USA: Syracuse University Library has acquired the personal papers of architect Morris Lapidus

Miami Beach, Fl. Temple Menorah, 1962. Morris Lapidus, arch. From D. Desilets, Morris Lapidus: The Architecture of Joy (New York: Rizzoli, 2010), 167. This photo is now part of the Lapidus Collection at Syracuse University.

USA: Syracuse University Library has acquired the personal papers of architect Morris Lapidus.

Syracuse University Library has acquired the personal papers of the flamboyant and trend-setting architect Morris Lapidus (1902-2001). Although clearly an architectural original, and a man who worked and pleased a varied clientele, Lapidus can also has serious credentials as a Jewish architect. He designed several synagogues, and his Miami architecture was especially in tune with a unique phase of American Jewish leisure life.

The Lapidus papers join other collections at the Syracuse University Library Special Collections and Research Center (SCRC) of the other leading modern American architects who also happened to design synagogues, including Marcel Breuer, Pietro Belluschi, Minoru Yamasaki and Werner Seligmann.

Pikesville, MD. Temple Beth Tfiloh, 1961. Morris Lapidus, arch. From D. Desilets, Morris Lapidus: The Architecture of Joy (New York: Rizzoli, 2010), 167.

Though his interior design and hotels are better known, Lapidus's synagogues deserve study, if only to see have they compare with contemporary work. His Temple Menorah in Miami Beach, for instance, bears at least a superficial resemblance to Gropius and Leavitt's Oheb Shalom in Baltimore, built just about the same time. I'm sorry I did not include any of Lapidus's work when I published my American Synagogues (Rizzoli) book in 2003.

Baltimore, MD. Oheb Shalom. Walter Gropius and Sheldon Leavitt, architects. Photo: Paul Rocheleau (2002).

Miami Beach, Fl. Temple Menorah, 1962. Morris Lapidus, arch. Photo: Julian H. Preisler.

According to the release from the Syracuse University Library:

Lapidus, who died in 2001, is perhaps best known for hotels like the Fontainebleau, Americana, and Eden Roc in Miami Beach, Fla., buildings which embodied the growth of leisure in American life during the 1950s and 1960s. The Fontainebleau has served as a backdrop for variety of iconic scenes in American film, including the James Bond thriller "Goldfinger" (1964). Most of Lapidus' buildings exhibited a mélange of historical styles--French provincial, Italian and Baroque--and anticipated the post-modernism of later architects.

Lapidus was born in Odessa, Russia, in 1902, but his family immigrated to the United States soon thereafter. As a wide-eyed youth, he marveled at the splendor of Coney Island and he would later impart a similar spirit of excess to his work as an architect. That spirit would place him at odds with his function-minded modernist peers. However, contrary to the editor's choice of title for his 1996 autobiography, "Too Much is Never Enough," Lapidus was interested less in hedonism than he was in a "quest for emotion and motion in architecture."

Frustrated by his sometimes antagonistic relationship with the architectural establishment, Lapidus destroyed many of his firm's records when he retired in 1984. However, he retained a core collection of especially valuable papers that he entrusted to his last collaborator and confidant, architect Deborah Desilets. The archive includes a large collection of photographs dating to the 1920s, conceptual drawings, manuscript drafts of his written works and correspondence with his long-time friend, mystery writer Ellery Queen.

Desilets approached Syracuse, which has held a small Lapidus collection since 1967, and a gift of the material was finalized in December. Speaking on her decision to place the archive with Syracuse, Desilets says, "The archive is an extremely important missing link in the discourse on Lapidus' influence on 20th-century architecture. I am thrilled to place it in such a distinguished research institution where it will be available for use by generations of students and scholars."

In Syracuse's Special Collections Research Center, the Lapidus archive will reside in one of the most important mid-century modern collections in the country. Among the other architects represented are Marcel Breuer, William Lescaze and Richard Neutra, as well as designers like Russel Wright and Walter Dorwin Teague.

Syracuse School of Architecture faculty member Jon Yoder offered this assessment of the Lapidus archive's value for teaching and research: "The recent proliferation of architect-designed boutique hotels, coupled with the pervasive disciplinary focus on architectural effects suggests that Lapidus was indeed one of the most influential architects of the 20th century. This acquisition of his personal archive comes as welcome news to designers and scholars who are finally beginning to reassess the lavish contributions of this much-maligned architect across a surprisingly broad spectrum of design disciplines."

For more information, contact Sean Quimby, senior director of Special Collections, at 315-443-9759 or smquimby@syr.edu.

JTA Opens Digital Archive of 250,000 Articles From 1923 to Present

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) Opens Digital Archive of 250,000 Articles From 1923 to Present

JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People today opened its digital archive containing some 250,000 articles covering Jewish news around the world, 1923-present. This is an essential resource for any student of modern Jewish life, or just the curious reader and researcher. Browsing the archive helps keep modern troubles and passions - terrorism, bigotry, anti-Semitism,. assimilationism, and factionalism - in historic perspective.

On H-Judiaca historian Jonathan Sarna write that "JTA closely tracked antisemitism at home and abroad, and played an especially important role in documenting the Holocaust as it was taking place. The Shoah looks entirely different on the pages of JTA than in the New York Times." JTA also offers a rich archive of information about Jewish life in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Societ Union under Communism.

The JTA archive is available at: http://archive.jta.org/

JTA is especially valuable to students of American Jewish history, preserving stories of major and minor events throughout the country. There are palnty of articles about Jewish monuments, synagogues, Holcoaust sites and memorials and a wide variety of cultural topcs.

An article on the new JTA Archive is available here:
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/05/04/3087568/jta-launches-online-archive-containing-quarter-million-articles.

The article references a Youtube video that may be found online at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DyB5I5wiL41A&feature=3Dyoutu.be

Turkey: ASF's Publication and On-line Photos Archive of Nearly 3,000 Photo of Turkish Synagogues

Turkey: ASF's Publication and On-line Photos Archive of Nearly 3,000 Photo of Turkish Synagogues
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) The American Sephardi Federation has published a book about Turkish Synagogues and posted nearly 3,000 photos on-line.

Over a two month period in 1996, New York-based architect (and ISJM member) Joel Zack and photographer Devon Jarvis; along with Turkish architectural student Ceren Kahraman and Muharrem Zeybek, driver and guide, traveled 6,000 miles documenting fifty Turkish synagogues and former synagogues, producing a rich descriptive, graphic and photographic archive. The project was funded by the Maurice Amado Foundation and the Mitrani Family Foundation. The selection of photographs from the expedition was first exhibited at the 92nd Street Y in New York, and then in a traveling exhibition.

On the occasion of the exhibition of work at the Topkapı Palace Museum in Istanbul last fall the American Sephardi Federation (ASF) published an exhibition catalog by Joel A. Zack, The Historic Synagogues of Turkey / Türkiye’nin Tarihi Sinagoglari (ISBN 978-0-615-23948-4). More importantly, ASF created as part of the digital archives of the Center for Jewish History, an on-line archive of 2,827 of Devon Jarvis’s Turkish synagogue photographs.

The work of Zack, Jarvis and Kahraman adds significantly to a growing body of documentation about Turkish Jewish monuments. Since 1992 a number of research and documentation projects have been carried out in the country, including the recording of cemetery epitaphs by a team lead by Mina Rozen of Hebrew University; photography and film making with an ethnographic slant by Ayse Gursan-Salzmann and Laurence Salzmann; documentation of Turkish synagogues and Judaica by the Center for Jewish Art; and the photography of Turkish synagogues by Erson Alik. There is also a new 2-volume book on Turkish synagogues by Izzet Keribar and Naim Guleryuz published last year, that I have not yet had a opportunity to see.

All these projects, together with other documentation efforts in Morocco, Egypt and Syria, are greatly altering the Eurocentric view of architectural achievements in synagogue building, and also putting to the test long-established theories of architectural influence. Clearly, now that so many more synagogue are known - or can be known - to scholars, it seems clearer that there has been at the very least, for many centuries, a formal, functional and stylistic give-and-take between Judaism's east and west, and south and north.

Other scholars have been working on other aspects of synagogues of the former Ottoman Empire, and we can expect soon publication on the synagogue Greece by Elias Messinas and of Syria by David Cassuto. ASF has also put on-line digital versions of much photographs taken by Isaiah Wyner as part of a survey of Moroccan synagogues directed by Zack for the World Monuments Fund in 1989 (I will write more about these at another time).

Zack’s book is a useful guide to Turkish synagogues, but is only introductory in nature. He briefly describes the various types of synagogues he found throughout the country, and some of their distinguishing features. Much of the text is in the form of picture captions; some are detailed, but others offer little information...presumably because there is little yet known. Because of the geographic expanse of Turkey, and because of cultural connections of the Ottoman Age, there are many different types of synagogues that served diverse Jewish communities. Turkey was fertile ground for synagogue design. Besides local ancient, Byzantine and Ottoman sources, there was a near-constant Ottoman cultural exchange with Russia, Central Europe, Italy, Egypt, Syria and Iraq. Future research will need to further examine these associations in the context of Jewish art and architecture. Perhaps the most clearly indigenous Ottoman synagogue type is that of the rectangular plan with a central four column feature, usually surrounding a tevah and sometimes surmounted by a dome. This type was common around Izmir and is also known in Northern Greece, and Bulgaria. But it is also known in Morocco, and even earlier in a simpler form from Tomar, Portugal; so the actual origins of the type remain unknown.

Zack’s book, as an exhibition catalog, lacks a strong historical framework, but he leaves the door open for any researcher to provide more information about the history, architecture and context of any individual building.

By making the entire photo archive accessible to all, Zack and Jarvis provide an opportunity heretofore lacking for an in-depth study of Turkish synagogues. They would be the first to admit that their project poses as many questions as it answers. Indeed, one of the most telling parts of the short text is the section "Issues and Lessons." Zack poses the difficult questions about what is to be done – if anything – to preserve this architectural legacy, since most of the synagogue are either not in use, or serve very small congregations. He asks what legacy this is – a Jewish one, a Turkish one, or something else, the reminder of a still-recent past where Jews, Muslims and others all (reasonably) peacefully co-existed in the Middle East.

Zacks writes: “The answers are complex. Through the lens of today’s world and the immediacy of today’s headlines, Jewish communities like those of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey seem perhaps like an anomaly or an anachronism. I would argue that we look through that same lens, but with a more expansive view – a view that encompasses the breadth of the history of these buildings and the significance that they might hold for us and for the future.”

Jamaica: The United Congregation of Israelites (Synagogue “Shaare Shalom”) Jewish Heritage Center in Kingston expands digitalization program.

Jamaica: The United Congregation of Israelites (Synagogue “Shaare Shalom”) Jewish Heritage Center in Kingston Expands Digitalization program.

(ISJM) Ainsley Henriques reports to ISJM that the Jewish Heritage Center at the Uniited Congregation of Israelites has begun digitizing its collection of historic photographs from the Ernest de Souza Collection. The Center’s reference library is also being cataloged. The next task in the Center’s program is be to catalog the Kritzler collection of historic materials, papers, pamphlets, magazines and books. The Center looks forward to a significant increase in school tours to the museum, which has been rated by a visiting Educational expert in religious education to the Ministry of Education as “one of the best that she has ever seen”

ISJM has partnered with the Center on the documentation of the 18th century Jewish cemetery at Hunt's Bay, outside of Kingston.

Institute of Southern Jewish Life (ISJL) Digital Archive Project

Webwatch: Explore the Jewish communities of the Deep South with the Institute of Southern Jewish Life (ISJL) Digital Archive Project

The Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life (ISJL) Digital Archive Project is designed to present a history of every congregation and significant Jewish community in the South. Currently, the Project team, led by Dr. Stuart Rockoff, has completed profiles for almost 100 Jewish communities in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee- and will add other states in the future. The archive has posted on-line a detailed, yet succinct history of each community. For most, there is information and photographic documentation of the synagogues and cemeteries. The History Department also houses a major oral history project that seeks to capture the stories of Southern Jews before they disappear. The ISJL Oral History Archive already houses over 500 interviews. The ISJL is committed to making its oral history collection a nationally recognized resource for scholars and students.

The Digital Archive is designed to be a continual work-in-progress. If you have additional information about any of the communities or congregations, please contact the archive at: rockoff@isjl.org.

The Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life (ISJL) is a private, not-for-profit corporation dedicated to providing educational and rabbinic services to isolated Jewish communities, documenting and preserving the rich history of the Southern Jewish experience, and promoting a Jewish cultural presence throughout a thirteen state region. The Institute began as the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience in 1986. The Museum, now a subsidiary of the ISJL, helps to define southern Jewish culture through traveling and permanent exhibits, and in recent years, the Institute has dramatically expanded cultural offerings in both small towns and big cities throughout the South.