Montreal's Bagg Street Synagogue: A Significant Immigrant Shul with Original Wall Paintings

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Synagogue, built in 1899 as a duplex residence, transformed into synagogue 1921-22. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Synagogue, ca. 1922. View from women's gallery. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024

Montreal's Bagg Street Synagogue, A Significant Immigrant Shul with Original Wall Paintings

by Samuel D. Gruber

A high point of a recent trip to Montreal Canada was a visit to the Bagg Street Synagogue (officially known as Congregation Temple Solomon, or popularly Beth Schloime), the oldest functioning synagogue in Montreal and one of the oldest in all of Canada. I want to thank Michael Kaplan for accommodating my visit on short notice, and in the process I was able to see how the Michael and the synagogue serve as a educational resource for Montreal schools and other groups.

The Bagg Street Synagogue is the sole survivor among the two dozen or so shuls that once filled the neighborhood in the vicinity of Saint Laurent Boulevard, and the Plateau-Mont-Royal district. As in the United States, Montreal’s Jews began to move out of the old immigrant neighborhood in the post-World War II. By the 1950s and 60s they were moving to new neighborhoods to the West, and many Montreal Jews moved elsewhere in Canada.  

I have long wanted to see the small synagogue, and especially its series of wall paintings done by an amateur artist in the early 1920s. These paintings are an important surviving chapter in the history of immigrant synagogue art. There may once have been many more examples in Canada but this is but one of two the are known today (the other surviving one is Knesset Israel in Toronto). Another dozen or so examples have been discovered in the United States, many of which I have already written about on this blog.

There are still many traces of the Jewish past in the Saint Laurent Boulevard neighborhood, like the Bain Schubert around the corner from the synagogue. It was built a decade later in 1931 to offer hot water to local residents. The Bathhouse - still operating as a public swimming pool - is named for Joseph Schubert, the city's first Jewish city councilor. Schubert was a Socialist, and a successful leader for workers' rights, a shorter work week, and a minimum wage. Today, Bain Schubert serves the same purpose as other public pools: offering the citizens a place to relax or train in different water sports.

Montreal, Canada. Bain Schuber, 1931. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

About two short blocks away from the synagogue is Schwartz’s smoked meat, founded more than 90 years ago,  Unlike most Bagg Street regulars, I don’t keep kosher, so was able to enjoy a delicious smoked meat (what I call corned beef) sandwich for lunch. In fact, I went two days in a row!

Montreal, Canada. Schwartz's smoked meat. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

My special interest in the Bagg Street Synagogue was to see it's charming “folk” wall paintings - a series of scenes of the Zodiac symbols associated with the month of the Hebrew calendar, which were painted by a still-unidentified local artist. Each symbol is set in a lush and lively landscape setting. Many of these are evocative of Canada, seemingly right off scenic calendar or railroad magazine. The painted panels line the parapet wall of the woman's gallery that is tightly squeezed into the narrow synagogue space in a horseshoe shape, filling three sides of the long synagogue interior. 

There are also scenes of Rachel's Tomb, Mount Sinai and the Nile River. The scene of Rachel's Tomb is very familiar since it occurs in other immigrant shuls I've seen, including The Vilna Shul in Boston and the Stanton Street Synagogue in New York. In all these cases, there is always a clear view of Rachel's Tomb from the women's section or gallery.

The scene of the Tablets of the Law revealed on Har Sinai (Mount Sinai) may once have been  just as common. An example was recently discovered decorating what is believed to have been a Beit Midrash in Illintsi, in western Ukraine. A more unusual scene is of the Nile River, and it seems to show the basket with the infant moses floating i the water near the shore.

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Synagogue. Mural of Mount Sinai by unknown artist, ca. 1921. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

 

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Synagogue. Mural of Rachel's Tomb by unknown artist, ca. 1921. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Synagogue. Mural of Nile River by unknown artist, ca. 1921. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

The Bagg Street building was constructed in 1899 as a duplex residence. According to information on the synagogue website, “It passed to a Jewish owner, Isaac Crakover, in May of 1910, and from him to the congregation on March 9, 1921."

The Beis Shloime congregation had been formed 1906 and rented quarters for fourteen years — first at the corner of Viger Street and St. Denis, and subsequently at St.-Laurent and Prince Arthur — acquiring the duplex in 1921, and moving there after converting it into a worship space. The redesign and construction was done by congregant Baris Kaplan who had arrived in Canada in 1905 as a refugee from Russia. Ten years later he started B. Kaplan Construction (today, Montreal’s oldest construction company and still in the family). 

On the exterior of the brick building there is a little corner tower, this punctuates the building and the entire block of residential row houses. Besides the tower, the building is given extra notice by a protruding wrought iron canopy that covers the entrance stairs. 

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Synagogue, ca. 1922. Iron canopy over entrance. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

In anticipation of the new home, much of the furniture and fittings for the synagogue were purchased from the Shaar Hashomayim congregation in 1918 for $1,500 ($26,000 today) when that synagogue was forced to move from its McGill College Avenue Site due to city construction that destabilized the structure and led to its demolition.

The vernacular or folk aspects of the synagogue were therefore augmented by the large formal two-story wooden Aron ha Kodesh that now fills the end of the sanctuary. The large ark came from Shaar Hashomayim and was adjusted for the much smaller Bagg Street space, a process not unusual when synagogue furnishings moved from one site to another. In its original home  less than hit reached less than half the height of the ark wall, but at Bagg Street it fills more than two thirds of the wall height,

 

Above the ark and to the sides are two painted lions, playing a similar role to the carved lions that one often finds atop contemporary arks in many immigrant synagogues. Painted in Hebrew behind them on the wall is the opening line of the Ma Tovu: "How good they are thy tents O Jacob thy dwelling places O Israel." The same prayer was painted in the apse of Chai Adam Synagogue in nearby Burlington Vermont. Not surprisingly given its meaning, it can be found in other synagogues, too. The Ma Tovu was recited by men entering the synagogue, and used to count if ten men were present for a minyan. 

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Synagogue, ca. 1922. View to ark. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Synagogue, ca. 1922. Ma Tovu and painted lions above ark. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Synagogue, ca. 1922. Lion above ark. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

It may be that the interior was painted in two phases, or in one phase but already with the knowledge that the ark would soon be installed. From what I could tell without inserting a camera into the narrow space between the gallery parapet wall and the ark, the parapet painting were already complete when the ark was placed. The lions, curtain and Ma Tovu prayers above the ark, however, are reliant on the positioning of the Ark. Were they painted before or after the installation?

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Synagogue, ca. 1922. Landscapes may be partially hidden by ark. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Synagogue, ca. 1922. Landscapes may be partially hidden by ark. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

Michael Kaplan, the shul’s Torah reader (and the magician) who keeps the place not just surviving, but growing, tells me he heard that the painter of the mazoles was the wall painter engaged for the building when it was renovated back around 1921. He apparently asked to decorate – and was given permission. There seems no way to confirm this, but perhaps at some point we will learn his name. If the paintings do go behind the big ark, the paintings must have been completed when the ark was installed in 1922.  This makes sense. One would expect an eager reception of the the new ark - not a delay with painter's ladders and drop-clothes while decoration was completed.

 

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Synagogue, ca. 1922. Panels with zodiac symbols on women's gallery parapet.. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

 

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Synagogue, ca. 1922. Panels with zodiac symbols on women's gallery parapet.. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

The inclusion of the zodiac in synagogue decoration was a common practice in the first decades of the 20th century in both Europe and North America. Relatively few example still survive, but more are being discovered all the time. elegantly painted mazoles were painted in a late phase of the decoration of the Remu Synagogue in Krakow, as was revealed just a few years ago in a restoration of that historic synagogue. Those mazales were painted as a series of roundels, and unlike Montreal, included some symbols that included the human figure.

I've written about the variety of shapes and forms of these calendar symbols on several occasions, and you can read more about the long history of Jewish use of the zodiac in this entry about the Stanton Street Shul in New York from 2017. The painter of the mazoles at the Sons of Jacob Synagogue in Providence, Rhode Island set the symbols in opening in the pointed moldings, set like heraldic shields.

The painter at Bagg Street also set the symbols in imaginary landscapes, though these are more abbreviated than the lush landscapes of the Bagg Street Synagogue. Some of these landscapes and the animals used for the Taurus and Virgo seem to come right out of calendars or magazine promoting scenic views of Canada. We do not know from where the painter took inspiration! Some of his animals are certainly more convincing than others. 

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Shul. Mazol for Month of Iyar -
Buffalo as Shor/Taurus. Painted ca. 1922. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

 The complete and well preserved series from the Bagg Street Shul though known for decades has to my knowledge never been fully presented until now (see below) - and it is an important addition to the corpus of synagogal zodiac decoration.

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Shul. Mazol for Month of Nisan.
Ṭaleh /Ram. Painted ca. 1922. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Shul. Mazol for Month of Iyar -
Buffalo as Shor/Taurus. Painted ca. 1922. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

 

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Shul. Mazol for Month of Sivan -
Gazelles as Teomim/Gemini. Painted ca. 1922. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Shul. Mazol for Month of Tammuz - Sartan the Crab. Painted ca. 1922.  Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

 

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Shul. Mazol for Month of Av -
Aryeh/Lion. Painted ca. 1922. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

 

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Shul. Mazol for Month of Elul -
Betulah/Virgo. Painted ca. 1922. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Shul. Mazol for Month of Elul -
Betulah/Virgo. Painted ca. 1922. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Shul. Mazol for Month of Tishrei -
Moznayim/Scales. Painted ca. 1922. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Shul. Mazol for Month of Cheshvan - 'Aḳrav/Scorpio.
Painted ca. 1922. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Shul. Mazol for Month of Kislev -

Ḳeshet/Sagittarius. Painted ca. 1922. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Shul. Mazol for Month of Tevet -
Gedi/Capricorn. Painted ca. 1922. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Shul. Mazol for Month of Shevat -
D’li/Aquarius. Painted ca. 1922. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Shul. Mazol for Month of Adar -
Adar – Dagim/Pisces. Painted ca. 1922. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.

The Bagg Street Synagogue is recognized as a heritage site by Quebec’s Minister of Culture and by the City of Montreal The basement, which was renovated in 1998 with generous help from the Government of Quebec. 

Read more about the history and preservation of the of synagogue at https://baggstreetshul.com/past/

Montreal, Canada. Bagg Street Shul. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2024.