Arise and Build: American Synagogues and Jewish Identity

West Hartford, CT. Interior of sanctuirary, restored in 2006. Photo: courtesy of Cong. Beth Israel.

Arise and Build: American Synagogues and Jewish Identity

Samuel D. Gruber lecture at Congregation Beth Israel in West Hartford, Connecticut

Sunday, October 23, 12 noon

In the last century, American Jews have built synagogues at a rate never seen in the world before, and in the process they have integrated the synagogue into the American landscape, and Judaism into the American cultural mainstream. This illustrated lecture explores the evolving form and meaning of the American synagogue, especially in the 20th century, as shaped by architects and their congregational patrons.

Through synagogue design, I'll trace changes in the organization of the American Jewish community and its relationship to American culture as a whole. The location, size, shape, and stylistic language adopted for synagogue designs throughout the century is a reflection of the changing needs and values of American Jews.

West Hartford, CT. Congregation Beth Israel. Exterior. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (1997).Beth Israel is an apt setting for this talk. The synagogue, listed on the National Register of Historic Places was designed by Charles Greco and dedicated in 1936. The sanctuary was fully restored in 2006 - I'm looking forward to seeing it.

You can read more about the congregation and building history here. It is one of the few synagogues in america entirely contructed in the 1930s. Synagogues in Hartford, West Hartford and nearby areas are significant in their won right, but also representative of broader trends.

USA: Exhibition by New Haven's Orchard Street Shul Cultural Heritage Artists Project

USA: Exhibition by New Haven's Orchard Street Shul Cultural Heritage Artists Project

Last week I wrote about the 1925 Orthodox Beth Israel synagogue in New Haven, Connecticut, popularly known as the Orchard Street Shul. I mentioned the upcoming exhibition at the John slade Ely House Center for Contemporary Art in New Haven organized by the artists' group known as the Orchard Street Shul Cultural Heritage Artists Project. The exhibition opens next week and continues through January, with a rich program of associated events.

The Public is Invited to the Opening Reception for the Participating Artists, on Sunday, December 6, from 12:00 Noon to 5:00 pm. To set the mood for the launch of “The Orchard Street Shul Artists Cultural Heritage Project”, the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale for Jewish Life at Yale will host a Jazz jam session on December 5 at 7:30, celebrating the swing dance music of 1924 and beyond, when the cornerstone of this Synagogue was put in place in a ceremony attended by Mayor Fitzgerald and much of the entire New Haven community.

The John Slade Ely House Center for Contemporary Art is open W-F, 11:00 am to 4:00 pm, and weekends 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm. Schools and other organizations who would like to arrange a group visit outside of regular hours may do so by sending an email to: arts@orchardstreetshul-artistsproject.org.

Below is more information about the synagogue, the project and the exhibition provided to ISJM by Cynthia Rubin, one of the Project and exhibition organizers. Cynthia explained to me that the Project overall was inspired by the many instances of contemporary art installed within or inspired by historic synagogues in Europe. In the case of the Orchard Street Shul, the group wanted to draw attention to the historic, architecture and preservation needs of the congregation while still respecting the fact the building remains as dedicated house of worship. Thus, the exhibition is being help elsewhere (also to save on the winter heating bills for the near-destitute congregation) , and certain parameters were placed on the art created for the event. The art pieces must be somehow relevant to the specific location, history, art and architecture of the Orchard Street Shul and its location, and it must be respectful of the congregation.

"Respect" of course is a subjective term...as I have previously written in my accounts of archaeology of cemeteries in Spain and in other contexts. Still, I believe that for art as for all types of public discourse and behavior, context is everything. When context is understood, than respect should be a natural result - and when it is not, it is usually the result of deliberate and often provocative disrespect. In art, there is often a place - and an important place - for intentional disrespect and shock value. In community building (and that is what is part of the goal in New Haven) the same disrespect and shock can be counter productive.

My preliminary review of the art in this exhibition - through photos and description only- shows that much of its interesting, much is innovative and clever. I appreciate the organizers' decision to encourage thought, but not to shock.

Orchard Street Shul Cultural Heritage Artists Project

During the months of December 2009 and January 2010, The John Slade Ely House Center for Contemporary Art in New Haven, Connecticut will come alive with memories, recollections, and recreations of an important community heritage site, in an innovative group installation designed to both stimulate reflection on the legacies of past generations and engage the public in dreams for the future.

The Orchard Street Shul Cultural Heritage Artists Project is an art exhibition, a history lesson, a point of cultural exchange, and meeting place for dreamers, both nostalgic and visionary. Artists, researchers, and scholars have joined together to celebrate an important historic New Haven landmark which was once central to the life of a large Jewish immigrant population in the Oak Street neighborhood.

Urban changes in the last 50 years have all but erased evidence illustrating the importance of the Oak Street neighborhood in the lives of the newly arrived immigrants and migrants who populated much of the area now known as the "Oak Street Connector", Route 34. Where some see open space, or a new hospital, or a school, or a parking lot, others with longer memories see shops bustling with activity, voices shouting in Yiddish and Italian, sprinkled with a variety of accents from elsewhere, including near and distant regions within the USA.

Contributions to the installation offer a range of approaches. Some artists researched the history of the Orchard Street Shul and its neighborhood, uncovering multiple stories of this community: stories of women working together to aid refugees, stories of hard-working fathers and mothers who dedicated themselves to making a better life for their children, and stories of teenagers who giggled and mingled on the steps of the Shul. Others built on their own experiences, reaching into their hearts to create depictions of the Shul that are evocative of deeper connections with history and community. Still others focused on the issues of urban renewal, making real the shifts in our urban landscape that are difficult to imagine as we visit the site today.

Included in the Project are presentations by researchers from Yale University who developed innovative ways to document the building, including virtual reconstructions exploring new digital methods, ground-breaking research by computer scientists that promises to change the ways that cultural heritage sites will be documented in the future. Some contributing artists used this digital data in their creative work.

The Orchard Street Shul Cultural Heritage Project is organized by Cynthia Beth Rubin, a New Haven based artist, in collaboration with participating artists and researchers: Nancy Austin. Meg Bloom, Donnamarie Bruton, Jeanne Criscola, Roz Croog, Linda Drazen, Paul Duda, Gonzalo Escobar, Maya Escobar, Alan Falk, Greg Garvey, Shalom Gorewitz, Jaime Kriksciun, Leslie J. Klein, Beth Krensky, Seth Lamberton, Mary Lesser, Lisa Link, David Ottenstein, Bruce Oren, Robert Rattner, Cynthia Beth Rubin, Holly Rushmeier, Janet Shafner, Frank Shifreen, Suzan Shutan, Sharon Siskin, Christina Spiesel, Yona Verwer, Julian Voloj, Laurie Wohl, Chen Xu, and Howard el-Yasin. The group includes artists from California, Florida, Utah, Missouri, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New York, who traveled to New Haven to contribute to the project alongside artists from the region.

A Project Book is being published in conjunction with the exhibition, including essays by Hasia Diner, the eminent scholar of Jewish immigration history, Walter Cahn, renowned historian of art and and architecture, and Hana Iverson, known for her remarkable multi-media installation "View from the Balcony" that was instrumental in helping attract attention to the renovation project of the Eldridge Street Shul. The book will also feature photographs of the works in the exhibition and memories of the Orchard Street Shul, with commentary by Karen Schiff. The innovative book design is by Criscola Design.

An exciting series of public events includes:
Saturday, December 5, 7:30
Music from the 1920s-1930s jam session
Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale

Sunday, December 6, noon - 5:00
Opening Reception with the Artists
The John Slade Ely House Center for Contemporary Art

Wednesday, December 9, noon
Lunch and Learn, in Partnership with the Jewish Historical Society of Greater New Haven
The John Slade Ely House Center for Contemporary Art

Sunday, December 20, 2:00 pm
Panel Discussion
Memoirs and Remembrances
The John Slade Ely House Center for Contemporary Art

Sunday, January 10, 2:00 pm
Panel Discussion: Documentations: Photography, Recordings and Recreations
The John Slade Ely House Center for Contemporary Art

Sunday, January 17, 2:00 pm
Informal Community Conversations
The John Slade Ely House Center for Contemporary Art

Thursday, January 21, 4:00 pm
Presentation by Yale Computer Science Graphics Group on
The Orchard Street Shul: Case Study in Three - Dimensional Digital Representations of Culture Heritage Sites.
The John Slade Ely House Center for Contemporary Art

Sunday, January 24, 2:00 pm
Panel Discussion: Art and the Echoes of Spirituality
The John Slade Ely House Center for Contemporary Art


Sunday, January 31, 2010
Open Forum:
Artists Reflect on Cultural Heritage Project as Process
Closing Party
The John Slade Ely House Center for Contemporary Art

====================================
The John Slade Ely House Center for Contemporary Art:
Hours
Wednesday - Friday, 11am - 4pm
Saturday & Sunday, 2pm - 5pm
(203) 624-8055

For directions and information on the John Slade Ely House visit:
http://www.elyhouse.org
For information on the Orchard Street Shul Cultural Heritage Project visit:
http://orchardstreetshul-artistsproject.org
contact:
arts@orchardstreetshul-artistsproject.org
Contact:
Cynthia Beth Rubin, Project Director
Orchard Street Shul Cultural Heritage Artists Project
arts@orchardstreetshul-artistsproject.org
Paul Clabby, Curator
The John Slade Ely House Center for Contemporary Art
203-624-8055

USA: New Haven's Orchard Street Shul (1925)

New Haven, CT, Orchard Street Shul (1925). Facade and Interior.
Photos: Samuel D. Gruber, 2009

USA: New Haven's Orchard Street Shul (1925)
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) In a previous blogpost I described the former Temple Mishkan Israel building in New Haven, Connecticut, designed by Brunner & Tryon in 1896, and now used as a performing arts center. On a visit last week to New Haven, I had the opportunity of spending the morning at The Orchard Street Shul (Congregation Beth Israel) another important New Haven Jewish landmark and the region’s oldest intact and in use purpose built Orthodox synagogue. While all of Beth Israel’s physical features are intact, its congregation has dwindled. Today, there is only a small occasional minyan, and all those who still profess membership also belong to other synagogues in the areas. The future of the building is in question (for more photos click here).

Congregation president Sam Teitelman remains active at age 87 – but he knows that hard decisions about the fate of the building need to be made soon. He doesn’t want the building, which in the past few years has received some assistance for window repairs and other limited restoration work, to fall victim to a “last one out the door turn off the light” scenario that has been common for older congregations. Teitelman and others in the congregation are reaching out to others in the Jewish and non-Jewish community for ideas and support about how to save the building and its history, even if the future use is different from that the building now (just barely) enjoys.

New Haven, CT, Orchard Street Shul, Interior details.
Photos: Samuel D. Gruber, 2009

Teitelman has been looking at what’s been done at Boston’s Vilna Shul and New York Eldridge Street Synagogue to see if aspects of those solutions would be applicable – and affordable – at Orchard Street. He and other congregation members have also been supportive of a effort by local and national artists - the Orchard Street Shul Cultural Heritage Artists Project - to use the synagogue and its history for inspiration for art projects – some of which will be exhibited for the first time in a group exhibition opening at New Haven’s John Slade Ely House Center for Contemporary Art on December 6th. While the art doesn’t directly impact the future preservation of either the building or its congregation, it is aimed in part to raise awareness of the synagogue’s existence as an historic and cultural site in New Haven. According to New Haven-based digital artist Cynthia Rubin, one of the prime organizers of the exhibition, “included in the Project are presentations by researchers from Yale University who have developed innovative ways to document the building, including virtual reconstructions exploring new digital methods, ground-breaking research by computer scientists that promises to change the ways that cultural heritage sites will be documented in the future.”

Cynthia Rubin and Sam Teitelman at Orchard Street Shul, New Haven.

Photo: Samuel D. Gruber, 2009

Beth Israel Synagogue was erected in 1925 at 232 Orchard Street, on designs by local Jewish architect Jacob Weinstein, who had offices on State Street (more information is needed on this architect). The area was then heavily Jewish, though other immigrant groups lived there, too. Much of what was once Jewish housing, as well as several important Jewish buildings, was demolished in the 1960s. Beth Israel draws architectural inspiration from both Temple Mishkan Israel, but also from the impressive Beth Jacob synagogue on George Street, built in 1912 (and demolished in 1962). Like Mishkan Israel, the Orchard Street Shul is brick, has two (small) tower features flanking the façade, and is articulated with Colonial revival details. The exterior is noteworthy for its two rows of windows, indicating the men’s sanctuary and the raised women’s gallery. The windows are large and filled with clear glass, and the upper windows are round arched. Both Mishkan Israel and Beth Jacob had tall, narrow double height windows serving main floor and gallery together, and both those congregation used stained glass.

Yale University art historian Walter Cahn, who has written a short essay about the synagogue for the catalogue of the upcoming exhibition, suggests a link with Amsterdam’s Esnoga (Portuguese Synagogue), especially since that building was so known in the early 20th century from graphic representations.

The interior arrangement of ark, bimah and seating follows the traditional Eastern European Orthodox arrangement, very common in American immigrant synagogues from the 1880s through the 1920s, but Orchard Street is a late example. It is noteworthy that there are two aisles dividing the seats in to three sections, with the bimah and the projecting Ark platform (duhan) occupying much of the space of the central section. The marvelous Ark with its carved lions and a eagle recall the the Ark carved by craftsmen such as Samuel Katz, represented by Murray Zimilas in his Gilded Lions and Jeweled Horses exhibition last year. The ark is adorned with light bulbs in a manner similar to the arks at Chevra T’helim in Portsmouth and at Eldridge Street (among others).

New Haven, CT, Orchard Street Shul. Windows have been repaired and the roof no longer leaks, but restoration of the wall finishes, as well of many or other parts of the building, is still needed. Photos: Samuel D. Gruber, 2009

For more information about pre-World War II synagogues in Connecticut see the excellent and still essential survey by David F. Ransom, "One Hundred Years of Jewish Congregations in Connecticut: An Architectural Survey," Connecticut Jewish History, Vol 2: 1 (Fall 1991). 1-147 (entire issue).

Quick Visit to Former Mishkan Israel in New Haven, Connecticut: Once Grand Reform Synagogue by Brunner & Tryon (1895-1897)

Quick Visit to Former Mishkan Israel in New Haven, Connecticut: Once Grand Reform Synagogue by Brunner & Tryon (1895-1897) Now an Arts School
by Samuel D. Gruber

Last week on a drive up I-95 from New Jersey to Rhode Island I did a quick detour in New Haven to visit the former Temple Mishkan Israel Synagogue, once New Haven’s grandest Jewish building, now serving as an arts magnet school. Located just 2 blocks east of Yale University, Mishkan Israel opened in 1897, and served the until 1960 when the venerable congregation moved to a new suburban building in Hamden (designed by important modernist and German refugee Fritz Nathan). The big building is worth a visit. It is one of a small number of late 19^th-century grand American Reform synagogues that survive in urban America.

The downtown building was designed by Arnold W. Brunner and Thomas Tryon just at the time they were building Congregation Shearith Israel in New York City. Both buildings are large and imposing, but otherwise quite distinct. Temple Mishkan Israel was one of four large synagogues the firm built in the 1890s, and the last before Arnold Brunner fully committed to Neo-classical style. Temple Mishkan Israel combines the popular European 2- tower design for synagogues with an eclectic mix of Italianate and Colonial elements, which show Brunner using Classicism, but still filtering it through other historical styles.

Mishkan Israel was founded as a Reform congregation in 1843, the same year that the Connecticut General Assembly permitted public Jewish worship. The congregation bought it first building in 1856 – the former Third Congregation Church, an Ionic hexastyle Greek-temple style building on Court Street between State and Orange Streets. When that building was sold for $20,000, funds were used to buy the property at 380 Orange Street at the corner of Audubon Street in a prosperous residential neighborhood. Construction began in 1895. The congregation took out a $60,000 mortgage, and laid the cornerstone on January 30, 1896. At the time, the congregation was no longer sole face of New Haven Judaism, as several East European Orthodox congregations were founded about this time. Therefore, it was most important that architecturally the congregation present an imposing, impressive and acceptable face

Brunner’s building (for according to the building committee minutes, Brunner was the lead architect on this project) is noteworthy for its large size, and the tall and massive towers that flank a symmetrical façade dominated by three large arched windows. This is the east end of the building, but this being a Reform synagogue, orientation was not important, and Brunner did not have to place an interior Ark against the main façade wall as he would do at Shearith Israel in New York, which also faces east. Below the arched façade windows are three entrance openings created by square piers, reach by a flight of wide steps. The piers support a wide, decorated brownstone frieze. Above the frieze is a continuous balustrade atop of which sit the large windows. Inside, this theme was picked up at the west end, where a combination of arches and a balustrade emphasized the Ark wall and surmounting choir loft. Brunner filled the interior with classical elements – arches, pilasters, Corinthian Columns. Unfortunately, the interior was gutted after the building was sold in 1960, and there are few known photos of the inside. Some of the abundant stained glass windows remain in situ, but these are not visible from the interior – now a theater – or from Audubon Street. Each flank of the building was divided into three bays by heavy buttress piers which break the cornice line and are surmounted with stepped caps. Pairs of tall arched windows fill each bay, totally twelve windows on both sides. The building terminates on the west end in a cross gable resembling a transept on the outside, which would have corresponded to the bimah area of the sanctuary, just before the Ark Wall.

The adaptive reuse of this historic and impressive building demonstrates some of the pros and cons of historic preservation of religious buildings. Unfortunately, the original interior is lost – and that was the space that most defined and reflected Reform Jewish practice and Jewish community in New Haven for more than a half century. On the other hand, the massing of the building and most of its exterior survives. This was the public face of Reform Judaism and its effect can still be felt – even though there are no Jewish symbols or inscriptions on the building. Importantly, too, as a piece of urban design, the former synagogue acts as an effective transition from the historic 19^th century architect of Orange Street to the modern (and not very distinguished) architecture and urban plaza of Audubon and adjacent streets. Since the building dominates it corner site, it is able to withstand the pressures of size of new structures. Its brick exterior, with a lot of flat wall surface, also is compatible with newer buildings behind it. Unfortunately, the grand south flank has been girded by a unsympathetic one-story addition of brick, glass and broad concrete arches that while practical, undermines the building’s base.

N.B. For more on this building and other historic synagogues in Connecticut consult the essential guide by David F. Ransom, "One Hundred Years of Jewish Congregations in Connecticut, An Architectural Survey: 1843-1943," Connecticut Jewish History, Vol. 2:1 (1991), 7-147.