Great Synagogue of Oran Algeria, 1880-1963

During the later 19th, Jewish communities liked to build large, confident syn­agogues. The buildings had to be big enough to handle all the congregants AND they also had to show that Jews were modern, educated citizens. So the synagogues needed to be architecturally impressive. By mid C19th, the Moorish mudejar style was adopted by the Jews everythere, reminding people of the golden age of Jewry in medieval Spain. Moorish Revival style was quickly adopted as a preferred style of synagogue architecture.

The Great Synagogue of Oran, Algeria

There were 17 synagogues in Oran, a port city on the Mediterranean coast of Algeria, by mid C19th. The biggest of them all, The Great Synagogue, was built and consecrated in 1880, although its in­auguration had to wait until World War One was finishing. Designed in the Orientalist style, it was one of the largest and loveliest synagogues in North Africa. This style was of course in keeping with the rest of the Jewish world.

Oran Synagogue, nave

I have no coloured photos from inside the building so I am totally grateful to the blog Une belle histoire for the post La Synagogue d'Oran - C. He wrote of the multi-coloured stained glass window which lit up the interior. On each side of the main building, the archit­ects created a tower 20 ms high. Three large doors, surmounted by windows, opened onto the nave. Inside, the aisles were separated from the nave by arches that supported columns of red marble. 960 solid oak seats occupied the ground floor.

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The Great Synagogue of Timisoara in Romania, completed in 1899, was one of the larg­est synagogues in Europe. This reform synagogue, built in the Oriental style in 1865, was said to resemble the Great Synagogue in Oran.

The Algerian war against French colonial rule placed the Algerian Jewish community in great jeopardy. Sleevez blog showed how the city's Jewish community of 30,000 people continued as best they could in regular life, but from 1954 on, the situation of the Jews deter­iorated. Samuel Gruber's blog and Point Of No Return blog discuss the utter destruction of the lovely synagogue in Algiers by a mob in 1960, but the Oran synagogue seems to have simply been confiscated.

France finally granted Algeria nat­ional independence in July 1962, but worse was to come for the country's Jewish citizens - the Algerian Nationality Code of 1963 granted citizenship in the new state only to Muslims. The end of this ancient community was near. Once the huge community had left, the synagogue was later seized by the government (in 1975) and converted into a mosque, the Mosque Abdellah Ben Salem. At least this wonderful architecture is being used again.

Mosque Abdellah ben Salem

Read: Haim Zeev Hirschberg et al A History of the Jews in North Africa

French Colonial Architecture in Algiers

Charles Célestin Jonnart became the French governor in Algeria in 1903. For him, the authority of French colonisation needed to be reflected in the architecture of Algier’s most important buildings, places with which the French administrators, business people and Pieds Noirs ex-pats could identify.

Architects J Voinot and M Tondoire were asked to design a public postal and telephonic institution that would serve this part of the French empire. Normally I suppose a post office would not thrill the hearts of citizens and tourists, but this building really was the centre of turn-of-the-century modernity. And to show you how central to the French empire this building was to be, you could have once found a Joan of Arc statue near by (although it was later moved to France).

Grand Post Office, Algiers

I cannot find anything about Voinot and Tondoire, but I can see what remains of their taste. The massive building, monumental and glist­ening white from the outside, took eight years to complete. It has a large cupola, two imitation minarets, the principal frontage which included three arches, a gallery on high, broad marble staircase, stalactites and engraved stucco. The ceiling of the prin­cipal room was and remains an architectural jewel. Even the main mailbox, used since people starting mailing letters here 100 years ago, retains its lovely floral mosaics.

Mailbox with mosaic surrounds

Was this French architecture or Algerian? What are we to make of the original inscription: “God is victorious”? This neo-Moorish taste was definitely intended to appeal to the Muslim community, with the added hope of bringing the two communities closer together at the turn of the century. Presumably Charles Jonnart had no inkling of the bitterness Algerians would increasingly feel about French control of their country.

Grand Post Office, central hall

In the interwar period, néo-Moorish designs became somewhat obsolete. But the Grand Post Office remained the dominant monument in Algiers' landscape, a symbol of early French colonial control. The most useful blog I found was Algeria Travel, for example the post on Algiers.

Napoleon - military leader with a great eye for science

Italy had already been conquered as past of France’s revolutionary wars, so in July 1798 General Napoleon Bonaparte could turn his attention to the next target nation. He landed in Egypt with a massive invasion fleet - 400 ships and 54,000 sailors and soldiers! Although the invasion of Egypt was not hugely successful militarily, I am interested in a specific aspect of the campaign.

Napoleon in Egypt, painted later by Jean-Leon Gerome 

Even before leaving Paris, Napoleon had already decided that he was going to pour resources into studying Egypt. Although it was a time of war, Napoleon commissioned 150 scientists and scholars to sail to Egypt with the fleet! The French General was not a scientist himself, but he seemed as interested in studying Egyptian antiquity as he was in military success and colonisation. Was his goal, perhaps, to enhance France's cultural prestige?

The Institut d’Égypte was a learned academy in Cairo, specifically formed by Napoleon to carry out research during his military campaign. The Institute and its scholars were divided into four sections: maths, natural history, politics and the arts. Drawn from the Commission of Sciences and Arts, the members didn’t have to meet in any fleabag hotel. The Institute was housed in an elegant palace near the waters of the Nile, so they could do their thinking and debating in a delightful garden setting.

Institut d’Égypte Cairo

The International Napoleonic Society showed how the Institute soon became the focal point for all of the scientists’ work in Egypt. Naturally it provided physical space for scholarly discourse but it also provided a bureaucratic structure to organise their data. And scholars in Egypt were not intellectually isolated - the Institute also corresponded with learned bodies in France, like the National Institute.

How much influence did Napoleon have over the work done by the Institute? It is difficult to tell, since the scholars valued their academic independence and presented papers on the topics that fascinated them. But it seems inevitable that Napoleon made suggestions. Appropriately the scientific papers that the members  presented were printed in Mémoires sur l'Égypt, the Institute’s official forum. Years later and back in France, as we'll see, these scientific papers were republished in the Description de l’Égypte.

Linda Hall Library of Science in Kansas City is another mine of information. As their Napoleon and the Scientific Expedition noted “meticulous topographical surveys were made, native animals and plants were studied, minerals were collected and classified, local trades and industry were scrutinised. Ancient Egypt was discovered — the temples and tombs of Luxor, Philae, Dendera and the Valley of the Kings. Each of these sites was measured, mapped, and drawn”, recording it all in meticulous detail.

First meeting of the Institute of Egypt in Cairo 1798, from Description de l’Égypte État moderne v. 1. Photo credit to the Linda Hall library exhibition.

Of course scientific expeditions had travelled to distant climes before 1798, but most of the earlier findings seemed to remain in the closed lecture theatres of universities and museums. On this occasion, either Napoleon or his scientists decided that their discoveries belonged to the whole world, via exhaustive publication. Thus each plant found and each tomb opened was documented in text, measurements and sketches.

It took a few years to complete their ambitious task in Egypt, the final meeting of the Institut d’Égypte in Cairo being held in March 1801. Soon after, the scientists (and soldiers?) sailed home.

In early 1802, under the orders the French Minister of the Interior and by decree of Napoleon, a commission was established to manage and publish the large amount of data. Hundreds more artists and technicians were added to the team, helping to collate, double check, write up and prepare engraving of the original findings. At first the team collated articles by members of the Institut d’Égypte in Cairo, but soon members of the Scientific and Artistic Commission who had not been part of the Institute contributed their data as well.

Description de l'Égypte, first books published 1809

The first test volumes of engravings were presented to Emperor Napoleon in January 1808 since he was the patron and source of inspiration for the project. The first nine volumes of the Description de l'Égypte appeared in published form in 1809. It took almost 20 years to process and publish the rest of the data; in total 37 huge books had been published by 1828. Linda Hall Library suggested that never before had a single country inspired such a monumental encyclopaedia of depth and splendour.

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The Institut d’Egypte, one of Cairo’s most precious scholarly archives, was destroyed by arson in Dec 2011. The building housing the Institut d’Egypte pre-fire was built in the early C20th and was therefore not the building founded by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1789. However it contained a unique treasure trove of 200,000 rare books, manuscripts and illustrated documents, now largely destroyed.

Institut d’Égypte Cairo, destroyed Dec 2011



Since this post was written, I noted that History Today magazine published an article called "Calamity in Cairo". Jonathan Downs wrote: As the blaze took hold protesters and soldiers alike ran into the burning building to rescue what they could while the fire brigade fought its way through the anarchy of the Cairo streets, only to arrive far too late. In the end some 30-40,000 works were saved. However the toll was heavy: the Atlas of Lower and Upper Egypt of 1752 is gone, as is the Atlas of the Old Indian Arts and the Atlas Handler, a German publication of 1842 from Muhammad Ali’s collection, thought to be the only remaining copy in the world. The most lamented casualty, however, was the unparalleled work of Napoleon’s savants themselves: Cairo’s own copy of the gigantic 20-volume Description de l’Égypte went up in flames.

All is not lost for the Institute, however, as Sheikh Sultan al Qassimi, governor of the Emirate of Sharjah, announced he would bear the cost of the building restoration personally and donate some of his own rare acquisitions to it. Neither is this the end for the Description, as several copies do exist in Britain and France; indeed it could become a further bridge to the old colonial European powers in the debate for artefact repatriation, exchange and joint ownership.



Thomas Cook, inventor of the package tour.

We know that during the C18th, only privileged young Europeans could fill their time between university education and career with an extended tour of Italy. Only the upper class had the time and the money to travel, and the classical education to interest them in Italy.

But by the early C19th the industrial revolution created a new market for travel: improved roads dramatically shortened journey times; industrial expansion generated greater wealth in the cities (not for everyone); and a limited working week brought with it the concept of leisure. Steam-driven vessels began to link Dover and Calais in 1821, and by 1840 an estimated 100,000 travellers were using them annually. In the same year the steamship Britannia crossed the Atlantic in 14 days. Steamers started to ply the Rhine in 1828, the Rhone and the Danube a few years later. And the spread of railway systems speeded up, democratised and extended the range of travel.

Cook's Excursionist poster

Thomas Cook (1808–92) was born in Melbourne Derbyshire. Brought up as a strict Baptist, Thomas joined the local Temperance Society at 17. Over the next few years he spent his spare-time preaching, campaigning against the demon alcohol and publishing Baptist and Temperance pamphlets. In 1833 Thomas married Marianne Mason and had a son.

In 1841 while walking to Leicester, Thomas decided to arrange a rail excursion from Leicester to a Temperance Society meeting on the newly extended Midland Railway. So he chartered a special train and charged his 570 customers 1 shilling, to cover the costs of transport and food. They travelled in open tub-type carriages, walked into the town centre, and enjoyed tea and games in the town's park.

Although his profit margins were small, the venture organising cheap train travel for working families was a great success and Cook decided to start his own business running rail excursions. Within 3 years of that historic 1841 temperance trip, Midland Counties Railway Company had a permanent arrangement with Cook who had to find sufficient passengers to fill the train.

In 1846 he took 500 people from Leicester on a tour of Scotland. They each paid a guinea to travel by train & steamer to Glasgow and Edinburgh, where they had vouchers for their hotels and were greeted with brass bands and cannons firing. Cook found many opportunities for people to uplift themselves culturally and morally via excursions to other places. Another of his greatest achievements was to arrange for 165,000+ people to attend the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park.

He soon went up-market and by 1865 was escorting to Italy “clergymen, physicians, bankers, civil engineers and merchants.” So up-market that in 1865 Cook moved his business to London. His son John managed the London office of the company that became known as Thomas Cook & Son. They organised personally conducted tours throughout Europe and procured hotels for tourists making independent trips.

Naturally Cook and his excursionists were attacked by traditionalists as “hurried observers, visible representatives of a modernity that was bringing intrusive crowds into formerly self-sufficient villages, towns and regions.” Times were changing. The new tourists, those “red-nosed people carrying red books [Murrays] in their hands”, were by virtue of travelling in a certain organised way, “incapable of the appropriate aesthetic response to the places they visited. They profaned the very sanctity of the monuments they visited”. Speed was seen as nasty.

Tour books included images of the sites the tourists would visit eg sphinx

International success happened when they arranged tours to Egypt. The Suez canal, which opened in 1869, was the door to the Empire of the East, and became a turning-point for Cook tourism. Egypt became a favoured winter holiday destination for wealthy travellers. This was due to the improvements in transportation AND to the status of Egypt as a British protectorate. During the fashionable winter season, Cairo was the playground of all cosmopolitan Europeans, as well as the new middle class tourists who were eager to participate.

By 1880 the Egyptian Government was so pleased with the Cooks’ operation that they granted them exclusive control over all passenger steamers on the Nile. In return, the Cooks undertook in 1870 to invest large sums of money in rented steamers, owned by the Ottoman sultan’s viceroy, and to manage the service.

By the 1870s Cook's Tours offered hugely successful trips to all parts of the world, opening up the Grand Tour to the middle classes. By 1872 Thomas Cook & Son was able to offer a 212 day Round the World Tour for 200 guineas. The journey included a steamship across the Atlantic, stage coach across the USA to the westcoast, paddle steamer to Japan and an overland trip across China and India. Posters and advertisements depicted the more exciting places that the tour would visit eg Cook’s Excursionist and Home and Foreign Tourist Advertiser. Guide books were sold in their shops, chockablock with details about booking, transport, hotels, tourist sites, health care, diet, dress and financial arrangements. Most travel needs could be found as well.

British tourists visiting Giza

By the time Ottoman power was coming to an end, Turkey was seen as exotic and artistic. Certainly Istanbul was becoming an important destination in the 1860s and 70s, but it boomed once the Oriental Express went on its maiden voyage in 1883. The return trip was of course fearfully expensive, but it was so famous and luxurious that there was always a long waiting list for tickets.

Thomas Cook retired in 1879. While Thomas had maintained the grand view, John was innovative and  understood that no detail was too small in the travel industry. At a time when popular tourism had been frowned upon, Thomas had struggled to make it acceptable, while John (after 1865) strove to make it respectable. They had succeeded in making travel easier, cheaper and safer for millions of people via what we would now call The Package Tour.

There was no problem in changing the management over to John Mason Cook and HIS sons. John had an ability to organise on a large scale, so he set about transforming his father’s business into a global name. Thomas died in 1892, his legacy for travel around the world assured.

Thomas Cook building in Leicester, built in 1894

There are several memorials still standing. Melbourne Derbyshire has the Memorial Cottages which were built in 1890-1 by the Cooks. They include 14 cottages, bake house, laundry and Mission Hall, and still provide accommodation for some of Melbourne's senior citizens. Thomas' birthplace in Quick Close Melbourne was demolished in 1968. In Leicester, Cook’s other house still stands, as does his statute outside Leicester rail station.

Built as a memorial to The Man himself, the 3-storey Thomas Cook Building in Leicester (photo above) was designed by Joseph Goddard with carved archways that are separated by small stone balconies and columns. The four stone friezes depict four of Cook's significant trips between 1841-91.

statue of Thomas Cook, by James Walter Butler, outside Leicester Railway Station

Of Gods and Men - monks and Islamists

The film “Of Gods and Men” (2010) is a true story set in the Atlas Mountains of Algeria.

The Algerian Civil War was an ongoing and tragic conflict that continued throughout the 1990s, fought out between the Algerian government and various Islamic military groups. The conflict began in December 1991 when the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) party was gaining popularity. The National Liberation Front (FLN) party, fearing a FIS victory, cancelled elections after the first round. As a result, the country's military took control of the government in a 1992 coup. The guerrillas had initially targeted the nation’s army and police, but by the time of this story, 1996, some groups had started shooting civilians as well. A truce of sorts was eventually declared in 1999, but by then some 200,000 citizens had been murdered.

I wish the director Xavier Beauvois had written something about the year and geographic location at the beginning of the film, to set the scene. Before seeing Of Gods and Men, I thought that the film was set in the 1950s and that it described the conflict between France and the Algerian independence movements. And since there were constant references to French colonial power in the power, it seemed to this viewer that Algeria was still trying to gain its independence from France. [Trappists live an ahistorical life, so it wasn't until I noticed a flat screen tv and attack helicopters in the film that I realised the 1950s War of Independence was not the setting]. Needless to say the setting looked totally authentic - the film was created in the very old, long-deserted Benedictine monastery of Tioumliline Morocco.

Eight Roman Catholic French Trappist monks lived quietly in their monastery in mountainous country, serving God and the people who lived in the impoverished villages beyond the monastery walls. Life was quiet, predictable and religious. They spent endless hours praying, reading spiritually uplifting stories, cooking, gardening, washing dishes, chopping wood and singing. The film opens with Psalm 82 being read: "I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes."

The monks being faced by soldiers, inside their monastery

The monks were ordinary human beings, of course. They missed their families back in France and they were fearful of the future; they may even have been keen to taste fine food, wine and classical music again. But led by the abbot Brother Christian (Lambert Wilson), they were committed to poverty, simplicity and living the life of Christ. David Stratton called their approach to life almost mystical.

The monks were not out of contact with the real world. They looked after the sick from the local villages, gave out clothing to needy families, sold their food products in open markets and helped with agricultural tasks in the villages. In return the Muslim locals seemed to have a true love for these elderly gents in their funny Christian uniforms, especially the doctor Brother Luc (Michael Lonsdale) who was superb.

Peace continued in its normal way until the monks and villagers heard about the murder of Croatian labourers on a nearby construction site. Why were the Croatian men murdered? Who would be next? The Algerian government certainly made it clear to the Trappists that their own lives could not be protected and that they should rush back to France on the first ship. Yet even when rebel soldiers invaded the monastery itself, armed to the teeth, the monks were reluctant to leave.

The most telling part of the film came, quietly, towards the end. The monks sat at their normal refectory table, enjoying a last bottle of wine and a last session of Tchaikovsky music. Despite the inevitable catastrophe about to befall them, the viewer could see their outer joy and could start to understand their inner peace. If it were me, I wouldn’t have been smiling. But then I wouldn't have stayed in Algeria during the Civil War, had there been an opportunity to escape back to France.

Monks voting whether to stay or leave

Richard Brody believed that at the end, the monks didn’t just salute the worldly in the abstract sense; they affirmed that their faith was that of secular European ideals of individual liberty and self-expression. As the monks were marched off to their death, they presented their readiness for sacrifice with not a thought of vengeance. Perhaps their monastic meekness might even be seen as a symbolic purging of the sins of colonialism. I disagree. I thought at the very end, we learn that bad men with guns will destroy good people who are pacifists.

But what is the take-home message to historically minded viewers? Not whether the tension between the monks is well shown, nor the relationships between the monks and the outsiders - the film is indeed filled with faith, austerity and the responsibility of the men to God and to other humans. My interest would be how accurately the film  engages itself in this modern tragedy, the Algerian civil war.

Would it have made any difference if Beames On Film is correct. At the time, 1996, the killings were claimed by The Armed Islamic Group of Algeria. But Beames wrote French secret service documents now suggest it was the Algerian army who had really killed the monks, as a result of some ghastly error. Would film reviewers have been talking about the nightmare of religious fundamentalism if they had known the national army did the murders?

Mary Slessor - a religious feminist in Victorian Nigeria

I would not, I think, choose a woman missionary worker as a role model for young women today, if religion was her only contribution to feminism. But Scottish missionary Mary Slessor (1848-1915) was different.

Mary Slessor (centre) and some of her charges

Mary was born in Aberdeen and moved to Dundee in her pre-teens when her dad was looking for work. Times were tough in 1859 so young Mary had to work as a labourer at a jute mill. Luckily she worked only half of each day, and attended the mill school run by the company for the rest. Old Mrs Slessor was deeply religious and it was not surprising when young Mary followed her mother’s values.

Mary joined a local mission teaching the poor and decided to dedicate her life to Spreading The Word for the Presbyterian Church. She was trained up at the Foreign Mission Board in Edinburgh and was shipped out to Africa in 1876. I was particularly impressed that she learned to speak Efik, the language of the Calabar people, and in time mastered it. Most of us struggle learning French and German in school, relatively easy languages in comparison with Efik.

Calabar region of Nigeria

Mary Slessor went to live among the Efik people in Calabar, now in Nigeria (on the west coast of Africa). The colonial power, Britain, maintained control of the country. But Britain seemed to be more interested in the maintenance of trade for importers and exporters back home, rather than in the welfare of the Nigerians.

This White Queen of Calabar, as Mary became known, took huge risks. She successfully fought against the killing of twins at infancy, adopting them instead, banned the eating of human flesh and tried endlessly to improve the status of women. Most important from my point of view, Mary  established hospitals for small pox patients and later made vaccinations available to the children.

In 1891 the British government set up a system of vice-consular justice in Calabar. Mary Slessor had established such an influence over the locals that consul-general Sir Claude Macdonald made her a vice-consul, the first woman to be so appointed in the British Empire. Justice was certainly done, though her court could be a little bit personalised and eccentric.

Mary Slessor Church in Calabar

In 1898, Mary Slessor returned to Scotland, touring the Edinburgh churches and talking endlessly about the horrors she had seen. Although slavery had been banned by the British in the Nigerian Protectorate in 1848, well before Mary’s missionary work started, she still moved Scottish worshippers to tears with tales of slave markets and cannibalism fifty years later.

It is said that the land and people of Calabar were changed by her heroic efforts. I am certain that her legacy IS remembered in Scotland because I have read all the reviews of her life. But it is also said that she is fondly remembered in Nigeria as The White Queen of Calabar or Mother of All the Peoples. I haven’t read any African reviews of her work, but I do know that when she died in Nigeria in 1915, Mary given a state burial. She had spent 39 years there.

Ten pound note with Slessor's portrait

The Mary Slessor Journal of Medicine is an official publication of the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital in Nigeria. The University of Calabar Teaching Hospital is housed in the former Saint Margaret Hospital in Calabar, a health care facility established in 1897 as the first centre of secondary health care in Nigeria. Mary's grave still stands on a hill some 200 metres from this teaching hospital.

It actually took some time before Britain recognised her contribution. Mary was the first woman to appear on a Scottish Clydesdale Bank ten pound note, in 1998; her portrait appears on the obverse of the £10 note, replacing David Livingstone’s. On the reverse, Slessor is depicted holding children in her arms alongside a map of Nigeria.

Slessor with some of her adopted children

Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia - colour, light and art

Sidi Bou Said sits on the Mediterranean Sea, in the very north of Tunisia. Originally a place of pilgrimage for visitors to the tomb of the C13th Sufi holy man Abou Said ibn Khalef, Tunisia's white and vivid blue town is still very attractive for travellers.

In fact when Lost T-Shirts wrote about the Top 10 things to do in Tunisia, #2 position was given to this town. "Sidi Bou Said, a picturesque blue-and-white-painted artist's town on a cliff overlooking the bay of Tunis. Follow the cobblestone street upward into town and get great views of the blue sea and marina. There are many small streets to wander around, and great places to sit and have a mint tea among a clowder of cats. You can reach Sidi Bou Said with a long metro/train ride from Tunis".

Macke, Cafe des Nattes, 1912, watercolour

Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc were the main figures in the new Expressionist art group called Der Blaue Reiter, formed in 1911. Vigorous forms and colours were the external expressions of their creative spirit, so I was particularly interested in their influence on other, younger men who joined this Munich-centred organisation. Did they enjoy vigorous forms and colours as well?

August Macke (1887-1914) had lived most of his creative life in Bonn, with the exception of a few months spent in Switzerland and various trips to Paris, Italy and Holland. Macke and his friend Paul Klee considered themselves as part of Der Blaue Reiter, exhibiting and publishing together with their more mature colleagues.

Two of Macke's and Klee's art colleagues raved about North Africa - Wassily Kandinsky had been to Tunisia in 1904, and Henri Matisse had travelled to Algeria in 1906, and Morocco in 1912. The results of Kandinsky's and Matisse's North African experiences could be clearly seen in their art work back home in France! Klee and Macke wanted the same experience for themselves. So Paul Klee and August Macke arrived in Sidi Bou Said on Easter Monday in 1914.

Saudi Aramco World noted that in the span of only two weeks in 1914, Klee created nearly 50 watercolours and hundreds of sketches; Macke took many photographs, as well as making hundreds of sketches and watercolours. Macke, more than Klee, was fascinated by Tunisian dress and the Tunisian way of life, and produced a series of sketches that have both ethnographic and artistic value. The two young men made some preliminary studies of sites in Sidi Bou Said, with Macke focusing on a cafe with a white rectangular minaret looming over it.

Sidi Bou Said, lanes, today

Half of France and all of Germany had never seen colours like the artists saw in Sidi Bou Said in those bohemian days before WW1. When painting or sketching in the bright light of Sidi Bou Said, the grey and gloomy skies of their home towns must have seen like another world to the young artists. Mrs. Darrow’s Adventures in Tunisia blog and Some landscapes blog specifically examined the different impact of Sidi Bou Said’s colours on Macke’s and Klee’s art. I recommend the two articles to you.

Just two years later Soldier Macke was tragically killed in a WW1 battle, but his version of Sidi Bou Said still interests people decades after his death. Note one discrepancy. While the Macke work was filled with light and colour, there was no  bright blue on the buildings. Apparently a French painter-musicologist called Baron Rodolphe d’Erlanger didn't apply the blue-white theme all over the town until straight after WW1 ended.

Today shiploads of German, French and English tourists arrive, going past the souvenir sellers and photographing Macke's view of Cafe des Nattes. And when people walk inside the town, it was and still is a labyrinth of winding streets, filled with flower-filled courtyards; heavy, vivid blue doorways; verandas closed against the summer heat; and unexpected flights of steps.

Cafe des Nattes, today

Because I was most interested in Macke in this post, I have almost neglected Klee. So interested readers should read the two bloggers (above) who discussed the impact of Tunisia on Klee's paintings. Klee was passionate about city architecture and landscape paints, and took particular delight in the lush gardens of Tunisia. In fact the palm became one of the central motifs in Klee's Tunisian paintings and drawings. Even more impressively, June Taboroff quoted extensively from Klee's diary, written during his stay in Sidi Bou Said.

Klee, The Tunisian Journey, 1914.

Ben Ezra Synagogue in Coptic Cairo

Readers will remember the beautiful Great Synagogue of Oran, 1880-1963 in Algeria being examined in this blog. This time I want to examine a syngagoge in an Islamic country that retained its Jewish architecture and purpose.

Ben Ezra Synagogue, exterior

The Ben Ezra Synagogue is situated in the Coptic section of Old Cairo. According to local tradition, there are two possible reasons for locating the building on this particular site. Either this was where the baby Moses was found in the bull rushes, hidden from danger, or this was where the adult Moses prayed to God that the Jews might be taken out of slavery in Egypt. Not surprisingly the synagogue soon adopted a votive role.

The land for the synagogue was purchased in 882 AD by Abraham ibn Ezra of Jerusalem. The Amazing Idiot Girl blog noted that like the neighbouring Hanging Church, the Ben Ezra synagogue was designed in the basilica fashion. It has two storeys, ground level for men and an upper gallery for women. The main floor is divided into three parts by steel bars, and in the centre is an octagonal marble bima/desk for Torah reading. There are 12 marble-like columns supporting the roof and 6 marble steps leading up to the wooden altar, inlaid with ivory. The synagogue is decorated with geometric and floral patterns in the Turkish style.

Aliza in Cairo blog has a lovely photo of the delicate ornamentation above the synagogue gate.

Since Fostat was the main Jewish suburb in Cairo, you would expect the synagogue complex to contain all the resources that a large, thriving community (7,000 Jewish citizens in the 12th century) would need. The synagogue precincts, for example, were meeting places for social functions. A large library was given a central position. The Rabbinic Court heard cases in a smaller building, behind the synagogue. A mikveh-well was on the site for religious ablutions. A market place, Souk of the Jews, was located outside the synagogue, attached to the outer wall.

Men's seating on ground floor, women's gallery above

This was the synagogue whose geniza or store room was accidentally found in the late 19th century. When permission was obtained to open the room, it contained a veritable historical treasure trove of stored sacred manuscripts, as well as bills of sale, contracts, letters and other secular documents. The collection, known as the Cairo Geniza, was taken to Cambridge University for preservation and scholarship. Ferrell’s Travel Blog has good links for the geniza.

The Supreme Council of Egypt Antiquities has indicated that the building holds a special spiritual value to Copts since at one time it had been turned into a Coptic church. Furthermore it is of interest to the Muslims since it was built in Islamic style during the Era of the Caliphs. The Point of no return blog recorded that Ben Ezra synagogue is under a government preservation order and the government has decided to use its own funds to renovate the building.

marble desk and marble columns,

looking towards the ark