Jacob's Dream in Brooklyn's Beth Elohim and Beyond: A Stairway to Heaven? A Stairway to Paradise?

Brooklyn, NY. Congregation Beth Elohim. Jacob's Dream window, 1912. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2026

Jacob's Dream in Brooklyn's Beth Elohim and Beyond:  A Stairway to Heaven?  A Stairway to Paradise? 

by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) When I was in New York in April to give a lecture, another goal was to visit as many of the synagogues designed by Jewish architects Simon B. Eisendrath (1866-1935) and Bernard Horowitz as possible (I'll report more fully on these in a subsequent post). Probably the best known of the pair's Brooklyn synagogues is the large and prominently sited Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope that opened in 1910, probably the first synagogue in New York in which Eisendrath was involved. The building has many interesting features including its prominent cupola over an entrance vestibule that faces the corner of the lot at the intersection of 8th Avenue and Garfield place.  

Brooklyn, NY. Congregation Beth Elohim. Eisendrath & Horowitz, architects, 1910. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2026.

Inside, the sanctuary is dominated by two large narrative figurative stained-glass windows. One of these, on the right hand side of the sanctuary as we look toward the ark, depicts the finding of Moses in the bulrushes. The other - which I want to consider here - is a very dramatic figurative scene of Jacob’s dream of the angels climbing up and down a ladder to heaven told in Genesis 28: 10-17. Both scenes - Jacob's Dream and the Finding of Moses have long histories in Jewish art. Both were represented at the 3rd century C.E. wall paintings at the synagogue of Dura-Europos. 

The window memorializes Bernhard and Betti Schellenberg and, according to its dedicatory inscription, was installed in 1912. On the window is inscribed the line “אֵין זֶה, כִּי אִם-בֵּית אֱלֹהִים”  (This is none other than the House of God).  Of course, the scene refers to the naming of the synagogue itself - Beth Elohim /The House of God. The rock upon which Jacobs rests his head is the foundation stone upon which all synagogues are built.

Brooklyn, NY. Congregation Beth Elohim. Eisendrath & Horowitz, architects, 1910. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2026. 

Brooklyn, NY. Congregation Beth Elohim. Jacob's Dream window, 1912. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2026.

Brooklyn, NY. Congregation Beth Elohim. Jacob's Dream window,  1912. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2026.

Brooklyn, NY. Congregation Beth Elohim. Jacob's Dream window, 1912. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2026.

Brooklyn, NY. Congregation Beth Elohim. Jacob's Dream window, 1912. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2026.

Brooklyn, NY. Congregation Beth Elohim. Jacob's Dream window, 1912. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2026.

Brooklyn, NY. Congregation Beth Elohim. Jacob's Dream window, 1912. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2026.

The scene of Jacob’s Dream (or Jacob’s Ladder), has long been popular with Christian artists - especially Byzantine and Renaissance artists, they love to depict angels. But is much rarer in Jewish art than other scenes from Genesis and Exodus (In general, Jacob takes a backseat in Jewish art to Abraham and Moses).  I know of only two other examples in the United States – each quite different from this one (see below).  Marc Chagall often represented the story, too, since he loved to represent figures in a dream state.  But he only included the dream and the ladder in his church commissions. 

In New York, the best known example is the window of the same theme, installed in Grace Episcopal Church, Manhattan in 1887.  This was designed by Mary Tillinghast, and was the first major window commission for that important stained glass artist. The two large angels in the lower portion of the scene at Beth Elohim resemble the angels in same position at Grace Church, which may be the source, or both artists may have been looking at a still earlier example, possibly the fresco painting (below) from Raphael's workshop at the Vatican, which has similar angels, but in a reversed position, or a painting by Bartolomé  Murillo, form about1660 and 1665, and now in the Hermitage museum. 

New York, NY. Grace Episcopal Church. Jacob's Dream window by Mary Tillinghast, 1887.

Except for the accurate Hebrew lettering of the Biblical verse, the Beth Elohim window takes it cue entirely from Christian art, a situation that was hardly unusual at the time. Only Reform congregations commissioned figurative compositions before the 1930s, and almost all glass workshops were set up mostly to serve Christian clients.  

The pose of Jacob asleep on the ground is a common one from Renaissance art, when artists delighted in show they could represent the body in all sorts of postures.  Still, Jacob's position of complete collapse in the Beth Elohim window, and the emphasis upon the rock on which he lays his head, is breaks from the common pose.  The angels are seen from slightly different angles, but their beautiful faces surely descend from the angelic visages painted by Leonardo and Raphael. 

Coincidentally, with this window still fresh in my mind, I also saw the big Raphael exhibition in New York at the MET, and the linkage is clear. There is a known scene of Jacob's Dream from Raphael's workshop.  It decorates the so-called Loggia di Raffaello at the Vatican Palace, along with many other Biblical scenes. This work is attributed to Gian Francesco Penni after a design by Giulio Romano. Unlike the Raphael-Romano-Penni painting, in the synagogue window there is no representation of God the Father.

Jacob’s Dream, fresco by Raphael's workshop,  ca. 1518,, Loggia di Raffaello, Palazzo Apostolico,  Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Jacob's Dream. Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, 1660-1665. Hermitage museum. Photo: Wikimedia commons.

We do not know the artist who designed the Beth Elohim window or the studio that made it. I looked unsuccessfully for a signature or a mark. Most likely, the window came from one of the big studios that were producing for churches at the time. 1910 was a boom year across America for religious buildings, and most were incorporating stained glass. Apparently there is no paper trail at the synagogue for this history.  At present, I don't know if any Eisendrath-Horowitz papers survive.  I hope that in coming years as we document more stained glass, that comparisons will lead to an identification. 

Even the Index of Jewish Art has few Jewish examples of Jacob's Dream in synagogue art.The 19th-century Alsatian and German prints draw more upon the imagery of Matthaeus Merian in his much-copied bible illustrations of the 1620s, than on Italian examples. 

Mizrah plaque, ca. 1860 from the synagogue of Lengnau, Switzerland. Center for Jewish Art.

Mizrah plaque, ca. 1860, printed in Wissembourg by the firm of Wentzel.  Gross family Collection.

The Beth Elohim window was still on my mind two weeks alter when I gave another lecture - this time about synagogue mural painting of early 20th-century immigrant Jewish congregations, and I mentioned a puzzling mural in the former Beth Hamedrash Hagadol Synagogue in Hartford, Connecticut, that shows Jacob's Dream - but this time (like in Romania) without angels - only magnificent steps with birds flying, but there may have been a figure of a dreaming Jacob leaning against the stair. This image reflects the common - but inconsistent - removal of human figures from many traditional scenes and symbols when they are represented on synagogue walls. 

The synagogue has been a church for many years.  I have never been inside and assumed the mural was long gone, but checking the church's Facebook page I saw that it is still there - though partially painted over. 

Hartford, CT. Former Beth Hamedrash Hagadol Synagogue, 1922. Photo: Connecticut Jewish History, Fall 1991

Hartford, CT. Former Beth Hamedrash Hagadol Synagogue, 1922. Now Greater Refuge Church of Christ. Photo: Church Faeebook page. 

Hartford, CT. former Beth Hamedrash Hagadol Synagogue, 1922. Detail of mural on ark wall. What appears to be a recling figure of Jacob on the right has now been painted over. Photo 9cropped): Connecticut Jewish History, Fall 1991

Ever since I first saw the picture of this mural I've thought of it as the "Stairway it Heaven" or "Stairway to Paradise" and both those songs go through my head. The sweeping stairway especially calls to mind the similar grand stair in the nightclub scene when Georges Guétary performs I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise in the Academy Award winning movie An American in Paris. Significantly the song was written in 1922 by George Gershwin for the Broadway review George White's Scandals, for which it was the hit song. Coincidentally (?) the synagogue was built in 1922. I assume the decoration is from then, too, but it could be later.  But if it is contemporary I wonder if congregants secretly imagined the Gershwin song added to the traditional liturgy!

Though it really doesn't have much to do with Jacob's Dream, and the movie opened in 1952, but I still recommend watching this number. Here is Georges Guétary performing "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise."

Finally, here are three more "recent" examples of the use of Jacob's dream or ladder and stairway imagery in Jewish art from important synagogue art series: stained glass windows by William Gropper, mosaics by David Holleman, and wall paintings by Archie Rand.  The sleeping Jacob is sometimes seen, but the ladder with angels' wings is now emphasized. In these works it becomes a symbolic stand-in for the entire narrative and all the attached exegesis.  

River Forest, IL. Temple Har Zion. Genesis Windows by William Gropper, 1967. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022.

River Forest, IL. Temple Har Zion. Genesis Windows / Jacob Window by William Gropper, 1967. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022.

  

River Forest, IL. Temple Har Zion. Genesis Windows by William Gropper, 1967. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022

In 1967 the congregation of Temple Har Zion in River Forest, Illinois commissioned noted artist William Gropper to design a series of five large stained glass windows illustrating the Book of Genesis. One of these windows is dedicated to the life of Jacob, and the scene with his dream is placed at the top.

 

Lowell, MA. Former Montefiore Synagogue. David Holleman. Jacob's Dream (angels ascending ladder). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2019.

At the former Montefiore in Lowell, Massachusetts, opened in 1972, David Holleman designed Arks in both the sanctuary and the Anshe Sfard chapel, and the accompanying mosaics and parochets. Near the entrance to the synagogue, Holleman helped create a donor wall, which thanks the benefactors to the Temple in a series of mosaic panels depicting Jacob's Dream in the center, surrounded by panels depicting the Twelve Tribes of Israel. When the synagogue closed I was able to photograph these works, but they have been dispersed.  Fortunately, this mosaic and other pieces were taken to the Walnut Street synagogue in Chelsea, Massachusetts, where they can be viewed as part a growing collection of Boston-area Judaica.

Brooklyn, NY. B'nai Josef Synagogue. Wall painting in women's gallery by Archie Rand. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2024.

 

Brooklyn, NY. B'nai Josef Synagogue. Wall painting in women's gallery by Archie Rand. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2024.

Lastly, here is the inclusion of a stairway in the exhaustive wall painting program at B'nai Josef Synagogue in Brooklyn that Archie Rand painted throughout the 1970s, completing the women's gallery symbols and images in 1977.  The entire synagogue program covering every square foot of wall is dense and complex. The synagogue is home to North African and Syrian Sephardi Jews and prayer and study goes on almost continuously throughout the day. Two years ago I finally set aside a day to visit and was not disappointing.  Now locally known as the painted shul, others have dubbed it the "Jewish Sistine".  

While the flight of broad steps might be those of Jacob's Dream leading to heaven, this stairway is not Jacob's. Instead it alludes to the ascent to Jerusalem and the Temple, an idea confirmed by the culmination at the red heifer for purification, and a line in Hebrew from Psalm 122 (A Song of Ascents). Though the empty stairway recall the "stairway to heaven" in the Hartford Synagogue, this one has a different meaning:

 Our feet are standing within thy gates, O Jerusalem /      עמדות היו רגליו ו כשעריך ירושלים

To read more about Archie's Rand's remarkable painted synagogue, see the three part article by Richard McBee:

 https://richardmcbee.com/writings/archie-rand-and-the-b-nai-yosef-murals-part-1/

 https://richardmcbee.com/writings/archie-rand-and-the-b-nai-yosef-murals-part-2/

https://richardmcbee.com/writings/archie-rand-and-the-b-nai-yosef-murals-part-3/