UK: Skeletons Found in Norwich Well May be Those of Medieval Jews

Anti-Semitic cartoon of 1233 (during the reign of King Henry III) found on an Exchequer Roll. Photo: National Archives (UK)

UK: Skeletons Found in Norwich Well May be Those of Medieval Jews

A few years archaeologists excavated Jewish burials in Tarrega, Spain that showed evidence and violent death, and they put forward the hypothesis that the remains were of victims of a masscre of Jews in that Catalonian town, presumably an event from ca. 1391. Now new archeological evidence from Norwich, England points to the murder of Jews there. Skeletal remains of seventeen individuals found in a well in 2004 has been examined and researched and archaeologists and paleontologists now believe that these were Jewish victims - including many fomr the same family - of brutal murder.

According to a report published and broadcast by the BBC, "The most likely explanation is that those down the well were Jewish and were probably murdered or forced to commit suicide, according to scientists who used a combination of DNA analysis, carbon dating and bone chemical studies in their investigation. The skeletons date back to the 12th or 13th Centuries at a time when Jewish people were facing persecution throughout Europe....Seven skeletons were successfully tested and five of them had a DNA sequence suggesting they were likely to be members of a single Jewish family." Eleven of the bodies were of children from the ages of 2 to 15 with five of them below the age of five.

Dating of the deaths is not precise, especially since Norwich Jews were persecuted in many periods. They were accused in 1144 of the violent murder of the boy, William (of Norwich), the first recorded instance of the infamous "blood libel." Despite the rejection of the charges, the charge led to persecution and at least one community leader was killed. In 1190, at the time of the Third Crusade, many Jews were massacred in York and Norwich, where survivors purportedly took refuge in the city's castle. Still later persecutions including executions of Jews in Norwich in 1230. Jews were expelled from England in 1290.

Read full story here.

Germany: Colloquium on Cologne Jewish Quarter and Synagogue Excavation Results

Cologne, Germany. Detail from early phase of synagogue excavation. Photo: Samuel Gruber (2007).

Cologne, Germany. Medieval mikveh, looking up towards superstructure. Photo: Samuel Gruber (2007).

Germany: Colloquium on Cologne Jewish Quarter and Synagogue Excavation Results
by Samuel D. Gruber

I am very excited to be attending next weeks colloquium in Cologne, Germany, where the results of the recent and extensive excavations of the town hall square will be presented and discussed in detail. I first visited the excavation of the medieval synagogue in 2007 and most recently reported on the remarkable finds from this dig earlier this spring. I am thankful to the City of Cologne for inviting me to attend and participate. Together with the recent excavations in Lorca, Spain, the Cologne excavation is probably the more important work of "Jewish archaeology" of the past decade. Even though the site had been partially excavated in the 1950s, the finds really present an entirely new picture of Jewish history and community in Cologne.

I plan on writing some detailed articles from this meeting after the work is fully presented. In the meantime, here is the working schedule of the event.

Cologne, Germany. Hypothetical reconstruction of facade of ancient synagogue by Sven Schütte, published before recent excavations. Will now surely be modified,

THE EXCAVATIONS ON COLOGNE TOWN HALL SQUARE RESULTS

Colloquium July 6th/7th 2011
Cologne, Historisches Rathaus, Spanischer Bau, Ratssaal

Simultaneous translation in ENGLISH available for the whole congress!

For first Information please visit the English version [press „en“ ]
of our Website:
www.museenkoeln.de/archaeologische-zone

WEDNESDAY 6.7.2011

8.30 am Opening of Congress office - Spanish Building, Court
9.00 am Welcome
Jürgen Roters, Lord Mayor of the City of Cologne
Introduction into the Subject
Prof. Georg Quander, Head of the Department of Culture

SECTION: ANTIQUITY, EARLY MIDDLE AGES AND CONTINUITY

9.30 – 12.00 am
Sven Schütte, The Area in Antiquity
Marko Hocke, An Roman Architectural Model
Christos Vangelzikis, The Roman Thermal and their walls with stamped bricks
Marianne Gechter, the Written Sources from Antiquity to Middle Ages
Sven Schütte/Marianne Gechter, the Question of Continuity
Discussion / Moderation: Ulrich Klein

12.00 – 13.30 Lunch break (Opportunity to visit the Excavations)

SECTION JEWISH HISTORY I

13.30 – 17.30 pm
Marianne Gechter, Written Sources of the Medieval Jewish Community in Cologne
Sven Schütte, The Medieval Area around the Town Hall and it’s Phases
Ulrike Nusch-Schikowski, The different tiled floors of the Synagogue

15.00 pm – 15.30 pm Coffee break
Hubert Berke, Kosher Cuisine and Auerochses – The Archaeozoological research
Sven Schütte, The Infrastructure of the Jewish Quarter
Marianne Gechter, Written Sources for the Topography until 1349
Katja Kliemann, The Ashes of the Pogrom 1349 and their distribution in the Jewish Quarter
(Opportunity to visit the Excavations until 18.30 pm)

19.00 Evening Lecture , Historisches Rathaus, Hansasaal
Ernst Baltrusch, Constantine The Great and the Rescript of 321. Antijewish Predjudice or Religious Tolerance?

THURSDAY 7.7.2011

SECTION JEWISH HISTORY II / THE LATER HISTORY OF THE QUARTER

9.00am – 12.00 noon
Michael Wiehen, Latest Research on the Cologne Mikveh
Katja Kliemann, Ceramics and Stratigraphy – an overview
Elisabeth Hollender, The Epigraphic Finds from the Cologne Synagogue from 1349
Elisabeth Hollender, An Oldjiddish Text from the Cologne Synagogue

Discussion / Moderation: Johannes Heil

10.00am – 10.30 Coffee break

Marianne Gechter, The written Sources 1349 – 1424
Sven Schütte, The medieval Town hall and the Town Councils Chapel
Marianne Gechter, The written sources fort the Cologne Goldsmith’s Quarter
Sven Schütte, Cologne Goldsmith’s Quarter and its buildings
Sven Schütte, An Imperial Earring of the 10th century

Discussion / Moderation: Norbert Nussbaum

12.00 – 13.30 Conclusion /Perspectives
Sven Schütte, Colonia Archaeologica – Archaeological Zone and Jewish Museum – The Concept of the new Museum

Max Polonovski, A Future for the Past? Colognes Jewish Heritage in the 21st century –
Conclusion Discussion / Moderation: Johannes Heil

For Contact please do not hesitate to contact MARTINA HEMMERLING
0049 221 221 33422

Spain: Lorca's Medieval Synagogue Excavation Unharmed in Earthquake

Lorca, Spain. Two views of synagogue excavation with protective covering. Photos: Samuel Gruber, 2009.

Spain: Lorca's Medieval Synagogue Excavation Apparently Unharmed in Earthquake

by Samuel D. Gruber

According to friends in Lorca, the medieval synagogue was not damaged in yesterday's earthquake. That sounds odd to report, since the building is already a ruin. It was meticulously excavated over several seasons a few years ago. I've written about the excavation and the accompanying exhibition before. I am sure that the site will have to be carefully examined, but there were few tall elements to be weakened. The new protective cover over the site will need to be checked.

There were deaths reported in the southern Spanish town, and damage to the historic city town center. I'll post more news from Lorca and Murcia when I receive it.

The exhibition Lights of Sepharad was recently on view until March 27th at the city of Roman Theater Museum in Cartagena. Hopefully it was all securely packed at the time of the quake. Pieces of more than fifty glass synagogue oil lamps were found in the exhibition, and many of these were painstakingly reconstructed at the Archaeological Museum in Lorca.

Slovenia: Maribor Synagogue Becomes Independent Jewish Culture and Research Institute

Maribor, Slovenia. Medieval synagogue restored as museum and cultural center.
Photo courtesy of Kulturni Center Sinagoga Maribor.

I last wrote at length about the medieval synagogue of Maribor, Slovenia in September 2009. Ruth Ellen Gruber now reports the latest from Maribor on her blog Jewish Heritage Travel:

Maribor Synagogue Becomes Independent Jewish Culture and Research Institute; Calls for Participants in Arts Competition:

The medieval synagogue in Maribor, Slovenia, which was restored 10 years ago to become a culture center, was transformed last month into "an independent public institution serving as a museum and a cultural and research center dedicated to preserving the heritage of what was once a thriving Jewish community in Slovenia."

To celebrate both the 10th anniversary of the restoration and the new independent status of the institution, the Maribor Synagogue - the Center of Jewish Cultural Heritage has issued a call for artists to take part in an international competition called "Images of the Maribor Synagogue".

The synagogue is one of Slovenia's most important Jewish heritage sites and one of the oldest known synagogues in Europe.

Read more here.

Publication: Ilia Rodov on "Tower-like Torah Arks"

A tall Torah ark cabinet as represented in the Rothschild Miscellany, Italy (1450-80), now in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Photo: From Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages.

Publication: Ilia Rodov on "Tower-like Torah Arks"

Ilia Rodov has written an important and useful article on medieval Torah Arks, especially those tall tower types well-known from representations in many illuminated medieval manuscripts. The article, “Tower-like Torah Arks, the Tower of Strength and the Architecture of the Messianic Temple,” was recently published in the prestigious art historical Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, LXXIII (2010), 65-98.

Rodov's article accomplishes three tasks. First, he has inventoried the number of occurrences and described the variety of known Spanish, Italian and Ashkenazi Arks that meet a broad definition of "Tower-like Torah Arks." These include examples shown in Spanish Haggadot, such as British Library Mss 2884, where the Aron ha-Kodesh is shown as a substantial fortified architectural element; to the tall ornate Gothic-style free-standing cabinet-style Arks illustrated in Northern European manuscripts.

Florsheim Haggadah, ca 1465. Tall Torah Ark. Photo: Jewish Art, vol. 23-24.

Just bringing all these illustration together is handy. Previously, one could only find most of these illustrations in Thérèse and Mendel Metzger's (still indispensable) Jewish Life in the Middle Ages: illuminated Hebrew Manuscripts of the Thirteenth to the Sixteenth Centuries (1982). Second, Rodov places these Arks in the context of other Ark designs and also, but to a lesser extent, compares them to contemporary non-liturgical and non-Jewish furniture designs (I would have liked to see more on this, especially comparisons with furniture from churches and mosques).

Cabinet style Ark from Modena, Italy, dated 1472, that resembles a rusticated tower. Paris, Musee d'art et d'histoire du Judaisme.

The real purpose of the article, however, is found in Rodov's third task - to find meaning for the use of the tower form for synagogue Arks. He reviews how an early tradition of Ark design and meaning is linked to descriptions of the movable Ark of the Covenant described in scripture. He ultimately links the tower form to well known passage of Proverbs 18, "The name of the Lord is a tower of strength (midgal oz)," which seems a reasonable association. There is much more to his discussion of the Torah Ark as a "stronghold of faith."

Tykocin, Poland. Synagogue (restored) bimah. Photo: Samuel Gruber (1990)

I am also grateful to Prof. Rodov for including in the article the identification and translation of the inscriptions form the great four-pillar bimah structure in the 18th century synagogue of Tykocin, Poland. This is a building I refer to often, but am usually so focused on the ornate - almost Rococo - style Ark (built into the wall) that i have forgotten about the significance of the inscriptions on the bimah. Here the presence of Proverbs 18 is an indication that the "tower of strength" has migrated from the place where the Torah is stored to where it is read. See this "bimah-support" structure as a "tower of strength" is natural, since it not only symbolically supports the synagogue, but actually plays an important role in the physical support of the vaults and roof. Rodov refers to the identification and reconstruction of the Tykocin inscriptions in the 1982 Polish article by A. Pakentreger in the Bulletin of the Jewish Historical Institute of Warsaw. Four inscriptions on the bimah cite biblical references to towers (Song of songs 8, Proverbs 18, Song of Songs 4, and Psalms 18).

Although I have some reservations about some minor points and conjectures in this article, these are topics that cannot be resolved and speculation is welcome. Rodov's linkage of the Ark to the rest of synagogue decorative programs and painted inscriptions is very important (and his colleague at Bar-Ilan University Bracha Yaniv is leading the way in examining the extensive wall inscriptions in Polish synagogues). The time is also right to link the manuscript and iconographic tradition to new archaeological finds, and also to renew and further the consideration of medieval Judaica to make view it in both its Jewish context, but also in its European (or north African, or Asian) cultural context.

I will add this article to the reading list for my art and architecture of the synagogue class. Surprisingly, there are relatively few articles the investigate in details the history, design and meaning of the small number of essential synagogue furnishings and decorations.

In English, I refer readers to Bezalel Narkiss, "The Heikhal, Minah, and Teivah in Sephardi Synagogues," Jewish Art, 18 (1992), 30-47, which especially explores the use of a special room for the Aron in Spanish and Sephardi synagogues.

On the bimah, and for something more contemporary, I recommend "The Architecture of the Bimah in American Synagogues: Framing the Ritual" by Lee Shai Weissbach in American Jewish History, 91: 1, (March 2003), pp. 29-51.

Germany: Sensational Finds at Cologne Medieval Synagogue Excavation

Cologne, Germany. Fragment of slate tablet with Hebrew script for German-based text found in synagogue excavation.
Photo: courtesy Sven Scheutte/Archaologische Zone.

Cologne, Germany. Stone fragment of Hebrew inscription found in synagogue excavation.
Photo: courtesy Sven Scheutte/Archaologische Zone.

Germany: Sensational Finds at Cologne Medieval Synagogue Excavation
by Samuel D. Gruber

Cologne city archaeologist Sven Schuette has announced what is surely the most remarkable find of the continually remarkable excavation of the medieval synagogue and Jewish quarter of that ancient city - scores of fragments of inscribed slate tablets, some of which appear to have been used as writing tablets - perhaps by scholars and students - and some of which were possibly visible literary or historic texts important to the community. So far the finds have only been reported in local media.

Archaeologists have recently been recovering these and other extensive remains of the synagogue destroyed in 1349, during what is known as as the "Plague Pogrom" on Saint Bartholomew's Night, when the synagogue was burned and many Jews died within.

We now know that a synagogue had stood on the site since at least the 8th century, and there is strong evidence for an earliest Jewish presence on the site. Jews were present in the Rhineland in the Late Roman Period and I believe they maintained a continuous presence in Cologne, which was the major administrative center of the region until Charlemagne began to move his court to Aachen after his coronation as King of Franks in 768 (Schuette has been attacked for pushing for an early synagogue date, but the circumstantial evidence seems to support him).

At the time of the First Crusade in 1096 the synagogue was destroyed and many Jews murdered, but it was rebuilt. After the destruction of 1349 a small Jewish community was reestablished in 1372, but this community did not last long. In 1424 Jews' right to reside in cologne were revoked and the city was Judenrein for centuries. The synagogue remains today are part of the city's rich archaeological zone and part of the fine Archaeological Museum, which also preserve remains of the Late Roman and Early Medieval Cologne.

When in 1349, the night of 23 to 24 August, the Jewish Quarter was attacked and almost all its inhabitants murdered in what was one of the most brutal and devastating massacres of Jews in the late Middle Ages many people took refuge in the synagogue, which was then burned and subsequently looted. It is not clear whether Jews sacrificed themselves as martyrs or if they were attacked after taking refuge in the stone building.

Afterward, whatever was not of value - either because it was too damaged or of unknown use - was thrown as rubble into large pits or left it in place. In one of the pits - which may have been used as a privy and/or rubbish pit before the destruction - archaeologists are now recovering thousands of fragments of the destroyed synagogue, and earlier refuse from the period of intensive Jewish use. There have no reports of finding human remains.

Cologne, Germany. Fragments of synagogue bimah. Photo: Willy Horsch.

Previously fragments of the stone bimah (platform from which the Torah is read) has been found and published by Scheutte, but now many more have been found and archaeologists are also uncovering fragments of furniture, books, burnt parchment, toys, medicine bottles and even food waste. "It is the largest archaeological collection of finds from a German synagogue," says project manager Schuette.

Perhaps most remarkable find has been a collection of more than seventy fragments of slate on which extensive inscribed writing has been found. More pieces are still coming to light with inscriptions in Hebrew, German and Latin. Sometimes there are just scribbles or drawings, but there are also longer texts. A long poetry text literature from before 1349, is written in German, but in Hebrew script - possibly an important text example of early Yiddish. Only time will will tell what these text contain, already it is clear that we might have a new sort of genizah - though one not deliberately made by Jews to preserve sacred objects and texts to Holy to destroy, but rather an accidental genizah, where fragments of Jewish life and thought have been entombed for centuries by their destroyers. The inscribed tablets are strong evidence for the presence of a yeshiva or Jewish school on the synagogue premises.

It is remarkable that these finds - as well indications of the synagogues earlier history - were overlooked in the excavations by Otto Doppelfeld undertaken in the 1950s, which Scheutte, who began these excavations in 2007, felt required examination and continuation. But Doppelfield was working under intense pressures of time - whereas Scheutte has been given the opportunity, encouragement and budget by the city of Cologne to carry out a careful, continuous and far-reaching project. In the end the story of the Jewish quarter of Cologne, its historic synagogue and the vicissitudes of the Cologne Jewish community through the centuries will be told in a new museum to be erected over and around the synagogue site.

The excavation of the Cologne synagogue tells us much about the medieval Jewish community in Cologne, and also recover important traces of art and architecture. The excavation is also a new chapter in what I call the "archaeology of destruction," following especially the excavation of the demolished synagogues of Regensburg and Vienna, each of which was more systemically dismantled by Christian authorities for material reuse. Some day we may also witness the excavation of the great medieval synagogue of Budapest, which was burned like Cologne, with Jews inside.

Germany: Arsonists Attack Medieval Worms Synagogue, but no Lasting Damage Done

Worms, Germany. Synagogue after May 17, 2010 arson (showing damage to 17th vestibule to women's hall). Photo: DDP

Worms, Germany. Synagogue, 17th vestibule to women's hall seen from Judengasse.
Photo: Samuel Gruber, 1989.

Germany: Arsonists Attack Worms Synagogue, but no Lasting Damage Done

Five months after arsonists serious damaged the historic Etz Hayyim Synagogue in Crete, another restored historic synagogue has been attacked - but fortunately there was no serious damage. On May 17th fires were set around there the synagogue in Worms, Germany, apparently by pro-Palestinian protesters. The local fire department responded quickly. Reports say that police found eight copies of a letter that read, "Until you give the Palestinians peace, we will not give you peace."

Worms, Germany. Synagogue in in pre-1938 photos.

The Worms Synagogue in its post-World War II rebuilt condition, is the oldest intact synagogue in Europe. It consists of several sections built at different periods, beginning in 1170, when they rebuilt the building from 1034. The men's hall (1175) was divided by two columns on the east-west axis into parallel aisles of equal size. The ark stood at the east end; the bimah was between the columns. A women's annex, built at right angles to the men's section on the north side, was added in 1213. The synagogue is no stranger to violence. The first synagogue was destroyed during the Christian First Crusade of 1096. Centuries later, the rebuilt medieval synagogue was destroyed by the Nazis. It was totally rebuilt from the rubble in one of the first successful post-Holocaust synagogue restoration projects. It was reconsecrated in 1961 and is used as both a museum and a locus for occasional religious services.

Great Britain: Possible Medieval Synagogue in Northampton

Great Britain: Possible Medieval Synagogue in Northampton
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) Marcus Roberts of National Anglo-Jewish Heritage Trail (JTrails) in Northampton, England has presented evidence for the possible - even likely - identification of a site in that town as the remains of a medieval synagogue.

A survey using ground penetrating radar, carried out in partnership with Birmingham University, has identified stone walls and what appears to be a stairway and entry, possibly confirming known descriptions of the former Northampton synagogue which according to Roberts is recorded as a sunken building, entered by steps (‘and a fair and stately hall’) in an account of Northampton buildings before the Great Fire of 1674. An illustration in a bird’s eye view map of 1634 appears to show the same building where we detected the sub-cellar remains.

A survey of land underneath Kebabish (a kebab shop) and The Bear Public House, both in Sheep Street, Northampton, has identified what may be the remains of a synagogue which would date to the period before the expulsion of Jews from England in 1290.

Roberts told the Northampton Chronicle & Echo (April 9, 2010): " It ...showed what appears to be two walls going down 14 feet underneath cellar level. There was also a square or rectangular structure next to it which may well have been a stairway going down into the synagogue." Roberts further told me that "the very substantial building was a sunken structure in the medieval period, an adjacent wall in the pub cellar appears to be an up-wards extension and adjacent structure to the sub-cellar finds, which could thereby be a visible remnant of the synagogue wall or an adjacent Jewish building and is at least six feet thick."

Last year, an archaeological survey in Northampton discovered what Roberts believes is the site of a 12th century Jewish cemetery of the city. In the case of the new find, Roberts and project partner Caroline Sturdy Colls, a PhD archaeology student at Birmingham University, both warned they could not be certain of the nature of the remains without excavating the site. Based on the historical and documentary evidence, Robers is confident that Sheep Street was once home to a medieval Jewish settlement and synagogue. But even if the identified remains are part of a former Jewish street, much more evidence would needed to prove they were also part of a synagogue. One remembers that controversy and disagreement on the identification of the massive Romanesque structure excavated in Rouen (France). That episode is a lesson that despite the lack of many many large Jewish communal structures of the period surviving today, there may have been more than we presume. Not every significant building in a Jewish quarter or on a Jewish street need have been a synagogue.

But Roberts told the local paper "But we thought we would find the synagogue there and what we have found is an extremely substantial medieval sunken building."

To date there are no confirmed remains of medieval synagogues in England. In the 1990s a small structure with built-in benches was excavated in Guildford and was quickly identified as a likely synagogue, but experts now disagree over its original use. Excavations in London in recent years have revealed remains of houses of local Jews and of mikvot, but no synagogue.

For further reading see:

Alexander, Mary, 1997. “A possible synagogue in Guildford,” in G. De Boe & F. Verhaeghe, ed.s: Religion and Belief in Medieval Europe – Papers of the Medieval Europe Brugge 1997 Conference, vol. 4, 201-212, I.A.P. Rapporten 4, Zellik, 1997.

Blair, Ian; Hillaby, Joe; Howell, Isca; Serman, Richard; and Watson, Bruce, 2001. “Two Medieval Jewish Ritual Baths – Mikva’ot – found at Gresham Street and Milk Street in London,” Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society, Vol. 52 (2001), 127-137.

Isserlin, Raphael M.J., “Building Jerusalem in the ‘Islands of the Sea’: The Archaeology of Medieval Anglo-Jewry” in S. Kadish, ed., Building Jerusalem: Jewish Architecture in Britain. Vallentine Mitchell, London and Portland, Or., 34-53.

Spain: Roof Collapse at Former Synagogue of Híjar

Híjar, Spain. Convent church of San Anton, formerly a synagogue. Photo: http://www.hijar.org/historia.htm

Híjar, Spain. Convent church of San Anton, formerly a synagogue. Inteiro, view toward gallery.
Photo:www.comarcabajomartin.es

Spain: Roof Collapse at Former Synagogue of Híjar (Aragon)
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) According to on-line reports, last month a part of the roof of the 15th-century church of San Antón in Híjar (Aragon), Spain collapsed, injuring two people and putting the fate of the building in jeopardy. San Antón has been identified as the former synagogue of Hijar Jewish community (which numbered 32 families as late 1481) by researcher Miguel Ángel Motis Dolader. As such, it is one of the best preserved former synagogues in the Iberian peninsula, after Toledo, Cordova and Tomar.

Though to my knowledge no study of the building has been yet published, the documentary evidence as well a several still-visible features in the church indicate its origins as a synagogue. These include a niche (now housing a statue of Saint Anthony) that was likely once part of the Aron ha-Kodesh, and a well preserved raised gallery, presumably used by women. Recent excavations beneath the sanctuary floor have revealed the masonry foundation for a tevah. Overall, the building is designed as a simple almost cubic space surmounted by three large diaphragm arches that support the wooden roof.

In late January 2010 there was a meeting of cultural heritage officials in Híjar to consider what to do with the building, and the projected short-term and long-term restoration costs. It is estimated that repairing the roof would cost 90,000 euro, and the complete restoration of the building 370,000 euro. Local discussion of care of the building has continued for six years. No doubt earlier intervention would have saved injury and also would required less funds.

Híjar, with its Jewish Quarter, was declared a site of cultural significance by the Government of Aragon in 2002. The 15th-century Jewish community itself had achieved considerable renown in the decade just before the expulsion of 1492 when its Jewish craftsmen specialized in the trades of preparing parchment and in bookbinding, and Híjar was also an early center for Hebrew printing.

Recently several articles by Victor Aguilar Guiu in the local publication La Comarca have highlighted the lack of organization and planning regarding the care of historic resources by the town of Hijar in Aragon. Aguilar Guiu draws especial attention to the fate of San Anton, which had been identified as the former synagogue in need to care prior to roof collapse.

He writes that the “The destruction [over the past three decades] has been brutal: an eighteenth-century hospital, the remains of the castle-fortress destroyed by the government itself, several Aragonese Renaissance and Baroque palaces, a nineteenth-century church, the medieval rabbi’s house, dozens of houses of traditional architecture, mills.” Aquilar Guiu believes that attention to the former Jewish history and the towns surviving Jewish sites might be a way to spur more widespread attention to historic preservation in Híjar.

He and the organization regional cultural heritage advocacy group APUDEPA have especially called for greater protection and a care of the former synagogue building.

Robin Cembalest on Uneasy Communion Exhibition

Robin Cembalest on Uneasy Communion Exhibition

Just a few hours after posting my notice about the opening of Uneasy Communion: Jews, Christians, and the Altarpieces of Medieval Spain at MOBIA, I saw Robin Cembalist's piece in Tablet Magazine, which provides more insight into the exhibition. When Robin is not writing for Tablet, she is engaged in her full time work as editor of ARTNews (she was also my first editor at The Forward). Robin mentions Vivian Mann's links between the painting Christ Among the Doctors and the recently excavated synagogue in Lorca, Spain of which I have previously written.

The Torah in the Altarpiece

A new exhibition explores the overlapping worlds of Christian and Jewish art in medieval Spain

An on-line slide show from the exhibition accompanies the article.

Exhibition: MOBIA in NYC Will Open Exhibit on Representations of Jews on Medieval Spanish Altarpieces

Uneasy Communion: Jews, Christians, and the Altarpieces of Medieval Spain to Open at MOBIA (Museum of Biblical Art) in New York
by Samuel D. Gruber

New exhibitions of medieval art are increasing rare in the United States, so it has been a pleasure to see view the series of exhibitions developed over the past five years at MOBIA, the Museum of Biblical Art in New York City, many of which have included medieval works, sometimes important and sometimes obscure, but usually chosen for a particular reason and often elucidated from a new point of view.

MOBIA seems about to continue and perhaps expand this tendency with a new exhibition, Uneasy Communion: Jews, Christians, and the Altarpieces of Medieval Spain that opens to the public this February 19th and runs through May 30. The exhibition is curated by Dr. Vivian B. Mann, curator emeritus at the Jewish Museum and now director of the graduate program in Jewish Art at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Almost twenty years ago Dr. Mann collaborated to present artistic aspects of Jewish, Christian and Muslim co-existence in medieval Spain in the ground-breaking Convivencia organized by the Jewish Museum. This new exhibition promises to present Christian-Jewish relations is a somewhat different light, and through the religious lens of altarpieces that reference and represent Jews in both Biblical and contemporary guise.

According to the publicity from MOBIA:

This exhibition discusses the last two centuries of medieval Spanish history in the Crown of Aragon (the Kingdom of Aragon, the Kingdom of Valencia, and the region of Catalonia) from the vantage point of religious art, and demonstrates the documented cooperative relationship that existed between Christians and Jews who worked either independently or together to create art both for the Church and the Jewish community. Religious art was not created solely by members of the faith community it was intended to serve, but its production in the multi-cultural society of late medieval Spain was more complicated. Jewish and Christian artists worked together in ateliers producing both retablos (large multi-paneled altarpieces) as well as Latin and Hebrew manuscripts. Jews and conversos (Jews who had converted to Christianity) were painters and framers of retablos, while Christians illuminated the pages of Hebrew manuscripts.

The exhibition tells not only the story of this fascinating moment of artistic collaboration, it also provides a glimpse into the lives of these communities which lived side by side. Images in some retablos reflect the hardships of Jewish life in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: conversions, forced sermons, disputations, the Inquisition, and charges of host desecration and blood libel. Other extraordinary paintings project a messianic view of a future in which Jews would join with Christians in one faith.

I'm looking forward to this exhibition and expecting some surprises. One work that will be on view and is being used for publicity for the exhibition is an anonymous altarpiece of Christ Among the Doctors (click here for photo) from the early 15th century in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The painting, which has been cleaned and restored for this exhibition, represents the Jerusalem Temple as a contemporary Spanish synagogue. The "Doctors" include an assortment of Jews seated at their wooden prayer benches reading from (manuscript) prayer books.

A catalog is published to accompany the exhibition.

Slovenia: New Exhibition on Jewish Heritage in Slovenia to Open in Maribor Synagogue

Maribor, Slovenia. Medieval synagogue restored as museum and cultural center.
Photos courtesy of Kulturni Center Sinagoga Maribor.

Slovenia: New Exhibition on Jewish Heritage in Slovenia to Open in Maribor Synagogue
by Samuel D. Gruber

On September 6, 2009, the occasion of the European Day of Jewish Culture a new exhibition on the Jewish heritage of Slovenia will open in the restored medieval synagogue of Maribor. According to researcher Janez Premek a major part of the exhibition is based on research carried out by Ruth Ellen Gruber and myself in the 1990s and first published in 1996 (updated 2005) in a report by the US Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad. The exhibition will open at 11 in the morning on the 6th, and Premk will give a tour of the exhibition at noon as part of the opening ceremonies.

At that time the first release of the US Commission sponsored survey (1996) the government of Slovenia pledged to produce a book or booklet using this material to present and promote the Jewish history and sites of Slovenia – something that never came to pass. Meanwhile, the former medieval synagogue in Maribor has been restored and developed as a center of Jewish culture. It is appropriate that this exhibition be held in this space, and I hope that something lasting – in print or on line – comes of Janez’s efforts. He tells me that in recent years some additional site have been identified, and (partly through his efforts) more archival materials relating to the Jewish history of the region have been found. Dr. Premk tells me that there is a project in the planning stage to create an Institute for Jewish Studies in Maribor, perhaps as early as 2010. When I learn more about this, I will report more in detail.

The Maribor synagogue is one a handful former medieval synagogues that have been rediscovered and redeveloped in the past decade. This building, probably originally a double-nave synagogue similar in plan to those in Worms, Prague and Vienna, also served for many centuries a church after the expulsion of the Jews from Maribor in 1493.

Top: Piran, Slovenia. Zidovski trg., Bottom: Koper, Slovenia. Former Zidovska ulica.
Photos: Ruth Ellen Gruber/U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad (ISJM archive).

Other events will take place in Slovenia on September 6th in Lendava, where the former 1866 synagogue (now a cultural center) will be open with a small exhibition. There will also be tours of the Jewish history and sites of the town.

Lendava, Slovenia. Former Synagogue, now cultural center. Photos: Lendava municipality (posted on web at time of Center inauguration, link now dead).

For the most complete account of Jewish heritage sites in Slovenia see the jewish-heritage-europe.eu Slovenia page.

For more on the Maribor synagogue and cultural center see also:

Kulturni Center Sinagoga Maribor
(Maribor Synagogue Cultural Centre)
Židovska Ulica 4
2000 Maribor
Slovenia
http://users.volja.net/zemljicbo/
http://www.pmuzej-mb.si/stran.php?sinagoga-predstavitev

For links to events in other countries click here.

England: Survey begins of Medieval Cemetery in Northampton

England: Survey begins of Medieval Cemetery in Northampton
by Samuel D. Gruber

Seventeen years after the collapse of a culvert in Midlands town of Northampton, England reveal five skeletons that were almost certainly associated with a medieval Jewish cemetery, the site is finally being surveyed. An article this month in the Northampton Chronicle and Echo reports that Marcus Roberts, Anglo-Jewish researcher and founder of JTrails, a network of Jewish heritage routes in the UK, is leading the project in conjunction with forensic archaeologists from Birmingham University. The paper quotes him as saying "This is potentially the last unexcavated known Jewish cemetery in the country and perhaps the only one accessible for study, so it is a site of huge national importance." The cemetery was situated in what is now Lawrence Court (in what is now the center of town) between 1259 and 1290.

There are no plans to excavate here. Only non-intrusive means methods will be used to glean as much information as possible about the history and plan of the site. Northampton officials must be aware of the heated controversies that surrounded the excavation of what turned out to be the medieval cemetery of York, and the ongoing debates about how to best treat long-forgotten medieval Jewish cemeteries in Spain.

According to information about the cemetery on the JTrails website, which offers virtual Jewish tour of Northampton, the cemetery site was identified found by Mr. Roberts in 1992

by profiling the typical site factors of the other known medieval Jewish cemetery locations in England, to create a typical location profile, in terms of factors such as the typical distance from the Jewry, relation to roads and access, drainage, enclosure type and size. This was then matched to the known historical facts about the cemetery, i.e. that it had been out side the north gate on St Andrew’s Priory land. The final element of the deduction was the use of a surviving highly detailed 17th century map, which accurately showed all of the former St Andrew’s land and enclosures. From this it was clear that only one location, a tiny poorly drained enclosure could be the site which was eventually developed into Temple Bar and Paradise Row. It was possible to move from the medieval enclosures to the modern street plan as virtually all of the streets ran on the former field boundaries in order to maximize developments within the individual field plots.

The confirmation of the identification came by chance months later in 1992, on the eve of the Day of Atonement, when a deep culvert collapsed revealing interments. The finds were in a hole in the roadway itself, close to the junction of Temple Bar with Maple Street. The general area of the cemetery is Temple Bar itself, and a former row of house forming Paradise Row. It is now an area of grass, and young trees immediately adjacent, to the north of the street.

The skeletons comprised of three to five individuals. The three main individuals identified consisted of a female, aged 40-44 years, and two males. Unfortunately little more could be deduced from the remains, except that one of the males suffered an arthritic condition. Later, Carbon dating revealed that dating range of the remains was almost exactly that of the period that cemetery existed and was in operation. Also archaeological research was able to eliminate the possibility it was some other cemetery and it is now identified in the archaeological record as a Jewish cemetery.

The archaeological report on the find, while recognising the relict enclosure argument, argues that the siting factor was waste land behind a medieval ribbon development of houses along the high-way, though both positions are not in reality mutually exclusive.
In its day the cemetery would have had a substantial wall, with a gate, surrounded by a deep ditch. The cemetery also had a house for funeral rites, and lodging for a watchman. The house probably lay on the highway, fronting, and concealing, the cemetery behind. There was probably a narrow entry to the gate off the side of the house. The burials would have been in neat rows, with male and female burials kept separate. Most burials would have had tombstones set facing outwards at the foot of the grave.

This spot today is admittedly unprepossessing, but one should remember that in olden days the cemetery had an essentially rural location, surrounded by fields, partly fronted by medieval suburban dwellings along the then King's Highway. .."

Mr. Roberts points out that if the site had not previously been suggested as that of the Jewish cemetery "it is likely that the site would have been declared an unofficial 17th-century non-Conformist burial ground, as had been assumed when the bones were first uncovered and not accorded any protection as an archaeological site."

Also in 1992, Roberts identified a gravestone in the collection of the Northampton Central Museum as coming from the cemetery. The matzevah remains the only medieval Jewish gravestone yet discovered in England. In form it resembles examples from the Rhineland.

A full account of the gravestone can be found in a report by Marcus Roberts in Medieval Archaeology 36 (1992), 173-178, also avaialable on-line.

The matzevah (see feature) is now a permanently on view, as part of a museum display about medieval Jewish Northampton. According to Roberts, it is made of "Barnack Stone brought all the way from the Barnack quarry near Stamford."

Photos of the cemetery site, the matzevah, the musuem exhibit and other Jewish sites in Northampton can be viewed in JTrails.com photo show.

The results of this survey will be very interesting, and if successfully informative will give impetus for the adoption of similar respectful methods elsewhere in Europe. Also of great interest and importance is how the site will be treated in the future.