USA: A Visit to Boston's Vilna Shul

 Boston, Mass. Vilna Shul.  These Jewish Stars welcome the visitor on Beacon Hill.  Photo: Samuel Gruber 2013

USA: A Visit to Boston's Vilna Shul
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) Last may I posted about Boston's former Blue Hill Avenue Synagogue, a mighty building saved today as a working church. When I was in Boston again in December for the Association for Jewish Studies Annual Meeting I had a chance to visit the most modest (haimish) Vilna Shul on Beacon Hill, a building with which I have a long association, and which has always been one of my favorite American synagogue preservation projects.  I want to thank Executive Director Barnet Kessel for taking the time to show me around.

The building was saved from the wrecking ball back in the early 1990s - Historic Boston took the lead in that and they called me in as an outside expert (I hardly was at that time) to make the case for saving the building. In the end, through a tortured set of circumstances, Boston did the right thing and kept this old immigrant synagogue on Beacon Hill and gradually over the past two decades a growing community of interest has formed to move conservation and preservation efforts forward, and to fill the building with a wide range of activities: educational, recreational and religious. The Havurah on the Hill which has met at Vilna since 2002 helps keep the spirit (and spirituality) of Judaism alive at the building, while the proximity to the Boston Freedom Trail has better connected the Jewish immigrant story to the larger Boston historical and social experience.

The topography of the Vilna site is unusual, and is one contributing factor to the placement of the main sanctuary on the upper floor (there are others reasons, too). So the downstairs,  entered directly from street level, takes you into a relatively low and long space that served as the congregational Beth Midrash, and probably for a mix of social and educational purposes. Today, the Ark wall remains pretty much as it was, and the old paint has been revealed with its decorative motifs (painted vases of flowers flanked the Ark). Most of the space is given over to a permanent exhibit about Boston Jewish history.

Boston, Mass. Vilna Shul. Ground floor Beth Midrash, Ark wall. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2013

 

Boston, Mass. Vilna Shul. Sanctuary. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2013

Boston, Mass. Vilna Shul. Sanctuary. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2013

This time around I was especially interested in looking at the painted decoration that has been revealed underneath the sickly beige paint that had long covered the synagogue walls. Gradually, we are understanding the original decoration scheme and there are plans on the books to recreate this in a later phase of restoration. My interest has been revived because my recent experience in Burlington, Vermont visiting the so-called Lost Shul Mural at the former Chai Adam Synagogue. All this decoration was work by and for the immigrant Lithuanian-Jewish community of New England. The Burlington and Boston communities had links still to be fully explored. Interest is greater now, too, since the publication of of the important 2-volume study of the Synagogues in Lithuania. This detailed study documents all that remains of synagogues within the boundaries of modern Lithuania--and it sadly documents (or suggests) by inference and absence--all that was lost. Since there is so little synagogue painting left anywhere in Lithuania, all that we can learn from the work of immigrant communities takes on double value, important for local history, but also to fill in lacunae about synagogue decoration in the "the Old Country."

Boston, Mass. Vilna Shul. Sanctuary. One of several skylights. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2013

 

Boston, Mass. Vilna Shul. Sanctuary. The Ark. Noted the painted curtain on the wall behind.  Photo: Samuel Gruber 2013

I'm not going to discuss the decoration in any detail here, except to the note the remains of a painted curtain on the walls behind the large wooden Ark, and the two views of Holy Land sites--tombs of the Matriarchs--on the east wall of the women's section. These images of the Cave of Mechpeleh and the Tomb of Rachel are commonly depicted in Eastern European synagogues in the late 19th and early 20th century, and can be found in several immigrant synagogues, too.  For the most part they relate to a new-found interest in the topography of the Holy Land due to the increased travel there by pilgrims and tourists-- Jewish and Christian--and the growing production of books, prints, postcards and other memorabilia with images of Holy Land sites. More specifically, by 1919, the use of these images is usually taken to represent a general interest in Zionism--either religious or political or both.  We find these images frequently in Orthodox immigrant synagogues, but hardly ever (ever?) in Reform settings. 

For the moment, I'll let the photos speak.  There is so much to comment on in this synagogue I'd need a little fellowship to write it all up! I hope in the near future that I'll have that chance, or at least the opportunity to speak at length about the history, art and architecture of this little Boston gem.

 

Boston, Mass. Vilna Shul. Sanctuary, women's section.   Rachel's tomb / קבר רחל and the Cave of Mechpelah /  מערת .המכפלה  Photo: Samuel Gruber 2013

 

 Boston, Mass. Vilna Shul. Sanctuary, women's section.   Rachel's tomb / קבר רחל .Photo: Samuel Gruber 2013

Boston, Mass. Vilna Shul. Sanctuary.  This Menorah gives a sense of the building's caretaker's tenacity. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2013.

 

 Boston, Mass. Vilna Shul. Outside, the roots of this tree might be threatening the building's foundation, but its growth conveys the sense of the building's renewal.   Photo: Samuel Gruber 2013

Mikva'ot Discovered in Connecticut and Venezuela

Santa Ane de  Coro, Venezuela.  Mikveh unearthed beneath house of 19th-century Jewish merchant David Abraham Senior. Photo: Venezuelan Ministry of Culture

More New World Mikva'ot Discovered in Venezuela and Connecticut (Following Other Excavations in the Caribbean, Baltimore and New York

The list of re-discovered mikva'ot (also: mikvehs, Jewish ritual baths) keeps growing.  On the same day last week that I heard scholars discuss recent discoveries of ancient and modern mikva'ot at the annual meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies (AJS), as well as new research into the ritual and design associated with such structures, came the announcement of new find in Venezuela - an 18th-century mikveh beneath a formerly Jewish house in the town of Santa Ana de Coro, in the state of Falcon.

This news follows several other discoveries of mikva'ot in the Americas over the past few decades including Curaçao (1970s), Recife (2000), St. Eustachius (2004), and Barbados (2008).  

The discoveries - and the details of the types of mikva'ot found - as well as other discoveries of related mikva'ot in Amsterdam, have been reviewed by Laura Arnold Liebman, who spoke aboutt Dutch mikva'ot at the AJS session, in her article “Early American Mikvaot: Ritual Baths as the Hope of Israel.” Religion in the Age of Enlightenment 1: 109-145. To be reprinted in American Jewry: Transcending the European Experience, ed. Christian Wiese and Cornelia Wilhelm. London: Continuum, 2013.  Liebman also frequently writes about mikva'ot on her blog.

Archeology of mikva'ot is important to better understand the changing role of purity rituals in Amerasian immigrant communities, and also the adaptation to new materials and technologies in the construction and countenance of mikva'ot, especially in settlements where there was little or no rabbinic supervision, and also where different customs - Ashkenazi and Sephardi, for instance - might need to co-exist.  Most of the information that is readily available comes from newspaper accounts of excavations - and the information is sometimes vague and/or contradictory.   One wants know more about the physical and social context in which there mikva'ot were built and used; the size, shape and materials employed in their design ad construction; and how local water sources were used and perhaps developed to serve mikva'ot.  Were other non-ritual water features also included nearby - for hygiene or recreation?

The AJS session was a fascinating one, and I hope the organizers and presenters can work on publishing a volume with detailed and reliable information about the excavations and related topics.

Santa Ana de Coro, Venezuela

According to the Prensa Latina news agency, the Venezuela find was made during the remodeling of the building which now serves as the Art Museum Alberto Henriquez located in the Senior House, built in 1774 and bought by David Abraham Senior, a Jewish merchant from Curaçao in 1847, who turned one room into a synagogue.   The building later became known as the Coro Synagogue  (photos here) .  The house was bought by the government in 1986 and opened in 1997 as the "Casa de Oración Hebrea" (Hebrew Prayer House).  The synagogue/museum  belongs to Universidad Francisco de Miranda. 

Archaeologists from the School of Anthropology at the Central University of Venezuela are excavating the mikveh site under the auspices of the Venezuelan Ministry of Culture and coordinated by the Office of Planning and Design for Heritage Areas at Coro and La Vela, or OPEDAD.


Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/.premium-1.563912 

Old Chesterfield, Connecticut

At the AJS session, titled "Ritual Bathing Practices between Town and Country: The Emergence of the Modern Miqveh." a presentation was made about the recent discovery of a late 19th-century mikveh at the agricultural community of Chesterfield, Connecticut, by Prof. Stuart Miller of the University of Connecticut. The mikveh was found at the now abandoned Jewish agricultural settlement of Chesterfield, one of several in the area founded by the Baron de Hirsch foundation in the late 19th century to siphon off Eastern European Jewish immigrants from the tenement slums of the city to a new life on the land.  Many of these settlements were founded in Connecticut and New Jersey, and a few survive in altered form with extant synagogues (in New Jersey these can be found at alliance, Rosehayne, Norma and elsewhere).  This is the first time, however, that a mikveh has been found at one of the agricultural colonies, and it alters somewhat our conception of the level of ritual observance in these communities.  The mikveh, which is made on concrete but included wood stairs, was excavated last summer by Prof.  Miller, who is Academic Director of the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life at UConn and an expert on ritual baths in ancient Israel.  State Archaeologist Nicholas Bellantoni was the co-leader of the project. 

You can read about the Chestefield mikveh here. 

Allen Street, New York City

Another paper was given Celia Bergoffen about the discovery and excavation the 20th-century mikveh excavated in 2001 on Allen Street on an urban lot adjacent to the Eldridge Street Synagogue on New York's Lower East Side, that was subsequently destroyed when a new building was erected on the site.  That mikveh, which may date to 1887, when the bathhouse opened, provide important information about the urban mikva'ot which served the growing Eartern European Jewish immigrant population, including the hydraulic technology and the attention to halachic requirements for mikva'ot construction and maintenance. 

You read more about New York's  Allen Street mikveh excavation here.

Baltimore

Both of these papers referenced the discovery of a mikva'ot beneath the Lloyd Street Synagogue (former Baltimore Hebrew Congregation) in Baltimore, the earliest of which dates to ca. 1845 and was excavated in 2011.  The 1845 mikveh seems to have been in the basement of a house adjacent to where the congregation built their synagogue in 1845.  When the synagogue expanded in 1860 they demolished the house and filled in the mikveh.  It is not known what - if anything - local Jews used for a mikveh after that date.  Later tile-wall mikveh basins, were added in 1905, when the synagogue was purchased and remodeled by the orthodox Shomrei Misheres Congregation. 

Read more about the Baltimore mikveh excavation here.

Discovery and Sale of Moritz Daniel Oppenheim's Painting The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara

 

Moritz Daniel Oppenheim.  The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara (1862).  Photo: Sotheby's.

 

Discovery and Sale of Moritz Daniel Oppenheim's Painting The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara

by Samuel D. Gruber

A very important art historical discovery - the lost 1862 painting by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim of the Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara (If I had known it, it would have been in my just-ended Jewish Art course).  This event was - until the Dreyfus Affair later in the century - probably the most internationally followed and most opposed state legal action against Jews in the 19th century. As historian David Kertzer points out in this article - interview, it has far-reaching consequences. Read the article - but then go read David's page-turner of a book - The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara. I'm looking forward to his new book - previewed here - about Pope Pius XI and Mussolini.

 

The painting was sold to a private collector for over $400,000. I hope it is donated to a museum.

Read the article by Maya Benton in Tablet:

Behind the Sotheby's Sale of Painting About Edgardo Mortara, Catholic-Jewish History

www.tabletmag.com

USA: Ohavi Zedek Synagogue in Burlington - a Fine Modern Synagogue (and the First Ever Designed by a Woman?)

Burlington, Vermont. Ohavi Zedek Synagogue, street view.  Freeman French Freeman, architects, 1952.  Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2013)

Burlington, Vermont. Ohavi Zedek Synagogue. Main entrance.  Freeman French Freeman, architects, 1952.  Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2013)

Burlington, Vermont. Ohavi Zedek Synagogue. Parking lot entrance to classroom building. Freeman French Freeman, architects, 1952.  Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2013)

USA: Ohavi Zedek Synagogue in Burlington - a Fine Modern Synagogue (and the First Ever Designed by a Woman?)
by Samuel D. Gruber

[revised 22 Dec 2013]

(ISJM) I recently posted my lectures from Ohavi Zedek in Burlington, Vermont, where I spoke about the "Lost Shul Mural" by Lithuanian-Jewish immigrant painter Ben Zion Black. What I didn't report is what a fine modern synagogue the present-day Ohavi Zedek is. 

I attended Shabbat services in the sanctuary where I later lectured, so I got to see and feel the space used both for its primary purpose - communal worship - and for my more educational and entertaining lectures.   In every way I was impressed by the simplicity and intimacy of the space and its natural materials finely worked in clear and efficient design.  The morning light warmed the congregants, and the service was a bright and joyful gathering, enhanced by the closely contained boxlike space.

The synagogue, designed by Freeman French Freeman (FFF) and dedicated in 1952, exemplifies many of the best characteristics of what I consider the second phase of post-war American modernism.   Ohavi Zedek exhibits a fusion of European rationalism and American vernacular form and feeling. For one thing, unlike so many modern synagogues, this one has traditional roofs with sloping sides - very sensible for Vermont's snowy weather (a perhaps a nod to the gable feront of the congregation's previous home).  The gable fronted entrance that faces the street fits in size and style with much of the residential architecture on the street.  The synagogue is one of only a handful of synagogues in the United States and in the world - designed by a woman.  Ruth Reynolds Freeman, was a prominent modernist in charge of design at FFF.  The synagogue resembles some schools of the period and this is not surprising since Ruth Freeman was also in charge of the FFFs work at the University of Vermont and she oversaw the firm's design of many Vermont public schools (on the firm, see more below).

Ohavi Zedek Synagogue has an open suburban feel to it, but unlike so many of its contemporaries, this building was erected within walking distance of its predecessor, a 1885 red brick vernacular building with Gothic details - notably pointed windows.  That synagogue, one of the best preserved Eastern European immigrant synagogues, is still in use as an Orthodox shul, serving the small Ahavath Gerim congregation.  The old synagogue is in the heart of Burlington's Little Jerusalem, while the new building is only a short distance away.  The new sanctuary is entirely different in style, but still captures some of the haimish feel of the older shul.

Burlington, Vermont.  Former Ohavi Zedek Synagogue, (built 1885), now home to congregation Ahavath Gerim. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2013)

Burlington, Vermont. Ohavi Zedek Synagogue. Sanctuary.  Freeman French Freeman, architects, 1952.  Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2013)

Burlington, Vermont. Ohavi Zedek Synagogue. Sanctuary, view from bimah to entrance (on left). Freeman French Freeman, architects, 1952.  Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2013)

Burlington, Vermont. Ohavi Zedek Synagogue. Sanctuary.  Freeman French Freeman, architects, 1952.  Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2013)

The wood-walled sanctuary seats about 250.  It is entered from from the vestibule, to the side and rear of the space, so that one see the bimah and ark at and angle, in the manner of well known medieval synagogue such as Worms and Prague.  Whether this was the architects intent, or simply done of necessity to have the Ark on the wall on a lot that is wider than it is deep, I do not know.  The effect, anyway, if a good one, and allows one  to scan the entire space before finding a seat.

The bimah is a raised platform set in a recessed niche.   At the rear of the sanctuary is a raised choir loft, screened by an open work front of vertical wood slats.  The space is now used for storage of part of the synagogue archives.  The wall under the loft can open into the adjacent social hall to provided extra space for overflow crowds, though ti seems like the view form the rear would be like looking under a bridge.  The sanctuary gets good bright daylight from high clerestory windows of glass etched with the symbols representing the twelve tribes of Israel.  These were made expressly for the build by artist Ben Stein. More striking is to look up and see the tops of trees almost brushing the building (unfortunately my pictures of the sanctuary were taken a night, so the trees are not visible).  A similar effect was recently achieved in the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston, Illinois (also designed by a woman) though there the sanctuary is set on the building's third floor - close to the treetops. 

Burlington, Vermont. Ohavi Zedek Synagogue. Bimah (stained glass panels are a more recent addition).  Freeman French Freeman, architects, 1952.  Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2013)

Burlington, Vermont. Ohavi Zedek Synagogue. Sanctuary, etched glass clerestory windows with symbols of twelve tribes.   Freeman French Freeman, architects, 1952.  Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2013)

The congregation has a strong sense of its history, and the history of Jews in Burlington.  It maintains an archive, has a permanent history exhibition outside its social hall, and, of course, has initiated the Lost Shul Mural  project.  Archivists Aaron Goldberg and Jeff Potash were also important partners in the production of the recent Vermont Public Television documentary Little Jerusalem.

Burlington, Vermont. Ohavi Zedek Synagogue, history exhibit.  Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2013)

Burlington, Vermont. Ohavi Zedek Synagogue. Outdoor Holocaust Memorial   Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2013)

Outdoors, on a patch of open yard to the right of the main entrance to the synagogue, a path leads to a Holocaust monument designed by Chaim Suchman dedicated in 2001, consisting of a sculpted metal figure of fiddler with a broken violin, facing a more didactic matzevah (gravstone) type monument with the word ZACHOR in Hebrew inscribed within a off-kilter Magen David, under which is an inscribed map with the names of killing sites.

According to the website of the University of Vermont Libraries, Freeman French Freeman was founded in Burlington in 1937 as the first architectural firm in Vermont by Ruth (Reynolds) and Bill Freeman and John French.  Ruth Freeman (1913-1969), a graduate of Cornell, was the first female architect in the state and a leader modernism.  William ran the business; Ruth oversaw design; and John supervised project specifications. Much of the modern architecture in Vermont was designed by the firm, which remains active today, with a new generation of architects. A list of the firm's buildings through the early 1960s can be found here.   FFF's St. Mark's Church, built in 1941, was one of the first modern style religious buildings erected in America, and its configuration presages many of the design innovations in post-Vatican II Catholic churches of the 1960 ( I regret that I only learned of this building after my visit.  I will surely see it when I return to Burlington).  For more on the role of the firm in Vermont's architectural history, and on the work of Ruth Freeman see the Survey of International Style Architecture in Vermont 1937 - ca. 1975.