Conference Call for Papers: Ukrainian and Jewish Artistic and Architectural Milieus of Lwow...

Call for Papers

L'viv, Ukraine. Tzori Gilod Synagogue. Ceiling/wall painting, dtl.  (before 'restoration').  Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2006)

The Ukrainian and Jewish Artistic and Architectural Milieus of  Lwow/Lemberg/Lviv

International Conference, to be held in Lviv, Ukraine, on November 5-7, 2012,
organized by:

Center for Urban History of East Central Europe (Lviv, Ukraine)
Center for Jewish Art, Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Jerusalem, Israel)
Polish Institute of World Art Studies (Warsaw, Poland)
The Leonid Nevzlin Research Center for Russian and East European Jewry (Jerusalem, Israel)
Ukrainian Jewish Encounter Initiative (Toronto, Canada)

The following call for papers is posted by the organizers:

The period between Ausgleich and Holocaust (1867-1939) witnessed the rapid modernization of Galicia, and especially its metropolis, Lwow/Lemberg/Lviv. Citizens of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, and then of the Second Polish  Republic headed in a diversity of paths, leading from the segregated traditional societies towards the modern integrated one, and at the same time, to a number of nationalist perspectives. These uneasy political and cultural conditions presented challenges for every group, and especially for their creative individuals, the artists.

L'viv, Ukraine. The Temple Synagogue (from postcard).  Liwicki, architect (1840-46).

The conference focuses on artists and architects, who defined themselves or were defined as Ukrainians and Jews, and thus were the representatives of the two largest non-dominant groups in Lviv before World War II. Their modern identities were shaped, in respect or contrast to, but almost always in the context of the Polish dominance in the city, and - from the last third of the nineteenth century - in the context of Polish national resurgence.

Ukrainian and Jewish artists were haunted by stereotypical views and self-views, both similar and dissimilar: while none of them had had any "national art," the former were known as indigenous builders and artisans, though confined to the peasant's background, the latter as "an artless people," "isolated in ghetto for centuries."  For some artists it was an existential choice to acknowledge or oppose the stereotypes. Another artists' challenge was the ubiquitous modernization, reflected in the diversity of  available concepts, whether evolutionist, "renaissance," or revolutionary. How artists constructed their artworks, their selves, and their group affiliations in relation to this changing world and specific urban environment, will be the topics of the conference.

 L'viv, Ukraine. The Jewish Hospital, dtl. of dome.  Kazimierz Moklowski, arch. (1898-1902).  Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2006)

We invite scholars to present their studies of artistic and professional strategies within the highly prolific Ukrainian and Jewish communities  of artists and architects.  We invite papers questioning how artists and architects articulated their belonging to different groups, how this influenced their work and their social position, how interaction with other artists in the multi-ethnic environment of the city have influenced ideas and concepts of art and its role in society.

Moreover, we would like to learn how the social position and perception of artists and architects varied in different ethnic communities, and how they changed over time. While individual papers may only focus on the artistic life and architectural practices within one community, Ukrainian or Jewish, we aim to bring a comparative perspective by inviting scholars to discuss narratives and strategies of these two groups together.

We hope for insights in three chief directions: making and socializing the art; retaining, constructing, and re-constructing bonds with the ethnic-religious groups; shaping the cultural elites by non-dominant groups.We also invite papers dealing with the question of interaction between the urban environment and artistic milieus. Inquiries into the role of Lwow/Lemberg/Lviv, but also perceptions and reflections of the city by  Jewish and Ukrainian artists and architects are thus especially encouraged.

The conference participants are encouraged to discuss a broad variety of
matters concerning creative individuals and groups, including, but not limited to:

1.    Emancipation and education: artists, architects, and engineers.
2.    Individual professional activity and career: graphical arts, painting, sculpture, photograph, decorative art, architecture and engineering; interaction of arts; religious and secular art; funerary art.
3.    Architectural presence and visibility in the cityscape: representation of minority in modern city; leaving and retaining the frameworks of the traditional environment.
4.    Education in traditional arts and crafts. Individual and group
reaction to the numerus clausus restrictions.
5.    Defining and shaping heritage: documentation, preservation, and promotion of landmarks
6.    Artistic and professional milieus of a non-dominant group: professional unions; associations; exhibitions; competitions; art critics; press.
7.    Supportive communities: welfare and social care, from orphanages to academic houses and spas.
8.    Art collecting and patronage. Private collectors. Jewish Museum and National Ukrainian Museum. Libraries.
9.    Circles of identities: local, imperial, national, and universal identity. Loyalty and nationalism in art.
10.    Relations with the "others": tutorship, co-operation, sympathy, competition, and separation.
11.    Prejudices in the realm of art, architecture and beyond: anti-Semitism, ethnic and religious discrimination.
12.    Constructing "national styles": defining Jewish and Ukrainian art and architecture.
13.     Destiny of Jewish artists and their works in Holocaust. Ukrainian artists and architects in the wars and under occupations: World Wars I and II.
14.     Post-Lviv/Lemberg/Lwow stories: artists and architects outside of Lviv.

Languages of the conference: English and Ukrainian.

Abstracts (up to 200 words) of a twenty-minute presentation with a short CV should be submitted (as an attached MSWord documents) by April 1, 2012 to Dr. Iryna Matsevko, the Academic Coordinator of the Center for Urban History at i.matsevko@lvivcenter.org, with "Conference" in the subject header.

Applicants will be notified of the decision regarding their proposals by May 1, 2012.

Limited funds for reimbursement of travel expenses and accommodation are
available. No conference fee will be charged.

Publication: The Turei Zahav (Golden Rose) Synagogue in L'viv

Publication: The Turei Zahav (Golden Rose) Synagogue in L'viv

L'viv, Ukraine. Golden Rose Synagogue ruin. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2008).

Ukraine-born, L'viv-trained and Israeli-based architectural historian Sergey R. Kravtsov, has been studying the history and architecture of Golden Rose Synagogue, destroyed in the Second Wold War and surviving as a ruin, for at least a decade.  He has now produced a handy history of the building based on a variety of source materials and recent archaeological excavations that must be the starting point for any consideration of its future conservation, rebuilding and use -- for religious, commemorative or cultural purpose.

Sergey R. Kravtsov,   Di Gildene Royze. The Turei Zahav Synagogue in L’viv (Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2011) Kleine Schriften der Bet Tfila – Forschungsstelle für jüdische Architektur in Europa, herausgegeben von Aliza Cohen-Mushlin und Harmen H. Thies. Band 3. ISBN 978-3-86568-138-6 

L'viv, Ukraine. Golden Rose Synagogue.  Commemorative plaque at synagogue ruin. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2008).

L'viv, Ukraine. Golden Rose Synagogue ruin.  Sergey Kravtsov discussing the building's history and architecture. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2008).

    

The book is the newest publication on historic synagogue architecture from Bet Tefila - Research Unit for Jewish architecture in Europe.  Bet Tefila is a joint effort of the Technische Universität Braunschweig and the Center for Jewish Art, Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

The future treatment of the ruins of the Turei Zahav Synagogue in L'viv, Ukraine  (Lemberg, Lvov) is still being debated.  For the last three years at least the historic synagogue has been a focal point for all discussions of commemoration, preservation, and development in the Old Jewish Quarter of the historic, once multi-ethnic,  Renaissance planned city.  The discussion is an important one for the future of the building, for the memory of a lost population and for the direction this beautiful city will take in coming years.  Will it be a welcoming city of art and culture on the border between east and west?  Or, will it be an insular, xenophobic, and nationalist center.  In truth, the future L'viv will probably be a combination of both, and much will depend on broad political and economic trends in Ukraine and Europe as on rational or emotional appeals. But the ground work has been laid since 2008 for a progressive and inclusive recognition of the city's diverse and complex past, and how this past can serve present and future needs.

L'viv, Ukraine. Golden Rose Commemorative plaque at synagogue ruin. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2008).

L'viv, Ukraine. Golden Rose Synagogue ruin. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2008).

Kravtsov's well-illustrated account shows the synagogue in the city maps, architectural drawings, photographs, and numerous works of art depicting the structure during particular stages of its history. As much as possible, computer-aided reconstructions recreate the synagogue in its original state.

The Destruction of the Memory of Jewish Presence in Eastern Europe; A Case Study: Former Yugoslavia

The Destruction of the Memory of Jewish Presence in Eastern Europe; A Case Study: Former Yugoslavia
Interview with Ivan Ceresnjes

The Institute of Global Jewish Affairs has published a lengthy interview with my friend and colleague Ivan Ceresnjes about the Destruction of Jewish Memory in the Former Yugoslavia. No one knows more than Ivan about the fate of Jewish synagogues, cemeteries and Holocaust sites in the region.

Ivan Ceresnjes was the head of the Jewish community of Bosnia-Herzegovina and a vice-chairman of the Yugoslav Federation of Jewish Communities until his emigration to Israel in 1996. During the civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina he organized rescue efforts to evacuate Jews and non-Jews and also organized nonsectarian humanitarian relief for citizens of the besieged city and other parts of the country. An architect by profession, he is presently employed by the Center for Jewish Art of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has been a leader in the documentation of Jewish historic, religious and cultural sites in the former Yugoslavia for the Center and for the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad. A summary of his Bosnia documentation can be found at www.jewish-heritage-europe.eu

Read interview here.

Ukraine: Zhovkva Historic Photos

Ukraine: Zhovkva Historic Photos

(ISJM) Sergey Kravtsov of the Center for Jewish Art has sent these historic photos of the synagogue of Zhovkva. The two interior photos of the Aron-ha Kodesh wall provide a reminder of how richly sculpted and painted the interiors of the synagogue was - although much of the decoration including the musical instruments and the view of Jerusalem probably date to the late 19th or first decades of the 20th century. Such motifs were common - almost ubiquitous in Polish synagogues (and synagogues founded by Polish immigrants in America and elsewhere) of the time. The view of the Ark, however, shows it in all of its Baroque splendor.

The photo of the destruction of the synagogue raises the issue of exactly how and when the synagogue was destroyed. Was it set afire (as we see here) or was it blown up? Both fates are possible. Many synagogues went through multiple destructions during the German occupation. First they were pillaged and burned, and then later, when empty, if no other use was apparent, they were blown up. Many of the big masonry synagogues, however, were so strongly built, with walls often more than a meter thick, that even when exploded much of the original structure remained. Wooden synagogues, of course, were burned, and therefore we have few of those left.

There is disagreement over whether Germans or Ukrainians burned the Zhovkva synagogue. I don't know the details, but it is possible that some of the local population helped set the synagogue afire under the protection, and possibly the direction of the Germans, who are shown in this photo.

Germany: "Looting and Restitution. Jewish-Owned Cultural Artifacts from 1933 to the Present" Exhibition at Berlin Jewish Museum

Germany: "Looting and Restitution. Jewish-Owned Cultural Artifacts from 1933 to the Present" exhibition at Berlin Jewish Museum

The Jewish Museum of Berlin has mounted a major exhibition highlighting the still controversial issues surrounding the looting and restitution of Jewish art during the Nazi period and the Holocaust. The exhibition "Looting and Restitution. Jewish-Owned Cultural Artifacts from 1933 to the Present" narrates the historical events, context, and consequences of the looting carried out by the Nazis throughout Europe. The exhibition will be on view through January 25, 2009.
A special website has been created for the exhibition.

The art and artifacts around which the exhibition is formed are not Jewish art, but art once-owned by Jews. If anything, exhibitions of this type show just how assimilated and conventional Jewish art collectors were in the inter-war period. There is a common perception of Jews as patrons of the avant-garde - and of course there were artistically progressive Jews. But most Jewish collections of art and art objects were stolidly middle-class and bourgeois in their taste in acquisition and presentation. And yet, despite the Jewish predilection for popular and predicable taste, this art as well as the so-called "degenerate art," was fair game for pillage. For the lucky, art was detached from owners by coercion or force, but the owners escaped with their lives. For millions of others all possession were forfeit to official plunderers and illegal scavengers. How to treat this legacy, which continues to circulate in the art market today, remains a persistent and unresolved ethical, legal and practical problem ot this day.

A German language publication has been prepared to accompany the exhibit.

Looting and Restitution. Jewish-Owned Cultural Artifacts from 1933 to the PresentEdited by Inka Bertz and Michael Dorrmann commissioned by the Jewish Museum Berlin and the Jewish Museum Frankfurt am Main.
German language edition only
320 pages, approximately 170 illustrations, paperback
Price: 24.90 euros
Wallstein Publishers, 2008
ISBN-10: 3-8353-0361-9
ISBN-13: 978-3-8353-0361-4

The well-illustrated exhibition book provides extensive information on the historical background to the looting of cultural artifacts and how their loss through persecution is handled today.
Two essays by Dan Diner and Constantin Goschler explore the historical, political, and moral dimensions of confiscation. Seventeen authors, among them experts of international renown such as Michael Bazyler, Patricia Grimsted, Jürgen Lillteicher, and Frank Kuitenbrouwer examine the procedures used by Nazi looting organizations and the often disreputable role of museums, libraries, and art dealers. The first restitutions of cultural artifacts by the Allies just after the war and the restitution procedures of the 1950s and 60s are described, as is the revival of the theme in Europe since the collapse of the Eastern bloc and the Washington conference in 1998.

These articles present the facts of the 15 case stories described in detail in the book. They tell of the often intricate paths from "looting" to "restitution." Involved parties such as heirs, lawyers, museum representatives, and politicians have their say in interviews.

Click here for an account fo the exhibit by AFP.

Click here or a brief description of the exhibition at Artdaily.org

Ibram Lassaw (1913-2003) Sculpture and Drawings on View in Matera, Italy until October 18th

Not Jewish Art, but a Major Jewish Artist: Retrospective Exhibition of Ibram Lassaw (1913-2003) Sculpture and Drawings on View in Matera, Italy until October 18th
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) One of the major retrospective exhibitions of an American and Jewish artist this year has gone virtually unnoticed in the US press. But in Italy, where the major exhibition of sculptor Ibram Lassaw’s work has been dramatically mounted in the Sassi (caves & cliffs) of the southern Italian town of Matera, Lassaw’s work has received extensive coverage, with over 80 newspapers articles heralding his work.

"The Great Exhibition in the Sassi" 2008 opened June 14, 2008 and will be on view until October 18 2008. The exhibition features approximately 80 sculptures and 50 drawings made from 1929 to 1996, loaned from the Ibram Lassaw Foundation in East Hampton, NY and from private American collections and museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art; Heckscher Museum of Art - Huntington; Guild Hall Museum - East Hampton; New Jersey State Museum - Trenton; Neuberger Museum- Purchase and from the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice. The exhibition is co-curators Giuseppe Appella and Ellen Russotto, illustrate in depth Lassaw's artistic life.

Lassaw was born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1913. He moved to New York in 1921 and died in East Hampton in 2003. He began to make abstract sculpture in the 1930s, and over the new two decades he strove to create a formal balance between geometric and organic form. He was one of the most important American artists of the "New York School". His can also currently be seen in the exhibition Action / Abstraction at the Jewish Museum in New York.

Lassaw also was part of the first generation of abstract artists who made work for synagogues. One his greatest works was the sculpture designed for the bimah and Ark wall at Port Chester’s Congregation Knesseth Tifereth Israel designed by Philip Johnson. The work was recently removed from the synagogue in a redesign and is now part of the permanent collection of the Jewish Museum, New York (for more on this work and its context see my book American Synagogues: A Century of Architecture and Jewish Community (Rizzoli, 2003). An Eternal Light from the synagogue appeared like a metallic sunburst. Atypically, it hung off center, to the left of the Ark. A large screen of welded copper, bronze and aluminum wire formed a backdrop to the bimah and Ark. The intricate wire pattern appears as graffiti-like drawing against a white painted backing. This work, entitled “Creation” measures 12 by 34 feet and projects one foot out from the wall plane. Lassaw, in a letter of 1986, described the work this way; “I think of it as a symphony structured in space rather than sound. It is an offering in praise and wonder of the living universe, without intending to portray the universe. One might say it is inspired by the starry fields, the galaxies and galactic clusters of which we are a part. These are not symbols but only what is there before you.” As I wrote in 2003, “One can view Lassaw’s ethereal ordered disorder as an antidote to the inspired, but still stolid geometry of Johnson’s modernism, or one can view it as the chaos of creation out of which God created the order of man’s thought and action, described by the laws and traditions of Judaism, and embodied in the purpose and form of this synagogue.”

Lassaw also created synagogue art for Temple Beth El in Springfield, Massachusetts designed by Percival Goodman. There his menorah and eternal light were much less assertive. They were essentially wire sculptures made of welded metal rods, similar to some of the pieces on view in Matera. They are transparent and appear to float in a sanctuary that is warmer and more engaging than the Congegration Kneses Tifereth Israel.

I asked Lassaw’s daughter Denise how her father’s work came to be in Matera, and why now? She told me that Lassaw was in a group exhibition Sculptura in America installed in Matera in 1990 by the Museo della Scultura Contemporanea Matera (MUSMA), which opened that same year in the Sassi, the extensive cliffs of cave dwelling (natural and man made) in which residents of Matera have lived for millennia. The museum is in two places in the Sassi: a dedicated museum that is part cave and part building; and lower down the gorge, a series of interconnected Sassi, old churches with frescoes and Neolithic storage pits; that all open to the gorge and the river below, amid the tangle of small bushes and trees, goats with bells. The Lassaw exhibition is in both places.

MUSMA is dedicated to sculpture and alternates between featuring an American or an Italian work each year. It was founded by men who grew up in Matera and played in the caves (Sassi) as kids. When in 1990 MUSMA flew all the sculptors and their families to Matera for the show, Ibram fell in love with the Sassi and loved the way his work looked in the caves. Denise feels her father would have been very pleased with the installation. She says, “These Italians really know how to do things nicely!”

For those who do not know Matera, its unique mix of landscape and architecture create one of the most unworldly and evocative environments in Europe. Though in antiquity and the Early Middle Ages there were hundreds of Jewish communities scattered across Southern Italy (remains can be seen not far form Matera in Venosa and Trani), there are no Jewish monuments known in Matera . But because to many, the landscape evokes ancient Judea, the Sassi have been a backdrop for many Biblical films ranging from Pasolini’s Gospel According to Saint Matthew (1964) to Bruce Beresford’s visually stunning King David starring Richard Gere (1985). In the post-World War II period “optimistic modernism” the Sassi were deemed unhealthy slums, and beginning in the 1950s the Italian government began a program of forced relocation of Sassi residents. The museum is part of more recent program and to reclaim and preserve the Sassi, and today, they are a major part of the tourist and artisan economy of the region.

Tom Freudenheim Remembers Tzali Narkiss

Tom Freundenheim Remembers Tzali Narkiss

Last month I wrote about the death of Bezalel Narkiss, founder of the Center for Jewish Art at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

Here, I post the words or remembrance by my friend Tom Freudenheim, long active in the world of Jewish art amd museums, and member of the Board of Directors of the Foundation for Jewish Culture:

REMEMBERING BEZALEL NARKISS

The recent passing, on June 29, 2008, of Professor Bezalel Narkiss in Jerusalem reminds us of how the world of Jewish art has expanded in past decades. When I was working at the Jewish Museum (NYC) in the early 1960's, the field of Jewish art scholarship was relatively small, populated by European scholars who had moved to greener pastures (e.g., Richard Krautheimer) or Jewish scholars limited in the scope of their understanding of art history (e.g. Cecil Roth). The fingers of two hands would have more than sufficed for taking the census in this field. Tzali Narkiss is emblematic of how much changed in the intervening years. If ever there were yiches in this field, he carried them. His father, Mordecai Narkiss, was the first director of the Bezalel Museum, which ultimately became the extraordinary Israel Museum. And he carried the name of the eponymous first "Jewish artist" Bezalel (we read about him in Exodus), who was appointed by God to manage the building of the Tabernacle and its implements.

After studying at the Hebrew University, Narkiss earned his doctorate at the University of London's Warburg Institute. In the early 1960's he helped found the Department of Art History at the Hebrew University, where he served as a professor for many years. training several generations of art historians -- many of them now working in museums and universities in Israel and throughout the world. He founded the Index of Jewish Art, the Journal of Jewish Art, and the Center for Jewish Art -- each of which now maintain a central position in the world of Jewish scholarship. Among his many important appointments, he was a Senior Fellow at Harvard University's Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Study in Washington, D.C., at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and the CNRS in Paris. He was also a guest professor at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and at Brown University, Samuel H. Kress Professor in the Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. and a visiting professor at Princeton University.

Narkiss' many publications added immeasurably to the field of Jewish art studies, especially in the area of his special expertise, medieval and Renaissance Hebrew illuminated manuscripts. In 1999 he was awarded the Israel Prize. I last visited with him in Jerusalem in April 2006, and thinking back on that day I realize all of the above doesn't really describe Tzali Narkiss. He was a friend of "everyone" in the field, warm and affable, with a sparkling sense of humor, generous in discussing art historical issues, and certainly one of the people who has helped secure Israel's world-wide scholarly prominence.
--Tom L. Freudenheim, Foundation for Jewish Culture, Board of Directors

Last Week in NYC of Warhol’s Jews

Last Week in NYC of Warhol’s Jews: Ten Portraits Reconsidered at Jewish Museum (New York), with catalogue by Richard Mayer with contributions by Gabriel de Guzman (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008).

The retrospective exhibition “Warhol’s Jews: Ten Portraits Reconsidered” will close at the Jewish Museum in New York on August 3, 2008. At this exhibition of these 1980 prints and paintings, Jewish history meets Pop history, providing a good lens through which to view secular Jews’ views of themselves in late 20^th century America. Though these portraits of famous 20^th Warhol was attracted to faces (he preferred Golda Meir and Martin Buber to Louis Brandeis), and he treated the Jewish luminaries to the same technique he used for society arrivistes and rock stars. But this project was conceived, researched, organized and presented by Jews who embraced it and appreciated Warhol’s no-nonsense non-discriminatory portraiture. Looking back, it represents a moment when American Jews – now part of the post-1960s ethnic-pride movement, were willing to publicly celebrate famous Jews for their Jewishness, not just their achievements. For the previous 150 years American Jews have been hearing the mantra “we must be judged as contributing Americans – not just as Jews.” Suddenly Jews were felt secure enough to publicly play the game of “Who’s a Jew?” with a positive spin. Not since the early days of Zionism, when European artists such as Alfred Nossig created popular works of Jewish heroes (but those figures were biblical, not contemporary) had art and public relations merged so effectively on behalf of Jews. Warhol’s famous Jews express a moment of Jewish pride. Whether critics declare them more kitsch than art or vice versa, no one can see them either ironic or “Too Jewish.” century Jews were, like all of Warhol’s AD-ventures of this period, a commercial enterprise, Warhol was no Philip Johnson, - accommodating Jews as a career move. Warhol and the (Jewish) art dealer Ronald Feldman seemed to have entered into this venture in the mutual spirit of naiveté, discovery and fun.

The show will on view at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco from October 12^, 2008 through January 25, 2009. The well-illustrated catalogue provides a straight-forward background essay on the history of the original project and on how these images have been subsequently perceived. Embracing the project as an opportunity for Jewish education, perhaps on the assumption that more people are familiar with Warhol than with Martin Buber or Sarah Bernhardt (who was baptized a Catholic), the catalogue also provides biographies of all the Jews depicted.

For more information see: www.thejewishmuseum.org

Latvia: Wooden synagogue in Subate faces collapse

Latvia: Wooden synagogue in Subate faces collapse
by Samuel D. Gruber

photo: Sergey Kravtsov/Center for Jewish Art

(ISJM) Architectural historian Sergey Kravtsov of the Center for Jewish Art (Jerusalem) reports that an abandoned wooden synagogue in Subate, Latvia documented a month ago is in serious danger of collapse. The wooden synagogue in Subate was built in 1880 as a Chabad synagogue, and somehow survived the Second World War, when so many other wooden synagogues in the region were burned. After the war, the building was used as a garage, and it was later
abandoned. Now its roof is in terrible condition, and according to Kravtsov, it is not likely to survive a heavy snowfall. Still, it has managed to survive this far, and the walls appear to be fairly strong.

The documentation at Subate is part of a survey of the synagogues of Latvia begun last fall by the Center in partnership with the Mr. Meijer Melers and the Jewish Museum of Riga. According to Melers and Kravtsov, Latvia once had 280 synagogues (Old photos and information about many of these are illustrated in the large volume, Latvia Synagogues and Rabbis 1918-1940, edited by Rabbi Menachim Barkin and published by the Jewish Community of Latvia in 2005). Today, 43 synagogue buildings are known to exist. Most are masonry buildings, the rest are made of wood.

In discussing the situation at Subate with ISJM, Kravtsov and Melers both addressed the financial and logistical difficulties involved in saving the synagogue; it in unlikely to gain support given its out-of-the-way location and lack of local sponsor. However, there is the tradition and possibility the building could be moved to an outdoor architectural museum (scansan) where it would be protected and widely viewed. This is a solution that has been carried out for several 19^th century wood-frame synagogues in the United States. Other synagogues from around the world have been moved, at least in part, and re-assembled with varying degrees of success in Israel. For now, funds are needed to carry out “first-aid” in situ repairs to rotten sections, and to evaluate the overall building condition to see if moving and re-erection is even possible. One challenge to including the synagogue at the scansan would be the need to reconstruct to some degree the interior arrangement – all of which is now lost.

Subate (Yiddish: Shubitz or Subitz) was a modest Jewish center near the Lithuanian border. For history and photos of the Jewish cemetery and mass grave sites see:
http://www.jewishgen.org/latvia/subate.html

See Sergey Kravtsov, “Survey of Synagogues in Latvia,” in bet-tfila.org/info Nr. 6 on-line at http://www.bet-tfila.org/data/info-pr-0207.pdf., pp. 6-7.

Death of Prof. Bezalel (Tzali) Narkiss (1926-2008)

Death of Professor Bezalel Narkiss, Founder of Center for Jewish Art
By Samuel D. Gruber

It is with deep sadness that I report the death last week of Professor Bezalel Narkiss, Nicholas Landau Professor Emeritus of Art History at The Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Professor Narkiss – or Tzali to generations of students and colleagues - was one of the world's foremost scholars and teachers of Jewish art, and the founder and former director of the Center for Jewish art at Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Professor Narkiss was born in Jerusalem in 1926 and educated at The Hebrew University, and the Courtauld and Warburg Institutes at the University of London, from where he received his Ph.D. in 1962. His dissertation on the Golden Haggadah was just one of his many close examinations of Hebrew illuminated manuscripts. That work began a lifetime commitment to the study and presentation of Hebrew Illuminated manuscripts in the British Isles.

In 1974 Tzali founded the Index of Jewish Art, modeled after the Index of Christian Art at Princeton University. From this effort grew the Center for Jewish Art at Hebrew University, founded in 1979, and since then the major research engine for the identification and study of Jewish art worldwide, and especially the iconography of Jewish art as found in illuminated manuscripts, wall paintings and a wide variety of ritual objects. In more recent years the Center has also turned its
attention to documenting architecture, particularly synagogues. The Center, under Tzali's guidance, has produced several generations of scholars of Jewish art, curators of museums and activists in the field of documentation and protection of Jewish heritage. For many years, under Tzali's direction, the Center published The Journal of Jewish Art (Later Jewish Art).

Tzali Narkiss published scores of books and articles in his lifetime. He also served as illustration editor of the Encyclopedia Judaica in the 1960s. Through that important scholarly and popular vehicle, he helped introduce the diversity and richness of Jewish art to tens of thousands of Jewish and non-Jewish users of the Encyclopedia around the world.

Tzali was indefatigable participant in scholarly conferences, including the many important congresses which he helped organize in Jerusalem over the years. He regularly attended the sessions of the International Survey of Jewish Monuments held at the College Art Association meetings. I last saw him in October, when he attended and presented (despite his illness) at the important conference "Jewish Architecture in Europe," held at the Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany. It was a grand affair for Tzali, with many of his students and colleagues of several generations present. The conference celebrated the successful partnership between the Center for Jewish Art and the Technische Universität Braunschweig in the creation of Bet-Tfila, Research Unit for Jewish Architecture in Europe. For many of us, he knew and we knew that it would be our last meeting.

On behalf of the ISJM membership, I extend condolences to Tzali Narkiss's family and friends, and to all his associates at The Hebrew University.

For read more about Prof. Narkiss's work, see: http://cja.huji.ac.il/