Tunisia: Safx Synagogue Reported Looted and Desecrated

I am cross-posting this blog entry from Point of No Return. it is the first news of the this destructive event. There will need to be more confirmation, but this appears to be an act of serious destruction. I am sending it on to my colleague Dominique Jarrasse who wrote about the synagogue in his recent book on the synagogue of Tunisia. I hope he will be able to collect additional information. For those most interested in developments concerning Jewish heritage and political issues in the Muslim world, I recommend subscribing to Point of No Return.

- Sam Gruber

Looting and damage to Sfax synagogue is confirmed

Nobody saw the vandals, although the Beth El synagogue is in the centre of Sfax

You read it first in English on this blog (thanks to Point of No Return reader Ahoova). Now the sad news of the looting and wrecking of the newly-restored Beth-El synagogue in the Tunisian city of Sfax has been confirmed, although the Tunisian press has stayed mum. Jean Corcos has put together the following report for the French-Jewish organisation CRIF which I have summarised in English:

The news was broken on the web by the Sfax-born Israeli Camus (Yigal) Bouhnik. The vandalism took place around 18 August, during Ramadan. About 30 elderly Jews still live in Sfax. Security has been lacking since the Jasmine Revolution broke out eight months ago. There used to be a 24-hour police guard under the Ben Ali regime, but the police are now engaged elsewhere quelling unrest and lawlessness.

The police are now preventing access to the interior of the building. Those who want to enter must apply for the keys to the head of the local Jewish community, Mr. Zarka. We do not yet have photos of the damage.

Those responsible left no trace of external damage, and no graffiti on the facade: this was confirmed by a Tunisian Muslim friend.

How come nobody saw the vandals? The Beth El Synagogue is located centrally, opposite a large coffee shop crowded at night during the month of Ramadan.

For the benefit of the busloads of pilgrims, Torah scrolls were kept in the synagogue yet the Ark was forced open in what Corcos describes as a 'malicious and antisemitic act'.

Marble plaques honouring benefactors who helped to refurbish the place were smashed.

Dozens of silver Kandil plates were taken. Tunisian Jews follow the custom of honouring their dead by lighting candles dipped in oil. The beaker containing the wick is itself attached to a plate of silver on which were engraved names, dates of birth and death. Sfax had a collection of the kandils of all abandoned synagogues in the city in cardboard boxes inside the Synagogue Beth El : they were all stolen.

The collection boxes for pilgrims' donations were also taken.

The windows of the synagogue, which had been repaired during the great restoration three years earlier, were smashed.

Lastly -'outright villainy', in the words of Jean Corcos - the apartment next to the Synagogue owned by the charitable organization OSE was completely stripped of its contents - from household appliances to the air conditioning unit.

Read article in full (French)

Romania: Popricani (mass-grave) Memorial at Iasi Jewish Cemetery

Iasi, Romania. Dedication of the New Grave and Monument to Popricani Massacre Victims in Jewish Cemetery (June, 2011). Photos courtesy of Lucia Apostal, FED-ROM

Romania: Popricani (Mass-Grave) Memorial at Iasi Cemetery Dedicated
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) Last April I wrote about the reburial in the Iasi, Romania Jewish cemetery of the remains Jewish massacre victims discovered in November 2010. In June a monument was erected to cover the grave. The inscription was composed by Romanian "Elie Wiesel" Institute for Study of Holocaust.

According to the Elie Wiesel National Institute, the victims were killed in the summer of 1941 at Popricani, close to Iasi, by the Romanian army, an ally of the Nazis during World War II. They were among more than 15,000 Jews killed in Iasi during pogroms in 1941. A Romanian historian, Adrian Cioflanca, found the site thanks to the testimonies of Romanians who had witnessed the killings. "We will continue the historical research in order to try to determine where the victims came from, whether it was from Iasi or the surrounding villages", the director of the Elie Wiesel Institute, Alexandru Florian, told AFP.

The grave is very large - 11.00 m x 2,50 meters. The cover of the grave is made concrete, cast in place, with terrazzo finishing. This large and heavy lid sits on foundation-beams cast a half meter beyond the grave boundary. On the lid are 36 slim black granite plaques, each engraved the Magen David, symbolizing the 36 unknown victims buried, all of whom were murdered by the Romanian Army. At the far end of the grave there is a tombstone clad in black granite, with the text engraved in Romanian, English and Hebrew.

The project was organized and designed CAPI-FedRom (Lucia Apostol) and carried out by the Jewish Community of Iasi, with full financial support of Caritatea Foundation.

The monument dedication took place as part of the commemoration ceremony of the 70th anniversary of the Iasi Pogrom, that was held on June 28 2011, in Iasi.

USA: Shearith Israel Cemeteries in Manhattan

New York City, NY. remains of the first Jewish cemetery of Congregation Shearith Israel. Photos: Samuel D. Gruber

USA: Shearith Israel Cemeteries in Manhattan

Every few years there is an article on the cemeteries or former synagogues of New York's Congregation Shearith Isreal, the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States. Its a great demonstration of how long Jews have been in NYC (since the 1640s!), but also how populations have moved "uptown" geographically and socially. This is a good thing, since in New York - or at least Manhattan - there are there is always a new audience that needs to know these things.

The latest article in the tradition is by Adam Chandler from Tablet Magazine. Its a pretty good piece, with a few correctives added by readers at the end. The last paragraph, however, seems to indicate that the 1860 synagogue on 19th Street, sold in January 1895, still survives in some much modified form. The building that may survive would have been O'Neill's Dry Goods Store behind the cemetery, not the synagogue itself. I'm pretty sure the synagogue was a long block away on West 19th St. near 5th Avenue, not between 20th and 21st Street near Sixth, where the cemetery is.

Here is the 19th Street synagogue, one the few Roman Baroque style synagogues in America, and one of the earliest (the first?) with a dome.

New York, NY. Former Congregation Shearith Israel at 19th St.. Photo: Kings Handbook of New York (2nd edition, 1893). The building was sold in 1894.

Also, a little more information on the damage caused by nearby construction work in 2006 would be worth knowing. At the time there was legal wrangling over who was responsible, and who had to pay for repairs. Since then, I don't recall reading about repairs done at all - though I hope they were!


Buried
by Adam Chandler (Tablet Magazine, August 26, 2011)

There’s a small Jewish cemetery tucked away on an unlikely block in Manhattan, behind some condominiums on West 21st Street. It’s just a few minutes from Tablet Magazine’s new office on Tin Pan Alley, and I recently stumbled upon it. As it turns out, it has two siblings further downtown, and, taken together, the trio offer a window into the history of both the city and its Jewish community.

The three historic Manhattan cemeteries belong to Congregation Shearith Israel, a Spanish and Portuguese synagogue in Manhattan and the oldest Jewish congregation in North America, established in 1654. They are perhaps the most durable legacy of New York City’s long-ago Jewish past. The Shearith Israel congregation was founded by 23 Jewish refugees, descendents of Spanish Jews, exiled during the Inquisition, who fled from Recife, Brazil, after it was taken from the Dutch by the Portuguese. They were fleeing anti-Semitism but were greeted coldly by Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch director-general of the colony of New Netherland. From 1654 until 1825, Shearith Israel was the only Jewish congregation in New York City. In its long history, membership of the congregation has included Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo, three founders of the New York Stock Exchange, and the poet Emma Lazarus, whose famous words from “The New Colossus” are affixed to the Statue of Liberty. Shearith Israel—the name translated is “Remnant of Israel”—owns a Torah that dates to the American Revolution.

Read the entire article here.

Plastic Judaica

Plastic Judaica
by Samuel D. Gruber

Plastic (phenol formaldehyde) memorial (yahrzeit) lights, replacing candles, in the collection of the Amsterdam Bakelite Collection. Photos: Samuel D. Gruber 2011.

As some of you know, for the past year I've been curator of the Plastics Collection at Syracuse University, and while have not given up my research and activism vis-a-vis Jewish art and architecture, I have launched into to a new work area. Usually, I just split my interests - plastics by day, and teaching "Art and Architecture of the Synagogue" at night. But occasionally I can bring these two seemingly disparate disciplines together.

One such occasion came last July, when I was in Cologne, Germany, to comment on the ongoing archaeological excavations of the medieval synagogue and Judengasse. I took the opportunity to visit the Amsterdam, and the Amsterdam Bakelite Collection of Reindert Groot, to discuss possibilities of collaboration. Besides showing me hundreds of notable plastic objects - mostly from the 1920s-1940s, Reindert knew I would want to see the above pictured plastic yahrzeit "candles." Today we are used to seeing plastic lights, including memorial lamps and Hanukah menorahs, but these are very early examples.

For the most part, despite its popularity for novelty items and souvenirs, plastic has been slow to find a foothold for religious use. In Judaism, to the best of my knowledge, plastic has not been used in synagogue ritual objects, especially those in association with the Torah. The concept of Hiddur Mitzvah (embellish the commandment) encourages the decoration of the Torah with fine art of precious materials and unique design and artistry, and cheap mass produced plastics simply do not fit the bill. But there are still plenty of plastic mezuzot on the market, and I would not be surprised to find some plastics - especially hard and bright acrylics - used in some contemporary Ark designs somewhere.

In 500 Judaica: Innovative Contemporary Ritual Art (Sterling Publishng, 2010) and I see that only two featured works include plastic - and these are textile works than include polyester fibers.

Plastics are widely used for celebratory purpose, such as Purim graggers and Hanukah dreidls, and I recently saw a youtube video advertising a plastic "shofar."



For Christians, especially Catholics, there are plastic rosary beads and crosses, and beginning in 1935 General Plastics,Inc. manufactured a plastic portable "sick call " kit so priests could easily carry candle bases, a holy water bottle and a crucifix when visiting the sick, and these and similar products were more widely used during World War II. That war was also the first time to my knowledge that plastic crosses were mass produced so that every solider who wanted could have one. Was there any sort of Jewish equivalent?

I'd love to hear about more plastics in Jewish and other religious contexts. Send me information, pictures, or even consider donating the objects to the Plastics Collection at Syracuse University.