Germany: Multiple Memorials for Berlin's Munchener Strasse Synagogue

Berlin, Germany. Image of the former Münchener Straße 37 on view in the Bayerischer Platz U-Bahn station. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016

Germany: Multiple Memorials for Berlin's Munchener Strasse Synagogue
by Samuel D. Gruber

In November 2016, I was in Berlin for a few days and had the chance to visit more Jewish and Holocaust-related historical and commemorative sites than usual. I've already posted about the Jewish cemetery on Grosse Hamburger Strasse and the monument and burial section at the Weissensee Cemetery for Jewish soldiers who died in World War I. Here's information on a lesser known commemorative site.

The domed synagogue at Münchener Straße 37 in the Schöneberg section of Berlin, designed by Jewish architect Max Fraenkel (1856-1926), was dedicated in 1910 and was at the center of a heavily Jewish neighborhood around Bayerischer Platz.  It was looted but not burned on Kristallnacht (November 9, 1938), but was subsequently damaged by aerial bombing during the war years, and  torn down in 1956. The synagogue, which was a transitional structure between historicism and modernism, was notable for its large dome, and as one of the more architecturally distinctive buildings in the largely residential neighborhood. The composer Kurt Weill had a job as the synagogue choir conductor for a few months in 1921. 

Today, there is a part of a school building on the synagogue site, but the synagogue is remembered in the neighborhood in various ways. Each memorial corresponds to a particular phase of Berlin's facing the past and acknowledge the Shoah. There is an official abstract street level monument (1960s), a student-built collaborative memorial (1990s) and recently an extensive photo exhibit underground in the nearby U-Bahn station.

At the school, the original synagogue outline is remembered through garden design and in 1994-95 students erected a memorial brick wall on the school grounds to remember local Jews who lived in Berlin-Schöneberg. According to school officials,"the idea was based on the artist Horst Hoheisel from Kassel who gave stimulus on his "memorial from down below" in the framework of the 6th grade teaching lesson "National Socialism".

Berlin, Germany. Löcknitz Primary School on site of the synagogue at Münchener Straße 37. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

In front of the school and near the street is a more traditional monument, designed in a cubist style by Gerson Fehrenbach in 1963. It declares: "Hier stand der 1909 erbauten synagoge der jüdischen Gemeinde" (Here stood the Synagogue of the Jewish Community built in 1909).

Berlin, Germany. Monument to destroyed at synagogue at Münchener Straße 37. Gerson Fehrenbach, arch., 1963. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

Berlin, Germany. Monument to destroyed at synagogue at Münchener Straße 37. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

A plaque beneath gives further information about the fate of the building.  

Hier stand von 1909-1956 eine Synagoge. Sie wurde während der Reichspogromnacht
am 9. Nov. 1938 wegen ihrer Lage in einem
Wohnhaus nicht zerstört.
Nach der Vertreibung und Vernichtung
der jüdischen Mitbürgerinnen und Mitbürger
durch die Nationalsozialisten verlor sie
ihre Funktion und wurde 1956 abgerissen.”

In the nearby U-Bahn station there is a extensive photo exhibition on the history of the neighborhood. Since it was a heavily Jewish district in the interwar period, there is are many images of the synagogue and of prominent Jews who lived nearby. When I visited the station in November 2016, the former synagogue - already destroyed once - was suffering the indignity of having a temporary construction barrier interrupting the view of its full facade.
 

Berlin, Germany. images of the former Münchener Straße 37 on view in the Bayerischer Platz U-Bahn station, with a construction barrier further "destroying" the synagogue today. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016

Berlin, Germany. Image of the memorial wall constricted by local students on the site the former Münchener Straße 37. Photo on view in the Bayerischer Platz U-Bahn station. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016

Berlin, Germany. Image of the memorial wall constricted by local students on the site the former Münchener Straße 37. Photo on view in the Bayerischer Platz U-Bahn station. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

Bayerischer Platz neighborhood, including Münchener Straße, is also the location of the noteworthy "Places of Remembrance," (Orte des Erinnerns) project designed by artists Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock and installed in 1993.  The memorial, which consists of 80 signs which flatly state the dates and essence of laws promulgated by the Nazis in the 1930s to curb the rights of Jews.  This project remains one of the most thought provoking Holocaust commemorative installations anywhere - if one takes the time to look.

Berlin, Germany. Bayerischer Platz and "Places of Remembrance," (Orte des Erinnerns) project designed by Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

ABerlin, Germany. Bayerischer Platz and "Places of Remembrance," (Orte des Erinnerns) project designed by Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

Berlin, Germany. Bayerischer Platz and "Places of Remembrance," (Orte des Erinnerns) project designed by Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

Women at Wilshire Boulevard Temple (As Seen in the 1929 Mural Cycle by Hugo Ballin)

Los Angeles, CA. Wilshire Boulevard Temple. Warner Memorial Murals by Hugo Ballin (1929). Detail of Four Matriarchs on south wall. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2017. A better picture is here.

Los Angeles, CA. Wilshire Boulevard Temple. Warner Memorial Murals by Hugo Ballin (1929). Detail of Sarah on south wall. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2017.

Women at Wilshire Boulevard Temple (As Seen in the 1929 Mural Cycle by Hugo Ballin)

by Samuel D. Gruber

The Warner Memorial Murals by American Jewish artist Hugo Ballin are among the most spectacular works of synagogue art of the 20th century.  Ballin (1879-1956) was a classically trained painter who came of age in New York in the era of the American Renaissance (at the turn of the 20th century he was painting in the Donatello Studios in Florence, now used by Syracuse University).  In 1913 he gained fame for his extensive mural program at the Wisconsin State Capitol, but a few years later he began work as a designer for silent films, and soon moved to Hollywood and developed a successful career as art director, writer, and director of many silent films - often starring his wife Mabel Ballin. After the advent of talkies in 1927 he stopped making his own films and returned to fine art to become one of the country's leading muralists. In 1929, he was head of art at Warner Brothers and was hired to the task of decorating the new Wilshire Boulevard Temple. His  extensive historical, allegorical, and symbolic representation of Jewish history was financed by three of the Warner Brothers in memory of their siblings and parents, and was planned together with Rabbi Edgar Magnin. .  

I first saw and wrote about the murals for my 2003 book American Synagogues: A Century of Architecture and Jewish Community.  They hhave recently been meticulously conserved and restored by Aneta Zebala Paintings Conservation company as part of the larger restoration of the entire Temple, led by Brenda Levin, and the ongoing expansion of Wilshire Boulevard Temple facilities. The transformation is impressive and the murals are spectacular ... a unreeling saga in technicolor when films were still only in black and white.

Earlier this month, however, I was fortunate to have a morning to look at the murals in detail. Even more time is needed; the paintings are packed with historical vignettes, scenes, and symbols. They exhibit a wide range of design and painterly approaches and flourishes. The mural is brash and bold and executed with brio. The expressive, dramatic, and cinematic nature of the unreeling narrative was already remarked upon in 1929, and again most recently by Mackenzie Stevens, who sees the highlighting of the scenes as similar to the lighting techniques of the silent film era. New photos by Tom Bonner, published in the book Wilshire Boulevard Temple and the Warner Murals: Celebrating 150 Years by Tom Teicholz (ORO Editions, 2013, allow attention to detail that is not even possible on site where visibility of the high lunettes is still hampered by original (and inadequate) lighting. Caroline Luce also explores some aspects of the mural in her informative website about Ballin's extensive mural work in the LA area.

I look forward to writing more about the murals and other aspects of Ballin's career elsewhere, but right now I want to draw attention to just one aspect of the mural which is rarely mentioned, and that is the inclusion of many images of women in the narrative. This includes a prominent depiction of the Four Matriarchs of Judaism, shown seated as a group on the sanctuary south wall opposite the Ark and bimah, and set beneath the balcony and over the main door through which one passes on existing the sanctuary.  To my knowledge this is the first such representation of the four Matriarchs anywhere in the history of art.

Los Angeles, CA. Wilshire Boulevard Temple. Warner Memorial Murals by Hugo Ballin (1929). Detail of Rebecca on south wall. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2017

Los Angeles, CA. Wilshire Boulevard Temple. Warner Memorial Murals by Hugo Ballin (1929). Detail of Rachel  and Leah on south wall. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2017.

Today, among egalitarian Jewish congregations, the most widely accepted and popular  addition to traditional liturgy is the includion of the names of the  Matriarchs in birkat avot (the blessing of the ancestors), which opens the Amidah: "Praised are You, Adonai our God and God of our ancestors, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob [Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah], great, mighty, awesome, exalted God who bestows lovingkindness, Creator of all. You remember the pious deeds of our ancestors and will send a redeemer to their children's children because of Your loving nature."  But in 1929, I think this inclusion of the matriarchs in such a prominent prayer would have imaginable to only the most progressive Jews (perhaps one of my readers - more familiar with the history of Jewish feminism would know more about the early advocacy for this change).

The four women strike poses familiar from classical and Renaissance art.  Based on form alone, they could be Greek or Roman matrons, or even goddesses, muses, allegorical virtues, or sybils - as painted  by Ballin earlier in his career. There is nothing quite like this in Jewish art since Edward Bendemann painted The Mourning Jews in Babylonian Exile a century earlier in 1832 and now in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne, which depicts too mourning Jewish women seated next to a chained Jewish man.

Edward Bendemann, The Mourning Jews in Babylonian Exile, oil on canvas, 1832. Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne.

Hugo Ballin, The Sibylla Europa Prophesying the Massacre of the Innocents, 1906. Courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Hugo Ballin, Window in Tomb, Brooklyn, NY. Architectural League Exhibition Catalogue, 1907.

Rabbi Magnin, who had much to say about many of the Patriarchs and Prophets, said nothing about the women. But Dr. Luce speculates about their significance and also finds Mabel Ballin's presence here:

Like the female figures in his early paintings, Ballin placed the Matriarchs in a pastoral setting, removed from the realities of everyday life.  Nevertheless, their positions and poses suggest aspects of their characters and experiences as "Mothers" of the nation Israel.  On the left, Sarah, the wife of Abraham, looks down, perhaps disconsolate over her long period of childlessness or over the near loss of her only child, Isaac, at the hand of his father. Rebecca, wife of Isaac and mother of Jacob and Esau, holds a pitcher representing her hospitality at the well.  Rachel, beloved wife of Jacob, opens her arms in an embracing manner.  On the right, Leah appears disconsolate as well, perhaps because she is the unloved wife of Jacob. 

Confounding any interpretation of symbolism of the women is the fact that each of the women also resembles Ballin's wife, Mabel, suggesting that this portion of the mural is in some ways an expression of his love and admiration for his wife. Indeed, soon after his marriage, some observers noted that “traces of certain singularly attractive feminine features [were] asserting themselves more and more in his canvasses,” guessing that it might be because he, “unconsciously reproduces her [Mabel's] features in his work."¹ Ballin likely felt that Mabel embodied the qualities of each of these mothers and may have aimed to honor her contributions to his household by including the "Four Mothers" in his mural.

Mabel Ballin in Motion Picture Magazine (1920 or 1921)

Mabel Ballin in Judge (Dec 11, 1920)

Full human figures were not often represented in Jewish art, but there are many more examples than usually assumed. Images of women, however, are scarce. Before the turn of the 20th century we find representations of Judith on Hanukah lamps, but few other examples. This began to change when social artists such as Maurycy Minkowski, Abel Pann and others frequently included images of women (often holding children) in scenes of refugees from pogroms. 

Maurycy Minkowski, Po pogromie (After the Pogrom), 1905. Oil on canvas. (Tel Aviv Museum of Art)

At the same time, the first generation of Zionist artists more frequently included images of Biblical women, including Judith, often in heroic poses.  Boris Schatz created a number of relief sculptures with women subjects, and around 1908 Lesser Ury painted a striking representation of Rebecca at the Well (see illustration) which bears comparison to Ballin's Rebecca at Wilshire Boulevard Temple .

Boris Schatz, A Hebrew Mother, 1904, terracotta relief, 80x50cm. From Boris Schatz Father of Israeli Art

Boris Schatz, Judith, 1905, plaster relief.  From Boris Schatz Father of Israeli Art

Lesser Ury (German, 1861-1931), Rebecca at the Well, c. 1908, oil on canvas, Stiftung Jüdisches Museum, Berlin.

Teicholz notes that prominent placement of the matriarchs reflected attitudes within the congregation, where mixed seating of men and women was first adopted in the 1860s. Women were later counted in the minyan and before the 23rd amendment granted women the vote in American governmental election, women at Wilshire were made full members with an equal vote on synagogues matters.

These four are not the only women represented in the mural - there are several other generic women shown as wives and mothers.  Women are also represented in "The Messianic Age" in the western lunette.  In the spandrels over the east arches, there are scenes representing the sacred books, and the Book of Proverbs is shown with female figures, one weaving and the other giving drink to the thirsty, representing the passage about "A Woman of Valor." The Song of Songs is interpreted as a sensual love poem rather than an allegorical one, and it is represented by a beautiful and somewhat exotic woman seen in profile at the western end of the arches. With her feather headress, bangles, and chic loose outfit dropping in vertical folds to the ground, she might have felt as at home in a 1920s Paris nightclub as on the wall of synagogue.

Likewise, the image of Beruriah, the ancient Talmud-scholar wife of Rabbi Meir, is shown as a young and comely woman, looking over her husband's shoulder - either commenting upon or guiding his work. The large full-length image of Maimonides is shown before a supplicating woman and child.

Los Angeles, CA. Wilshire Boulevard Temple. Warner Memorial Murals by Hugo Ballin (1929). Detail of Bururiah and Rabbi Meir. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2017.

In the spandrels over the west arches are scenes of Jewish festivals and women are shown at both the seder celebration and lighting the Sabbath lamp. There is a decidedly pre-modern feel to these. The hanging lamp is one of the German Judenstern type, widely recognized as a Sabbath standard by it frequent appearance in the scenes by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim in the 19th century.

Los Angeles, CA. Wilshire Boulevard Temple. Warner Memorial Murals by Hugo Ballin (1929). Detail of seder scene. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2017.

Los Angeles, CA. Wilshire Boulevard Temple. Warner Memorial Murals by Hugo Ballin (1929). Detail of Sabbath lamp lighting. . Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2017.

USA: Modern Orthodox / Orthodox Modernism I, Beth David in Binghamton, NY

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Exterior. It was wet morning, and the concrete holds the dampness. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Front elevation drawing. image: Recent American Synagogue (NY: The Jewish Museum, 1963).  

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. One of two concrete columns at entrance to front courtyard. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

USA: Modern Orthodox / Orthodox Modernism I: 
Beth David in Binghamton, NY, Designed by Werner Seligmann
by Samuel D. Gruber

When I stayed over in the Binghamton, New York, the other week, I had an opportunity to attend early morning services at the Orthodox Congregation Beth David.  This small building has long been known by religious architecture cognoscenti as a masterwork of modern design; an example of Orthodox Modernism for the Modern Orthodox. Designed as a light box perched atop a heavy base; the small building is full of big ideas. In its creation of a welcoming unified space Beth David is a forerunner of the many small sanctuaries built since the 1990s that strive for "intimacy" and to create "community." Since it was designed for a small Orthodox congregation the sanctuary dimensions hardly exceed those used for chapels at the some of the large suburban synagogues also built in the 1960s.

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Sanctuary. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

 Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Sanctuary, view of Ark and bimah. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

 

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Plans: Recent American Synagogue Architecture (NY: The Jewish Museum, 1963).

The small building, set on an urban corner, was designed by Werner Seligmann and dedicated in February, 1964, at the time when Seligmann was teaching architecture at Cornell University.  The budget was less than $200,000 and the building lot is only 80 x 120 feet. Seligmann managed to pack a lot into this space and to accommodate the needs an Orthodox congregation, including two kitchens, mikvah, and places for congregants to store books and tallit, and also a well-designed hand washing station near the social hall.

Seligmann would later design the synagogue in nearby Cortland, New York, where he lived, and go on to be Dean of the School of Architecture at Syracuse University (where I knew him slightly in his later years). The scale of Beth David fits in the neighborhood of late 19th and early 20th-century wood frame houses, but the style is distinct. Constructed mostly of poured concrete and concrete block (polished on the inside) Beth David is a superb example of how urban contextualism does not require stylistic imitation, but rather a sympathy for scale and massing. 

As Seligmann's colleague Bruce Coleman has pointed out, Beth David has roots in the work of both Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright. The building was, still unfinished, selected for inclusion in the seminal 1963 Jewish Museum exhibition on new synagogue design curated by Richard Meier. Seligmann and Beth David also won a Progressive Architecture citation for religious architecture that same year. In his remarks about the project included in the exhibition catalog, Seligmann quoted Corbusier on form. The sanctuary design, however, especially recalls Wright's work (Unity Temple and even some early house designs. Susan Solomon, in her book Louis I. Kahn's Jewish Architecture (Walthan, Ma: Brandeis univ Press, 2009), offers an enthusiastic appreciation of Beth David and also links it to Louis Kahn's designs. 

Seligmann wrote:  

"...Hierarchy was quite clearly a problem. There was not enough room on the site to organize the whole axially with the sanctuary as the center, but it was possible to contrast the sanctuary to the other functions. Isolation is a powerful way to create hierarchical significance. This was all possible in the design of the Beth David Synagogue by moving the sanctuary to the roof top. ...By form I do not refer to shape, but to the ideas organizing it, just as we talk of form in poetry or music. Form in this sense is a matter of the mind, it is a way in which knowledge is made manifest. Architecture speaks primarily through its form and, as Le Corbusier says, "it will strike a chord in us, when form has been sparked by poetic emotion. Passion creates drama out of inert stone."

Interestingly, Seligmann makes no reference to the Talmudic recommendation that synagogues be located high up, nor does he refer to the tradition of upper story sanctuaries in Germany, his own country of origin (which he may not have know) and Italy (which he probably did). Nonetheless, the experience of reaching the sanctuary is one of "going up" (aliyah).

 

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Plans. Sections. Images: Recent American Synagogue Architecture (NY: The Jewish Museum, 1963).

The upper level is reached from either external steps to the roof, or more regularly from an interior stair lit by a skylight. Both lead to a glass faced vestibule that opens onto the roof and into the sanctuary. Seligmann planned a roof garden at this level, but like him planned garden outside the Cortland synagogue, this was never implemented. Consequently, at both buildings the architects interlined dialog between planned space and natural forms, never got started. It was left for other architects in the 1960s to carry this forward. The flat roof serves as both a podium and a frame for the central elevated sanctuary space. Practically, however, the large expanse of flat roof (which I got to know well, since got locked out there!) has caused problems over the years as do most 1960s flat roofs in the snow, ice and water filled Birmingham weather.
 

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Stair from front courtyard to roof. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. View into vestibule and sanctuary from roof. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

 Binghamton, NY. Beth David. View from sanctuary to roof and neighboring houses. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

The morning was overcast when I visited, but still the sanctuary glowed with light which entered form every side.  The sanctuary reminds me of the bridge of ship, one can look out all sides. For the separation of men and women Seligmann and the congregation eschewed the use of a gallery (which would have made the building that much higher). Instead the women's seating in included in the broad space of the sanctuary, but set slightly higher and to the side, and they face inward.

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. View to bimah. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

 
Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Bimah. Some new rails have been added for the safety of the congregation's aging members. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. View to Ark showing both women's and men's seating. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

A more common version of this plan, a favorite of mine for Orthodox shuls, was used very effectively in the early 20th century at Philadelphia's Mikveh Israel designed by Tachau and Pilcher and dedicated in 1909.  More contemporary with Seligmann's work is the Sons of Israel Synagogue in Lakewood, New Jersey, designed by Davis, Brody and Wisniewski and also included in the Jewish Museum exhibit. Seligmann would surely have known the early design from Rachel Wischnitzer's 1955 book Synagogue Architecture in the United States, and he was probably aware of the the Lakewood synagogue, too. Both these plans, however, have all the men's seating facing center as in traditional Sephardi and early American synagogue designs. Seligmann and the Beth David Congregation mix things up a bit; they use this plan and have facing seats near the bimah, but behind are seats facing front in a more common Ashkenazi fashion.Significantly, there is no mechitza in front of the women's seating and today it is practice to bring the Torah to the women when it is carried throughout the sanctuary.

 

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Sanctuary. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

 

Philadelphia, PA. Former Mikveh Israel. Tachau & Pilcher, archs. (1909). View of sanctuary showing raised women's seating on the sides. Photo: R. Wischnitzer, Synagogue Architecture in the United States (Philadelphia: JPS, 1955).

,

Philadelphia, PA. Former Mikveh Israel. Tachau & Pilcher, archs. (1909). Plan: R. Wischnitzer, Synagogue Architecture in the United States (Philadelphia: JPS, 1955).

 
Lakewood, NJ. Congregation Sons of Israel. Davis, Brody, Wisniewski, archs. Women's seating is off the edges of the photo behind a mechitza. Photo: Recent American Synagogue Architecture (NY: Jewish Museum, 1963)

The ground floor consists of a central flowing social area, from which other functional space open. There is a hallway to the small daily chapel on the corner of the lot, and to classrooms.  A curved stair leads to the second floor.

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Ground floor flexible space social area. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Stair to second floor. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

 

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. View across roof with added beams for sukkah and the top part of the daily chapel. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Probably the most used space at Beth David is the small tall chapel set on the corner of the lot, where as a block-like tower it guards the intersection of the two streets. This space is used for daily prayers. It incorporates the Ark and a stained glass window of lions flanking an open book with the Ten Commandments, which were transferred from the congregation's previous home. The ceiling seems to float on a frame of natural light which filters into the space. The reader's table is a permanent fixture made of a cast column of concrete.  Similar but taller columns flank the main entrance to the synagogue courtyard.

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Exterior of daily chapel on corner.  Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Chapel, interior. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Chapel, interior. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Chapel, reader's table. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Modest changes over the decades accommodate the needs of an aging congregation (shallow front steps changed to ramp, new horizontal rails on the bimah), and a few additions that are less sympathetic (air conditioning fixtures on the roof, and an ornate front door at odds with the modern style). In addition, wood beams have been placed across the front courtyard to allow the seasonal erection of a sukkah.Despite these changes, the building conveys most of the spatial and visual experience as intended and the small congregation appears to maintain much of its original spirit, too.

You can read the history of the congregation here.