Ruth Ellen Gruber on Pope John Paul II

Ruth Ellen Gruber meets Pope John Paul II as part of a Jewish delegation in February 1995

Ruth Ellen Gruber Remembers Pope John Paul II

Ruth Ellen Gruber has written a very column remembering Pope John Paul II on the occasion of his beatification by the Roman Catholic Church. Ruth says that "the Polish-born pontiff was the best pope the Jewish world ever had." (She may be forgetting Pope Gregory VII in the 11th century).

Here is the article:

At a Jewish time of reflection, thoughts on a pope and Catholicism

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

ROME (JTA) -- Passover is over and Shavuot is weeks away. It's a season when Jews traditionally take time for contemplation and reflection.

This year, I've been reflecting on Catholicism. Rather on the complicated interfaith nexuses between Catholics and Jews.

In large part, of course, this is because of the beatification May 1 of Pope John Paul II.

Critics have questioned the decision by Pope Benedict XVI to waive the usual five-year waiting period and fast-track John Paul's road to sainthood.

And JP2 had his faults -- his handling of the priest sex abuse scandals has come under particular recent scrutiny.

But the Polish-born pontiff was the best pope the Jewish world ever had.

"There have been few times in the 2,000 years of Christian Jewish relations when Jews have shed genuine tears at the death of a Pope," the eminent Holocaust scholar Michael Berenbaum wrote in a recent column. "When Pope John Paul II died, I -- and many other Jews -- cried."

Read the whole article here.

For Mother's Day: Remembering Ohel Leah Synagogue in Hong Kong, Built for a Mom

For Mother's Day: Remembering Ohel Leah Synagogue in Hong Kong, Built for a Mom
by Samuel Gruber

Today is Mother's Day in the United States, and because it is a holiday celebrating mothers, its naturally a sort of Jewish holiday, too. I got to thinking about in what formal ways Jews remember their mothers. Jewish comedians would have you believe that Jews never remember to call their mothers enough, nor can Jewish men ever hope to marry to the standards of their moms. Certainly American Jews practice a tough love with their moms - often publicly denigrating their mother's for their protective demands while craving their attention all the while.

When mothers die, their children say kaddish. In many synagogues, children have made remembered their mothers (and fathers) with donations of memorial windows and other furnishing and fittings. But there are few instances where devoted sons have built entire synagogues to their mother's memory, and even fewer that bear the mother's name.

One such famous instance is Ohel Leah in Hong Kong, built by Sir Jacob Sassoon in memory of his mother Leah. Sassoon also built Ohel Rachel in Shanghai in memory of his wife (a slightly more common practice).

I have never been to Hong Kong, and so have never seen the synagogue. I remember well, however, when it was nearly torn down in the late 1980s to make room for the new Jewish club of Hong Kong, which was to rise on the synagogue site after the historic building - one of the oldest in Hong Kong - was razed. There was talk of building a replica of the 1901-02 synagogue on the top of the new skyscraper.

Shortly after I began work as Director of the Jewish Heritage Council of the World Monuments Fund I began to collect information and write letters to help save the synagogue. At that time I think neither the name of WMF nor (certainly) my own made any difference, but over time the tide of local opinion in Hong Kong and among the Jews there shifted (or maybe it the leader of the demolition faction died) and a compromise design was settled upon. Development rights to the synagogue gardens were sold to a property developer in 1995, and this funded the construction of a large new Jewish Community Center, which includes a library, supermarket, swimming pool and a strictly kosher restaurant and the restoration of the synagogue. The restoration, completed in 1998 and reported to cost $6 million returned Ohel Leah's interiors and exteriors to their original state.

I hope that Leah Sassoon was pleased. Happy Mother's Day!

Exhibition: Prague Jewish Museum "Baroque Synagogues"

Boskovice (Moravia), Czech Republic. Exhibition curator Arno Parik in restored synagogue.
Photo: Samuel Gruber (2004).

Exhibition: Jewish Museum in Prague Opens "Baroque Synagogues"

The Jewish Museum in Prague has opened the exhibition Barokní synagogy v českých zemích (Baroque synagogues in Czech Lands) curated by Arno Pařík about the. The exhibtion is at the Robert Guttmann Gallery (entrance around the corner from the Spanish Synagogue at U Staré školy 3) and will be on view until August 28th, 2011.

According to Dr. Pařík "the exhibition seeks to chart in more detail than ever before a group of lesser-known monuments that uniquely reflect the history and culture of the traditional Jewish communities in this country."

The exhibition presents a selection of the Czech Republic’s oldest synagogues, dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with particular focus on their plans, designs and decoration.
the exhibition also includes many ritual and decorative objects form the Museum collection, including a Star of David, a weather-vane, a stone alms box, a brass lavabo, and a wooden Decalogue (from Roudnice) and other items.

Jicin, Czech Republic. Restored synagogue ceiling. Photo: Samuel Gruber (2009)

Many synagogues of this period have been destroyed. In an interview published in the Museum Newsletter (2011/1) Pařík says that there were 261 synagogues from the period 1620 to 1780, but that only 63 survive. A large number were destroyed in the Holocaust. In recent years a few of the surviving buildings, such as the synagogues at Boskovice (Moravia) and Jicin (Bohemia) have been restored.

I have written about these before. The exhibition includes photograph little known buildings, and significant structures that have been virtually forgotten. Pictures of some of these buildings can be seen online. The splendid restored interiors of other Renaissance and Baroque Czech synagogues such as Kasejovice, Kolin, Holesov and Mikulov can be seen in panoramic views on the website www.synagogues360.org

According to the museum "The exhibition is intended mainly for specialists (Hebraists, Judaists, historians of art and architecture, preservationists and architects) and for members of the public (including school pupils and university students) who are interested in Jewish culture. Most of the people who see it, however, will be foreign visitors to the Jewish Museum. The show will give them an idea of the cultural wealth of the Jewish communities in the Czech Lands and of the effective care with which this heritage is now being maintained."

The museum will be publishing a leaflet with information about the exhibition in Czech and English, as well as a catalogue that focuses on selected synagogue buildings as part of the development of synagogue architecture in the Czech Lands.

USA: Former Syracuse Synagogue Opens as a Hotel

Syracuse, NY. Hotel Skyler, former Temple Adath Yeshurun. Gordon Wright, architect, 1922.

Photos: Samuel Gruber, May 2011.

USA: Former Syracuse Synagogue Opens as a "Green" Hotel
by Samuel Gruber

(ISJM) In August 2009 I wrote (and posted photos) about plans to transform the former Temple Adath Yeshurun in Syracuse, into a new "boutique" hotel. This week the hotel opened. The building is still an impressive presence on Syracuse's University Hill, though inside nothing of the old sanctuary remains. The project includes many green elements and itsi s a LEED certified building. The "greenest" element, of all, however, is the reuse of the structure. The embedded energy and labor in the old materials and construction have not gone to waste, nor to a landfill.

In antiquity synagogue was places where visitors to a community could find refuge, a meal and sometime a bed. I'm thinking, of course, of the famous Theodotus inscription found in Jerusalem:

Theodotos, son of Vettenos the priest and synagogue leader [archisynagogos], son of a synagogue leader and grandson of a synagogue leader, built the synagogue for the reading of the Torah, and studying the commandments, and as a hostel with chambers and water installations for the accommodation of those who, coming form abroad, have need of it, which [that is, the synagogue] his fathers, the elders and Simonides founded.

-- translation from Meyers, in Fine, Sacred Realm, p 9 (after Levine’s translation)

The Syracuse transformation, however, is the first I can think of where a former synagogue has been turned into a commercial hotel, though many synagogues have made into apartments and private houses.

This was a compromise solution. It left a good building and city landmark and it has made an empty site useful, and into one what will eventually pay much-needed city taxes. Any residual "holiness" of the place had long since been lost, and its Jewish identity largely forgotten since for many years the Salt City theater group which occupied the space hung a large "Jesus Christ Superstar: sigh out front. the group was promoting its annual musical production - not a religion. Still, I am sure many former congregants winced when they drove by the old building and saw this adorning the site of so community many weddings and bar mitzvahs.

Here is the article form the local paper:

Syracuse's newest hotel has grand opening
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
By Rick Moriarty/The Post-Standard
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2011/05/syracuses_newest_hotel_has_gra.html

Syracuse, N.Y. -- Syracuse’s newest hotel held its grand opening today in the former Temple Adath Yeshurun near Syracuse University. Developer Norm Swanson’s Hotel Skyler features 58 rooms on three floors at the former synagogue at 601 S. Crouse Ave.

The Skyler — named after Swanson’s 1-year-old grandson — is the developer’s third hotel. The others are the Genesee Grande, which he renovated in 2003, and the boutique Parkview Hotel, which he opened in 2005, both on East Genesee Street not far from the Skyler.

Like the other two hotels, the Skyler is close to SU and the hospitals and medical offices on University Hill. Tom Fernandez, director of marketing for Swanson, said he expects the Skyler to draw heavily from the traffic generated by those facilities.

“We feel we’re in the heart of the ‘meds and eds’ district,” he said. Standard room rates at the hotel are $199 a night.

Swanson spent $6.7 million turning the vacant building into a hotel. The work included constructing two floors that didn’t previously exist. Some of the temple’s interior architectural moldings and other features have been retained.

Fernandez said the Skyler is only the third hotel in the United States to seek platinum certification in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design from the U.S. Green Building Council. Green
design features of the hotel include a geothermal heat pump, countertops made of recycled glass, and a system that automatically turns off the lights and lowers or raises room temperatures when
guests come and go.

The hotel’s lobby features stained glass saved from the former St. John’s Church in Oswego. The hotel also features two loft-style “tree house” suites. Fifty percent of the revenues from the two suites will be donated to the nearby Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital, Fernandez said.


Though the grand opening took place today, the hotel actually opened or business on Friday.

Built in 1922, the 35,000-square-foot building housed Temple Adath until its congregation moved to DeWitt in 1968. It later housed Salt City Center for the Performing Arts.

Swanson bought the building from the city in 2007 for $352,500. The Common Council last year approved a 14-year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement with Swanson. Under that deal, the developer could receive a 100 percent exemption from taxes on the increase in his property
assessment for three years, a 75 percent exemption in the fourth year, a 50 percent exemption the fifth year and an exemption that drops by 5 percentage points each of the next nine years.