USA: Puzzled by Beth Tephilah in Troy, New York

USA: Puzzled by Beth Tephilah in Troy, New York
by Samuel D. Gruber

Troy, New York. Congregation Beth Tephilah. West Facade. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (November, 2010)

In addition to the 1870 Reform Congregation Berith Sholom in Troy, New York, of which I have just written, I was intrigued by the architecture and urban survival of the Orthodox Congregation Beth Tephilah at 82 River Street, right on the southeast corner of Russel Sage College, where it has survived surrounded by parking lots. I have not been inside the building, I haven't found anything in my files, and I haven't yet researched this locally, but the application of a Classical portico on the facade of the otherwise very unclassical building intrigues me. From the outside it looks like an earlier block or two-tower facade has been modified to create a partly classical facade, or perhaps an entirely new facade has been grafted on to the main body of the building. All I've found online are the mention of two dates for the building - 1873 and 1909. Was the congregation founded in 1873? Does the main bulk of the building - which clearly has internal galleries for women - date this early (I don't think so)?

Was the design of the building changed during construction, or was the classical facade added to an earlier building in 1909 to give it a new look? I've just written an article that is coming out in the journal Jewish History in which I make the case that the revival in classicism - especially in making fully formed classical temples for Reform congregations - was part of the broad branding process of Reform Judaism in the period from about 1900 until World War I. After the war, Reform tends to move to new styles, while through the 1920s Conservative and Orthodox congregations more commonly employ classicism in their own way. If any part of Beth Tefilah is from 1909 I'll have to reconsider what is going on. Still, the situation is not unknown. On the Lower East in New York the tiny Stanton Street Shul, built in 1913, also employs classicism on its facade, though little else in the building suggests not the glories of the ancient world of Greece and Rome - but only Galicia, the land of Yiddishkeit.

Troy, New York. Congregation Beth Tephilah. West Facade, Doric Portico . Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (November, 2010)

New York, NY. Congregation Bnai Jacob Anshe Brzezan (Stanton Street Shul). This small shul on the Lower East, built in 1913, also applied classical elements, to an otherwise very unclassical building. Photos: Samuel D. Gruber 2005

There is another story that needs to be told here, too. Who fought to save this building when everything around it was torn down (in the 1970s?). How has a congregation managed to maintain it since then. Is really used, and how often? What is the future for Beth Tefilah? I can't wait to get inside this shul on my next visit to Troy...and lean more of this history of this congregation and building.

Troy, New York. Congregation Beth Tephilah. South and east sides. Photos: Samuel D. Gruber (November, 2010)

USA: 140-Year Old Berith Sholom in Troy, New York

USA: 140-Year Old Berith Sholom in Troy, New York
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) Last weekend I had the pleasure to walk the streets of downtown Troy, New York for a few hours. The Hudson River city located just north of Albany is rich in 19th and early 20th century architecture, including two historic synagogues, the older of which is Congregation Berith Sholom (originally Baris Scholem), at 167 Third Street, founded in 1866 and built in 1870.

Troy, New York. Congregation Berith Sholom. Facade, 1870. Photos: Samuel D. Gruber, 2010.

The building, which has been attributed to Troy architect Marcus Cummings, is the oldest in standing synagogue building in New York State outside of New York City, and the oldest New York Synagogue continuously in use for the same congregation. The congregation was liberal from the beginning, and the Ark was built on the west side of the building lot, and there does not seem to have been a balcony. A more formal adoption of Reform ritual did not take place until 1890. The congregation joined the Union of American Hebrew Congregations in 1920. Around 1953 an addition was built to house the religious school. This year, on the occasion of the building's 140th anniversary the congregation launched an Anniversary Expansion Capital Project.

The synagogue is part of the Central Troy Historic District, one of the largest contiguous designated historic districts in the country. Judging from at least one historic photo, the restored facade looks much as it did more than a century ago. The appearance is what I'd call Gilded Age eclectic, but still mostly dependent on mid-century Romanesque and Italianate church forms and architectural details.

Troy, New York. Congregation Berith Sholom, interior.
Photo: Jim Richard Wilson from http://www.berithsholom.org/aboutus/building/

The interior is much changed. The stained glass windows date from 1965, and the interior walls were probably once stenciled, perhaps they were painted white when the windows were installed.

The Moorish arch of the Ark links this building with contemporary Reform synagogues of the period. According to congregation lore and explained by Rabbi Debora Gordon it was apparently added some time after the construction of the synagogue and was dedicated to the memory of a young congregant and Harvard sculler (maybe a scholar, too) who died in a boating accident: "A young man of the community died in a boating accident on the Hudson River, and his family donated the Ark as a memorial to him. Behind the ner tamid, where you would ordinarily expect to find words about God or holiness, script letters almost too fancy to read spell out “In memory of Emanuel B. Mount.” The Ark was designed to look like the scull in which he was rowing when he drowned. If you visit our cemetery, you will see on his grave marker a carving of a young man in a long, slim boat." I'm somewhat skeptical of the likening of the Ark to a boat - in photos it doesn't seem too different form some other Arks of the period - but I still have not been inside the synagogue, nor seen the cited inscription, so I reserve judgment until my next visit to Troy.

I wonder what this Ark would have looked like originally? Was it bare wood finished with a high shine? Or was it painted or gilded in rich colors and gold. I'll try to find out, and am happy to hear from any readers who know more about this venerable - but still vital - building.

Troy, New York. Congregation Berith Sholom, Facade with view of site where extension will be built. No side windows are on the northeast corner because an earlier building was there. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber, 2010.

Troy, New York. Congregation Berith Sholom, rear of building showing abutting building. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber, 2010.

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Germany: A Dramatic and Entirely New Synagogue Form for Historic Mainz

Above: Old (New) Synagogue of Mainz, destoryed on Kristallnacht (from postcard).
Below: Architect Manuel Herz with model of new synagogue (photo: AFP).

Germany: A Dramatic and Entirely New Synagogue Form for Historic Mainz

Last month Germany opened its newest - and most unusual synagogue building. The Mainz Jewish community is one of Germany's most historic - dating back at least to dynamic intellectual heyday in the Middle Ages. Now the small community is the most contemporary and cutting edge - at least architecturally. As Gavriel Rosenfeld explains in an article in The Forward, architect Manuel Herz's design is something entirely new. It derives not from any traditional (Jewish or otherwise) building vocabulary, but from the very vocabulary and calligraphy of Hebrew prayer. This is in stark contrast to other new synagogues in Germany - notable the monumental synagogue in Munich that recalls the architecture of the Jerusalem Temple in its stark and simply geometry and massing. Formally, the new Mainz synagogue is obviously inspired by the architecture of Daniel Libeskind (with whom Herz studied), most notably at his museums of Osnabruck and Berlin. From what I can tell from photos, the synagogue combines the drama of the Berlin Jewish Museum with the intimacy of the Nussbaum Museum in Osnabruck (which is now being expanded - so what the future holds is still unknown).

For photos click here.

How the New Synagogue in Mainz Has Its Cake and Eats It Too

by Gavriel Rosenfeld

The construction of a new synagogue is always an occasion for celebration, so it was with particular pomp that the Rhineland city of Mainz recently dedicated its new synagogue and Jewish community center. The dedication ceremonies, held September 3, featured an array of German politicians, including German President Christian Wulff. Many of them blessed the new building and underscored its symbolic significance. Yet, while the synagogue received its share of blessings, it also gave physical expression to them in its architectural form. Designed by the German-Jewish architect Manuel Herz, Mainz’s striking new synagogue complex traces its inspiration back to the third “blessing” in the Amidah — the Kedusha. The connection between the word and the synagogue’s appearance is not immediately obvious. But Herz’s drawings for the building reveal that its sawtooth form partly derives from the jagged pattern produced by the word’s five Hebrew letters: kuf, daled, vav, shin and hay.

Read the entire article here.

You can also read more about the synagogue and Mainz here.

USA: Fine Judaica Auction October 27th

Fine Judaica: Hebrew Printed Books, Manuscripts, Autograph Letters and Graphic Art To Be Offered At Auction On Wednesday, October 27th

(CHAGALL, MARC). Chaliastra. [Yiddish Language Art Periodical]. No. 1. Avant-garde illustrations, including Chagall’s designs to David Hofstein’s poems (pp. 10 and 48). pp. 71, (1). Lightly browned. Original color-illustrated wrappers bound into modern boards, front cover tape-repaired, back cover detached. Sm. folio.

Kestenbaum & Company’s Fall auction of Fine Judaica will take place on Wednesday, October 27th at 1pm at the firm’s Manhattan gallery located at 242 West 30th Street. Viewing beforehand will be held from Sunday, October 24th through Tuesday, October 26th.

The extensive sale of Hebrew Printed Books, Manuscripts, Autograph Letters and Graphic Art will include American-Judaica and Rare Books from the Library of Gratz College, Elkins Park (Part II); German, Haskallah and Related Books from the Library of the Late Philosopher, Prof. Steven Schwarzschild and Exceptional Rabbinic Autograph Letters from a Private Collector.

Click here to view the entire October 27th, 2010 Catalogue

Kestenbaum & Company provides the following information about the sale:

Hebrew Incunabula are particularly coveted by discerning book collectors and this auction offers a number of them for sale. Most compelling are several leaves from the first publication of the Talmudic Tractate Kidushin, Guadalajara, circa 1480, at an estimate of $35,000-50,000. This early Spanish fragment is of the utmost rarity (lot 279). Two other incunabula of note include a 1484 copy of Yedai’ah Bedersi’s Bechinath Olam, estimate $10,000-15,000 (lot 53) and a scarce second edition (incomplete) of the Soncino Roman Machzor, 1486, at an estimate of $10,000-12,000 (lot 210A).

Additional important early Hebrew Printed Books include two works by Samson ben Isaac of Chinon -- Sepher Kerithoth, estimate $6,000-8,000 (lot 261) and Peirush HaGet, estimate $3,000-5,000 (lot 262) both were printed in Constantinople in 1515. Good examples of Early Bibles in the sale include the first Polyglot Bible, Genoa, 1516, estimate $4,000-6,000 (lot 55) and Estienne’s splendidly printed pocket Hebrew Bible, bound in 14 volumes, Paris, 1543-46, at an estimate of $4,000-6,000 (lot 56). A later Bible of significance is a Hebrew Pentateuch from Vienna, 1815, government-authorized to be used in the Courts of Law in Prague to administer the Oath to Jewish witnesses, estimate $2,500-3,500 (lot 64).

Highlights among the Passover Hagadoth in the sale include a copy of the second Amsterdam Hagadah with a large folding map of the Holy Land, 1712, estimate $4,000-6,000 (lot 141), a most unusual Hagadah printed in English by the London Times newspaper on August 17th, 1840 in relation to the Blood Libel raised against the Jews during the “Damascus Affair”, estimate $5,000-7,000 (lot 143) and the Toulouse Hagadah, produced from memory by Jews imprisoned in French internment camps during the Second World War, estimate $5,000-7,000 (lot 154).

Other notable volumes include two Chassidic Books related to the Chabad movement, both written by Shneur Zalman of Liadi- - Likutei Amarim (second edition), Zolkiew, 1799, estimate $8,000-10,000 (lot 80) and Likutei Torah (first edition), Zhitomir, 1848 and 1851, estimate $3,000-5,000 (lot 83); a Machzor according to the custom of Catalonia, Salonika, 1526, estimate $2,000-3,000 (lot 211) and a Machzor, Amschel Mayer Rothschild’s personal copy, Roedelheim, 1800, at an estimate of $2,000-3,000 (lot 258).

Early medical and scientific books are represented by first editions of Tobias Cohn’s Ma’aseh Tuvia from Venice 1707, estimate $2,500-3,500 (lot 88) and Joseph Solomon Delmedigo’s Sepher Ma’ayan Ganim, Amsterdam, 1629, at an estimate of $2,000-3,000 (lot 98).

Among books relating to Germany and the early Haskallah movement, of particular interest is Johann Jakob Schudt’s Jüdischer Merckwürdigkeiten which chronicles the life of the Jews of Frankfurt, 1714, estimate $1,500-2,500 (lot 126) and the first German edition of the Mishnah, 1760-63, at an estimate of $700-1,000 (lot 236).

The American Judaica section of the sale features unique selections such as a handwritten Hebrew Marriage Certificate dated July 1861 from Peoria, Illinois, estimate $12,000-18,000 (lot 21). Also prominent within the Americana section are a number of “firsts”: Isaac Leeser’sHebrew-English Pentateuch, the Yuly copy bound in five volumes, Philadelphia, 1845-6, the first such translation published in America, estimate $7,000-9,000 (lot 12); Judah Monis’ Grammar of the Hebrew Tongue, the first Hebrew Grammar published in the New World, Boston, 1735, estimate $10,000-15,000 (lot 7), a volume of The Jew, edited by Solomon Henry Jackson, distinguished for being the first Jewish Periodical in America, New York, 1823-4, estimate $5,000-7,000 (lot 11); and The American Magazine for June 1758, containing a Rabbinic sermon in English, the very first such text published in America, estimate $5,000-7,000 (lot 8).

Books relating to Israel and Zionism include two significant editions of Theodor Herzl’s important manifesto, Der Judenstaat; The first Hebrew edition, Warsaw, 1896, estimate $2,000-3,000 (lot 285) and the first edition to be printed in America, New York, 1904, at an estimate of $2,000-3,000 (lot 286). Further offerings include an early and fascinating Palestine Telephone Directory from 1938, estimate $1,000-1,500 (lot 188) and the first edition of Charles Forster’s study of Hebrew inscriptions found in the Sinai Desert and published with albumen photographs, London, 1862, at an estimate of $800-1,200 (lot 186).

Other books of interest include the first edition of Baruch de Spinoza’s highly influential philosophical work Opera Posthuma, Amsterdam, 1677, estimate $6,000-9,000 (lot 278), Bernard Picart’s illustrated Histoire Générale des Cérémonies, Moeurs, et Coutumes Religieuses de tous les Peuples du Monde, complete in seven volumes, Paris, 1741, estimate $3,000-5,000 (lot 306) and a Hebrew translation of William Shakespeare’s Othello, which was the first appearance of any of Shakespeare’s plays in the Hebrew language, Vienna, 1874, at an estimate of $600-900 (lot 267).

Prominent among the modern Art and Literary Books is a rare complete set of the short-lived journal Albatros, which had enormous impact upon the modernist Yiddish literary scene in Poland, estimate $1,500-2,500 (lot 139) and Marc Chagall’s illustrations for the Yiddish language art journal Chaliastra, Paris, 1924 at an estimate of $800-1,200 (lot 295). Many illustrated books are featured in the auction including: Meir Gur-Arye, E. M. Lilien, Moritz Oppenheimer, Ze’ev Raban, Reuven Rubin, Issachar ber Ryback, Raphael Soyer, Joeseph Tchaikov, Anna Ticho and Wilhelm Wachtel.

Leading the offerings in the Manuscripts Section of the sale is a large Prayerbook according to the meditations of Rabbi Isaac Luria, 1732-38, at an estimate of $20,000-25,000 (lot 352). The auction catalogue cover lot, a striking Family Tree from Vilna, begun in 1901, is extraordinary for its elaborate and most original artistry. The pre-sale estimate is $15,000-20,000 (lot 349). Additional highlights are Moreh Tzedek an extensive manuscript penned in the 18th century by the Sha’agath Aryeh’s first cousin, estimate $10,000-12,000 (lot 362), a collection of Hebrew medieval manuscript fragments, estimate $5,000-7,000 (lot 357) and a Pinkas from the legendary Churvah Synagogue, Jerusalem, 1889-96, at an estimate of $5,000-7,000 (lot 351).

The Autograph Letters section of the sale is particularly impressive and is sure to garner buyers’ attention. Consigned from a single Private Collection, on offer are written communications by some of the most important and influential Rabbinic authorities of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Included are letters penned by Israel Abu-Hatze’ira (the Babi Sali), Abraham Mordechai Alter (the Grand Rabbi of Gur), Moshe Yitzchak Gewirtzman (Reb Itzikel), Shlomo Goldman (Reb Shloimkeh Zeviller), Samson Raphael Hirsch, Abraham Isaiah Karelitz (the Chazon Ish), Moses Sofer (the Chatham Sofer) and Yoel Teitelbaum (the Satmar Rebbe) among others. Of special note are letters by Yisrael Meir Kagan of Radin (the Chofetz Chaim), estimate $15,000-20,000 (lot 332), Menachem Mendel of Shklov, estimate $25,000-35,000 (lot 337) and Reb Chaim Soloveitchik, estimate $12,000-18,000 (lot 342), a most surprising letter written to Chief Rabbi Kook.

A petite section of Graphic Art rounds out the sale. It includes a particularly striking gouache from the Book of Esther by Saul Raskin, estimate $3,000-4,000 (lot 363).

For further information relating to bidding or any other queries, please contact Jackie Insel at 212-366-1197.