Poland: Prayer house in Kielce to be Rescued

I'm cross posting this story from Jewish Heritage Europe the new go-to site for information about Jewish heritage sites in Europe.  I helped begin and edit this site about six years ago but it fell into stagnation.  The Rothschild Foundation and journalist, author and blogger Ruth Ellen Gruber have revived and remade it into something much for appealing - and up-to-date. cehck out the entrie site and subscribe to the Facebook link, too. 

Poland — Prayer house in Kielce to be rescued

Posted on February 28, 2012 by admin

A dilapidated small Jewish prayer house in the town of Kielce is to be moved from its current position in the back yard of a tenement house to nearby the Jewish cemetery in order to rescue it from falling into total disrepair and to enable development of the tenement site.
A report in a local  Kielce newspaper, and quoted by Virtual Shtetl, said that the 54-square-meter private prayer house was built in 1922 at 3 Slowackiego by a local entrepreneur named Herszel Zagajski, who owned a limestone plant.

[T]his house is one of three such buildings in Poland that have survived to the present day. Additionally, in Kielce, for historical reasons, it has become a symbol. The whole action enjoys the support of the Chief Rabbi of Poland and the Jewish Community in Katowice. Cutting the building, its transportation, reconstruction and renovation, which pose the most difficulties, will be completed by the Dorbud company. Presently, drafts, plans and necessary agreements with the monuments’ restorer are being made. The company wants to obtain subsidies from the Fund of Norway. In all probability, the building will be transported to the municipal land next year.

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Jean-Jacques Duval Synagogue Photo on Cover of Glass Art

Jean-Jacques Duval Synagogue Photo on Cover of Glass Art

Here is a photo credit I didn't expect - the cover on 'Glass Art'. It's a synagogue window at Congregation B'nai Jacob in Woodbridge, Connecticut from the early 60's by artist Jean-Jacques Duval. Glass Art has a profile of Duval, who is till actively at work.  

I blogged about his work earlier in the year and am quoted in the article.  You can read my earlier account and see more pictures at http://samgrubersjewishartmonuments.blogspot.com/2011/06/usa-jean-jacques-duvals-connecticut.html. 

After I posted that piece last June, I heard from several people.  

Contemporary artist Jeanette Kuvin Oren,  a member of Congregation B’nai Jacob in Woodbridge, CT. sent in a photo of the Ark curtain she made in the 1994-95 for the Jewish Theological Seminary inspired by Duval's glass. 

Synagogue maven Julian Preisler sent in these three photos of contemporary synagogues with Duval windows. 

Binghamton, NY. Temple Concord. Photo: Julian Preisler.

 Steubenville, OH. Beth Israel. Photo: Julian Preisler.

 Knoxville, TN. Heska Amuna.Photo: Julian Preisler. 

 We still need to get better pictures of the sanctuary interiors with all the glass.  Thanks Julian!

India: 'The Parur Synagogue In South India' by Jay Waronker and Shalva Weil

 Parur, India. Synagogue exterior after restoration. Photo: Jay Waronker

I've written about the work of architect Jay Waronker before.  since 2009, Jay has been the recipient of several grants from the Koret Foundation sponsored by ISJM for his work to document synagogues in Kerala (India), and to and promote their protection and preservation.  Jay and his colleague anthropologist Shalva Weil have an article about the Parur synagogue in the February 2012 issue of The Jewish Magazine.  Waronker has previously written about the synagogue in The Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies #11 (2011).

For more information see the website:
The Synagogues of Kerala India: Architectural and Cultural Heritage

The site is very rich in descriptive, historic and analytic content and photos of Cochin and Kerala's many synagogues. There is also an extensive bibliography.  In the architecture section Waronker writes at length about seven standing synagogues as well as lost synagogues of Kerala.

The Parur Synagogue In South India

By Jay Waronker and Shalva Weil 

Many people may have heard of the Jews of Cochin (today Kochi) in southwestern coastal India, but far fewer know that there were in fact other small Jewish communities over the centuries in this same region of the country, each revolving around a synagogue. Eight such buildings, all located in the central part of the State of Kerala, survive in some form today. The most famous of these synagogues is the Paradesi synagogue in Jew Town, Cochin, with its low clock tower and blue and white willow-pattern tiles imported from China paving the sanctuary floor. In 1968, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi attended its quartercentenary celebrations, and the Indian government issued a special commemorative stamp on the occasion. Today, there are only nine Paradesi ("foreigners") Jews left in Jew Town, and a Chabad rabbi conducts the services, pulling in Israeli backpackers and American and other Jewish tourists to make up the minyan.

In the 1990s, the interior of another synagogue, the Kadavumbagam, located just down the street from the Paradesi Synagogue was brought to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and is a great attraction in the newly-opened museum. In Ernakulam, the commercial center of Kochi, two former synagogues remain but are no longer functioning houses of prayer. The first, the Kadavumbagam on Market Road, is now operated by a Jewish business owner as plant nursery and fish shop, and the other, the Tekkumbagam, is around the corner on Jew Street behind a locked gate. Heritage plaques have recently been affixed to both these synagogues by the authors of this article identifying them as Jewish sites.

Read the rest of the article here.

USA: Buffalo, New York's Oldest Synagogue Building Threatened with Demolition

 Buffalo, NY. Former Ahavath Sholem synagogue.  A. E. Minks and Sons, architects (1903). Photo credit: David Torke, fixBuffalo.  Click here to see more photos.

USA: Buffalo, New York's Oldest Synagogue Building Threatened with Demolition
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) The former Ahavath Sholom Synagogue at 407 Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo (google map), built in 1903,  is threatened with demolition.  Jewish use of the building ended in the 1960s, and it became home to the Greater New Hope Church of God in Christ.  The structure is now empty and in disrepair.  The building is one of the last standing synagogue of the "facade-dome" type that was popular at the end of the 19th century.  

Architecturally, the building is most readily notable for its single 'onion' style dome set over the central entrance bay of the facade.  Variations of this type of arrangement are known in synagogue architecture beginning in Europe in the mid-19th century.  One example is the destroyed synagogue of Jelgava, Latvia.  The style was especially common in Moorish style buildings such as Ahavath Sholom.  Major American examples include Temple Sinai in Chicago (Dankmar Adler, arch.) and Temple Beth El in New York (Brunner & Tryon, archs.) which were demolished decades ago. Tiny Gemiluth Chassed in Port Gibson, Mississippi survives. Time may not be long for Buffalo's Ahavath Sholom, but local efforts to save the building may stave off the wrecking ball.

 Port Gibson, Mississippi.  Congregation Gemiluth Chassed (1891-92).  Photo: ISJM.

Jelgava, Latvia. Former synagogue (1890?) from a postcard.

I'll be writing more about the plight of the former Ahavath Sholom and the effort to save it soon.  Meanwhile, look at this extensive flickr series of photos of the current condition.  Views of original building blueprints are included.  From these you can see that originally more Moorish details had been planned.

According to the blog fixBuffalo:

In December, Housing Court Judge Patrick Carney issued an order to demolish the City's oldest synagogue, one of the last remaining vestiges of Jewish life on the City's East Side.    The familiar onion domed landmark on Jefferson Avenue was designed by A. E. Minks and Sons and built in 1903.  With the cooperation of Rev. Jerome Ferrell and his congregation, the Greater New Hope Church of God in Christ, this historic structure was designated a local landmark by the City's Preservation Board in 1997.  

 Read the entire post here.

You can read more about the synagogue in this article by Chana Kotzin from the February 10, 2012  issue of the Buffalo Jewish Review.  Kotzin runs the Buffalo Jewish archives and has been collecting history about the building, its congregation and the old East Side Jewish neighborhood. 

The synagogue was designated a local protected site in 1997, but that did not lead to its restoration.  You can read here the entire local landmark designation application from 1997, made available for wider distribution on fixBuffalo with Tim Tielman's assistance.  The building is clearly eligible for National Register listing, and preservationists plan to submit a nomination form to the state soon.  NR designation can be crucial for qualifying for a variety of government sponsored grants and tax credits for any restoration or redevelopment project for the building.
  
My thanks to Cynthia Van Ness and David Torke for helping me with this entry.