.

Along the side of the sanctuary are painted columns which show their bases and columns in the men's section of the main sanctuary, but bloom like flowers with their stylized capitals visible only in the women's gallery above. These are the only columns. The women's galleries are designed to hang from the ceiling so that their are no vertical obstructions to the congregants in the main hall.

Chelsea, MA. Congregation Agudath Sholom/Walnut Street Shul. Sanctuary. View of women's gallery. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2018.

Chelsea, MA. Congregation Agudath Sholom/Walnut Street Shul. Sanctuary. Looking up to women's gallery and painted wall column. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2018.

Chelsea, MA. Congregation Agudath Sholom/Walnut Street Shul. Sanctuary. women's gallery, view to Ark. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2018.

As already indicated, a remarkable assemblage of materials has already been collected at the synagogue. The most impressive are the many Ark curtains (parochets), as well as one extra Ark in addition to the three used at the shul for daily, sabbath and holiday services (though these days it is hard to get a minyan and the schedule of services is much curtailed). For me, in the short time we had for examination, the most fascinating items were many hand inscribed and illuminated books, certificates and wall plaques. We found the name of at least one artist - Irving Bookstein - who seems to have been active from at least the 1920s through the 1950s - and it seemed to me that much of the work we saw came from hand. We'll look for more information on this Jewish artist, and post separately about his work.

There are already several impressive on-line efforts by the congregation and affiliated organizations to collect the Jewish history of East Boston, and there are plans for a permanent exhibition to be installed in the former chapel of the Ohabai Shalom Cemetery in East Boston, the region’s oldest Jewish burial place (1844), which will open as the East Boston Immigration Center as the called the "Mystic River Jewish Exhibit Hall". The exterior was recently restored by the Jewish Cemetery Association of Massachusetts, which won an award for the work.

Chelsea, MA. Congregation Agudath Sholom/Walnut Street Shul. Sanctuary. Detail of Ark, designed and built by Samuel Katz. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2018.

Breznice, Czech Republic: Where Were the Women?

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue.The synagogue sits in the middle of the second ghetto square; the two spaces are connected by a single street. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. View into women's gallery from stair landing. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. View of sanctuary from west women's gallery. The south gallery (on right) was added in the 19th century. Synagogue.Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Republic: Where Were the Women?

Continuing my look at  synagogues that I visited this past summer (see Rakovnik, Plzen, St. Polten, and Terezin), and looking especially at where were the women, I turn to the recently re-restored and now pristine 18th-century of Březnice, a small Bohemian town 65 kms southwest of Prague, and 15 kms south of the district town of Přibram.The Březnice synagogue stands in the middle of one of the best preserved Jewish ghettos in the region. After being used as a warehouse after World War II, it has been restored twice since the 1990s, most recently as part of the  “Revitalization of Jewish Monuments” project, known as 10 Stars. As in any modern restoration, the architects and conservators had to make choices about which elements from which periods to conserve, replicate, imitate or emphasize.

Březnice is an important example of an 18th-century synagogue and also represents change in the the 19th century (including more space for women) and in the 20th century (new wall paintings and stained glass windows). Overall, the restoration attempt refers to the latest period of synagogue use, but since everything looks so fresh and clean, this cannot really be the case. Instead, as with almost all preservation projects, we have something new. The restored building is an amalgam that allows us to identify historical bits and pieces from which we reach for teachable moments. The bimah is only an approximation, there was probably more seating around the bimah and in the sanctuary, the walls may have had more decoration - including prayer, dedication or memorial inscriptions, and there may have been rails, lamps and other metalwork around the Ark. Based on other synagogues of the period, the interior may have seemed more cluttered for use. Still, the overall architectural impression is probably correct.

The modest-sized synagogue served as a spiritual, physical, and aesthetic oasis set in the heart of the ghetto, which itself was near the heart of the town.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Model of the Ghetto from exhibition in Boskovice Jewish Town Hall. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

According to the text by provided by Daniel Polakovic (which corresponds to earlier writings of Jaroslav Klenovsky):

The earliest written records of Jewish settlement date from the second half of the 15th century. In the 15th-17th centuries, Břzenice's Jews lived in various parts of town, and in 1573-1725 they owned a total of 19 different houses at various times. On the basis of the Translocation Decree of 1726, Břzenice's Jews were forcibly concentrated within the newly established Loksany suburb. The houses of this new Jewish quarter were built in 1726-1747 on a regular town plan with two squares and two streets. The neighborhood consists of 24 baroque buildings, meticulously numbered using the Roman numerals. A synagogue was built at the center of the larger, rear, square; the smaller square was connected to the main town square by a narrow street and gate. It was a closed ghetto, connected with the rest of town by just the one street and gate.Most of the ghetto's buildings were renovated in the neo-classical or Empire style following the great fire of 14 April 1821.

The synagogue was was built in the middle of the second, larger, square in 1725. Following the destructive fire of 1821, it was rebuilt in its original size and form thanks to the help of the Count of Kolowrat. As a sign of gratitude, the Kolowrat family’s coat of arms was placed inside the synagogue.

This ghetto or Jewish quarter was no ugly slum. It was well laid out, and  by the 18th century its two dozen houses were well built with attractive facades. At least one house - that of the famed Joachim von Popper (d. 1795) - was a mansion and is still imposing today.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Second square of the Ghetto with synagogue on the right. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Popper mansion and synagogue south wall with main entrance (right)..Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018

The main hall in the synagogue’s northern part features a barrel-vaulted ceiling with lunettes and a separate entrance. Men entered into the sanctuary through a projecting doorway into a vestibule under the women's gallery, and on axis with the bimah and Ark. There is also a smaller door which entered the sanctuary at the southwest corner from a vaulted hallway. This is a traditional arrangement, similar to what we see at the Altneushul in Prague.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue.West wall. Entrance to women's gallery and school or right. Photo: Jiří Stach, Federation of Jewish Communities of Czech Republic.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. Plans. From J. Klenovsky, The Gates of the righteous: Synagogues in Moravia, Silesia and Bohemia, p. 94.

Women entered through a more modest doorway, also on the west wall, but flush to the wall without any attention-grabbing extension. This door is used by the public today and leads into the vaulted hallway parallel with the sanctuary axis, which divided the building in two,  with the small doorway into the sanctuary on the left and a stairway to an upper floor on the right. Upstairs there was a one-room school and access to the women's gallery. It is a fairly generous stair by the standards of the time, with a wide passage and relatively low rises for east ascent.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

At first the women's gallery occupied only the west side of the hall, where women would look toward the Ark and the Hebrew inscription  with the verse “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Leviticus 19:18). They would also have a good view of the painted ceiling. 

A second space was added in the 19th century on the east side, too. This has two spaces in the from which women could view the sanctuary, but behind a larger area was open above the vault of the downstairs hallway. This area is now used for temporary exhibition and is closed off form the rest of the prayer hall, but it was large enough even to accommodate its own female prayer leader. Since the sanctuary itself was not enlarged, this new space perhaps indicates that more women were attending the synagogue, even if  the population overall was not expanding. Presumably the benches in place now are not original, so it is hard to know the seating arrangement - but even with the expanded women's space there would only be comfortable seating for between 15-20 women in all.
 

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue.Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue.Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue.Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue.Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

The women’s gallery originally ran along the southern side; the balcony on the western side was probably built in 1874, when the bimah was moved to the east and new rows of benches were added.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Stained glass window in memory of Katerina Červenka. Synagogue.Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

The early 20th-century stained-glass windows are the work of inventor Emanuel Červenka, the son of the Březnice shamash, who dedicated them to his parents Moses and Katerina. and the decorative wall paintings are by  painter Ladislav Kuba.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. View from the west women's gallery. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. View from the west women's gallery. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. View from the west women's gallery.Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. Painted ceiling seen from west women's gallery.Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. This vaulted entry hall separates the building in two. In the 19th-century the area above was opened for more space for women.Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. This space was originally the schoolroom. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. View to main door to sanctuary beneath arches supporting west women's gallery with early 20th-century floral decoration Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. Inside of main door to sanctuary beneath west women's gallery. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. Pier in sanctuary supporting west women's gallery. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. Detail of reconstructed Ark steps.There may have been lamp stands or some other furnishing on the two flat surfaces flanking the Ark.   Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. Doorway from downstairs hallway into men's sanctuary. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. Expanded women's space above ground floor hallway, now used for temporary exhibition. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.