The Great Synagogue Sydney, 1878

For an excellent history of Sydney’s first Jewish congregation, read Rabbi Apple in OzTorah » Blog Archive » A history of the Great Synagogue, Sydney. The formal establishment of Sydney’s first Jewish congregation came in Nov 1831 when “The Jews of the colony assembled at the Jews’ Synagogue held over Mr Rowell’s shop in George St”. Later interior alterations were made by Barnett Aaron Phil­l­ips, a carpenter who had worked at Drury Lane and built Aust­ralia’s first stage scenery in the Theatre Royal. The synagogue ark 1830s was one of the earliest pieces of religious furniture in the country.

Eventually numbers of congregants grew to over 300 adults, so larger premises were leased in Bridge St Sydney. When even bigger facilities were required, a building went up in York St Sydney. This new synagogue had comfortable space for 500 seats and was elab­or­ately furnished. Its ark, larger and even more impressive than that in Bridge St, also survives. The final move came in the 1870s when a site in Elizabeth St was purchased.

Pest Synagogue, 1854-9 [above] ..Brussels Synagogue 1875 [below]

The Great Synagogue in Sydney was to reflect the important Great Synagogue in the City of London 1788-90 in its practices and possibly its appearance. However the Sydney arch­itecture may have derived its inspiration from a number of different sources, including the Great Synagogue Pest 1854-9 or the Great Synagogue Brussels 1875 built in the Romanesque-Byzantine style.

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A comp­et­ition for the design for the new building was won by Sydney architect Thomas Rowe, who planned a building in the French Gothic taste. For financial reasons his plans had to be modified, so Rowe did not get to create his elaborate, dream building. But it didn’t matter; the foundation stone was laid in 1875.

Great Synagogue, Elizabeth St entrance, Sydney, 1878

Great Synagogue, rose window

The Great Synagogue was consecrated in 1878. This cathedral synagogue was built in sandstone in the neo-gothic style of course, but with some clear Byzantine elements. The most cathedral-like element was the giant rose window in the front wall, facing Elizabeth St and the gorgeous Hyde Park outside. Two square towers flanked the central compart­ment, terminating in beautiful domes, and the entire front was enclosed by ornate cast-iron gates (as seen in The Great Synagogue: Sydney sandstone tour Part 12, in the Sydney Daily Photo blog.

The interior of the synagogue was designed to maximise the sense of space, due to the height of the cast iron columns. The main décor­at­ive elements were the moulded plaster decorations, the panelled and groined ceiling, carved timber work, stained glass windows and gas-light pendants. As fas as I can see, the deep blue ceiling and silvery stars represented the night sky.

Interior space, men on the ground floor, women in the upper gallery.

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Sydney City and Suburbs blog showed a delightful photo of The Great Synagogue as it appears now, still beautiful but hemmed in between the two adjoining buildings. The building is heritage listed.

St David's Church Haberfield, 1869. Another Sydney building designed by Rowe

Keith's Site - Sydney Life - the suburb of Haberfield showed St David’s Uniting Church 1869 that was designed by the same architect, Thomas Rowe. In particular, note the square Norman style tower, not totally dissimilar to the square towers in front of the Great Synagogue, created just a few years later.

New West End Synagogue London, 1879

Another comparison will prove useful. The New West End Synagogue 1879 in St Petersburgh Place Bayswater, is one of the oldest and most impressive synagogues in London. Compare the date and the architecture with the Great Synagogue in Sydney.

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

Broken Hill: outback yes, gold rush yes, but Jewish?

As I suggested in the history of Ballarat, Jewish migrants came to Australia in response to the Gold Rush in the 1850s, where they largely acted as shopkeepers and traders. Thus there were Jewish communities in remote gold rush cities, including Broken Hill (NSW), Bendigo and Ballarat (Vic), Kalgoorlie and Koolgardie (WA).

Broken Hill Proprietary Company (BHP) was the huge mining company that ran the town of Broken Hill for its 27,000 citizens at the turn of the new century. 1100 ks west of Sydney, this outback city could not have been more isolated from the urban centres of Australia, nor more remote from the centres of Jewish learning. From Broken Hill, Sydney is 1,167 kms, Melbourne 817 kms and Adelaide 506 kms. Yet Jewish migrants were attracted to Broken Hill, presumably because employment was always available and small businesses always had a ready market with the mining families.

Broken Hill synagogue, opened 1910

Some early evidence of the community comes from the tombstones. The first Jewish burials in Broken Hill’s cemetery occurred when a typhoid epidemic hit the town in 1888. Other gravestones tell of how the young son of Rebecca and Isaac Joseph died in 1892, and how Louis Dias was killed in the mines by a runaway cart in 1895.

The Broken Hill Jewish community was formally inaugurated in 1900, but as there was no special building available, religious services were held in the Masonic Hall. The first minister, the Rev Zalel Mandelbaum from Minsk, was appointed in 1905.

The foundation stone for the synagogue in Wolfram Street was dated 1910, at a time when the Jewish population of Broken Hill was c150. The façade was roughcast stone brick, but the rest of the building was corrugated iron, a typically Australian material. Next to the synagogue there was a house for the minister and his family, the place where Sunday school classes were held.

Plaque outside Broken Hill synagogue, marking the opening ceremony, 1910

Broken Hill's great days were in the 1920s and 30s, but WW2 was the beginning of the end of this impressive community. All young male citizens went into the army, the mines were closing and the remaining Jewish congregation was thinking of moving to Melbourne or Sydney. In 1962 the synagogue was permanently closed, with fittings given away to a Melbourne congregation. The last senior citizens of Broken Hill’s synagogue, too elderly to move once again, eventually died and were buried in the Jewish section of the local cemetery.

The synagogue building has been heritage listed and in 2004 it was taken over and restored, without its fittings, by the Broken Hill Historical Society. To celebrate the centenary of the synagogue in November 2010, a programme of historical talks and personal reminiscences about the Jews of Broken Hill and their contribution to the town was organised. They also arranged a bus tour of places where Jews had lived and worked, a walking tour of the Jewish section of the cemetery, and a tour to the Miners’ Memorial Arch. 200 ex-members of the town, or their children, gathered in the restored synagogue.

Restored synagogue interior

During the weekend, the visitors viewed the exhibition prepared for the Broken Hill Art Gallery. This was where the book, Jews of the Outback: The Centenary of the Broken Hill Synagogue 1910-2010, was launched by Professor Colin Tatz. He spoke about the issues relevant to a rural city: migration, family life, isolation, hard labour and assimilation – key elements that had been so well illustrated in this particular community.

                                                    

The book Jews of the Outback, was edited by Suzanne Rutland, Leon Mann and Margaret Price, and published by Hybrid Publishers in 2010 
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Map of SE corner of Australia, showing just how remote Broken Hill is from the state capitals

Cathedral Synagogues: the Birmingham example

There has been a Jewish community in Birmingham since at least the late C18th. Small at first, by 1791 there was already a prayer-room set aside in a private house near today's New Street Station. Next there was a small purpose-built synagogue built in Hurst St, but today nothing remains of it.

The community grew during the C19th and by 1851 the population was over 700. The modestly-located Severn St Synagogue was built in the Greek Revival style in 1827; it now serves as a Masonic Tem­ple. By 1900 the population reached 3,200 and a Jewish area developed around Hurst St and Holloway Head where many historic Jewish buildings can still be seen.

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The original and rather "hidden" Severn St Synagogue

In Britain, according to Sharman Kaddish, life was reasonable for Jews. But land acquired for synagogues or for burial of their dead tended to be leasehold. As foreigners, they could not own freehold land. Synagogues, like non-conformist chapels and Catholic churches, tended to be found off the public thoroughfare, tucked up alleyways. This included the very elegant Bevis Marks Synagogue which was built in London between 1699-1701! Synagogues of the Georgian and Regency periods largely followed this model of modesty. Surviving examples include Exeter (1763-4), Ramsgate (1831-3) and Cheltenham (1837-9), all Grade II Listed buildings.

The so-called cathedral or choral synagogue tended to emerge in the emancipation era of the C19th, when Jews in Europe burst out of the ghetto and moved up the social scale. The development of the cathedral synagogue was thus rooted in a particular historical era. In France, after the Revolution of 1789 and more irregularly in Germany during the C19th, the acquisition of civil and political rights led to the emergence of the Jewish community into the modern world.

Britain was at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution and, by the mid-Victorian period, Jewish entrepreneurs were contributing to the development of Britain's growing industrial cities: London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow. Successful Jewish communities made themselves visible.

Singers Hill Synagogue, out and proud

Their newly acquired confidence found expression in the construction of large-scale synagogues on public streets. These were prestige buildings, conceived in the grand manner, as symbols of the Jewish presence in the city. In 1856, the Birmingham congregation sold Severn St Synagogue, and moved up the hill to the lovely surroundings of Singers Hill Synagogue. The timing was perfect - this Birmingham Synagogue was one of the first cathedral synagogues to be erected in Britain.

The architect was Henry Yeoville Thomason (1826-1901) who was a fan of Italian Renaissance architecture. Externally the architecture featured a portico with a rose window to the entrance gable, flanked by to projecting wings to form the entrance courtyard. Note the confident red and yellow brick surface.

Inside the building combined the Romanesque and Neoclassical styles with Italianate detailing, based on the classic Basilica plan. The mahogany central reading desk and mahogany ark were clearly visible to all the congregants since natural light streamed in over the clerestory. The original cast and gilded gas chandeliers were a delight, hanging between the beautifully gilded capitals of the classical columns. The excellent stained glass, however, was newer (c1922).

women's gallery, Singers Hill Synagogue

In this photo of the women’s gallery, the modern viewer can appreciate the rose window, the stained glass windows along both sides and the gas chandeliers.

Shortly after it was finished in 1856, the synagogue was described in the local press as ‘a glory to the community and an ornament to the town’. A letter written at the time of the opening of the synagogue described the splendid consecration ceremony.

The synagogue itself had seating for 1000. But other facilities were needed since the Jewish population was rising. Schoolrooms were built at the rear of the site in Ellis St for the 350 pupils of the Birmingham Hebrew Schools which operated from 1856 until the 1930s. The school building is now the communal hall. Two houses for the resident ministers were included in the complex, the whole forming three sides of a quadrangle around a courtyard.

In the 1990s, an English Heritage grant helped fund repairs to the major architectural structure and the congregation's own fundraising efforts paid for the smaller repairs to stonework and windows.

Singers Hill Synagogue has recently been awarded the title of 'most improved Place of Worship in the West Midlands' by English Heritage. An English Heritage report, looking at the condition of religious buildings, had found that 200 West Midlands places of worship needed urgent and major repairs. The report highlighted Singers Hill Synagogue as a place that was previously vulnerable but now restored, and definitely not at risk any longer. Nonetheless an architect  has now been made responsible for improvements to the building's structure.

main entrance of Singers Hill Synagogue

Singers Hill Synagogue has played an important part of the life of Birmingham Jewry over the last 150 years. Even when movements of Jewish population within Birmingham resulted in new synagogues and homes for the elderly elsewhere in town, Singers Hill remained an important hub. The community didn't peak until the inter-war years (at 10,000) but then in the post-war era, numbers declined to 3,000. Many locals moved to Bitish cities with larger Jewish communities or emigrated to Israel or Australia.

An excellent read is The 'Cathedral Synagogues' of England by Sharman Kadish, published in Jewish Historical Studies, volume 39, 2004.



Jewish Shanghai 1850-1950: safe haven

I am familiar with C19th and C20th Jewish history in communities from Estonia to the Ukraine; to Spain and Britain and all countries in between. I have either read histories or walked with my own feet across Jewish Turkey, Israel and North Africa. Even India.

Ohel Rachel synagogue, opened 1920

But regarding China, the only Jewish communities I knew of were the great Russian outpost of Harbin and the would-be Autonomous Oblast of Birobijan, very close to the Russian-Chinese border. Two things changed that. Firstly two of my school friends had mothers who lived in Shanghai until the post-WW2 years and I wanted to ask them about every memory they had, while they could still tell their stories coherently. Secondly The Jewish Museum of Australia in Melbourne had a wonderful exhibition in the 1990s called The Story of a Haven: The Jews in Shanghai.

Irene Eber* acknowledged that foreigners lived a privileged life in Shanghai. They did not live amongst the Chinese but had their homes and businesses in foreign enclaves eg The French Concession. So even if China was involved in rebellions and wars, the treaty ports were insulated from the rest of the country. It was the international market that mattered, not the local one.

Three tiers of émigrés from elsewhere helped make Shanghai the splendid city that it became. In the 19th century, since the opening of China's largest treaty port in 1842, a relatively small number of Jewish merchants from Baghdad helped build Nanjing Road into the Bund’s commercial centre. The Peace Hotel was built in the 1920s by Victor Sassoon, one of these successful Baghdadi Jewish families. Ron Gluckman in The Ghosts of Shanghai wrote that in 1932, the Shanghai Stock Exchange listed almost 100 members; nearly 40% were Sephardi Jews, mostly from Baghdad and mostly working in the Bund district.

If people visit the Bund today, they can still find historical banks, consulates and trading houses from Europe and the Middle East, lining the Huangpu River. The Bund neighbourhood is north of the old, walled city.

The Bund neighbourhood of Shanghai, facing the river, in 1930

A second and much bigger tier of émigrés was added to Shanghai's Jewish community when thousands of Jews fleeing persecution in Czarist Russia arrived, starting just before WW1. Many settled in Shanghai's French Concession district and opened small businesses. They opened day schools, concerts, picture theatres, Hebrew classes, youth movements and fur businesses.

The final tier of Jews fled from Central Europe after the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933 and Austria in 1938. These German and Austrian Jews tried to replicate life as they had known it in Vienna or Berlin. Everyone else rejected them, says the historian and tour leader Dvir Bar-Gal, referring to the limits other countries placed on admitting Jewish refugees. In the late 1930s, because visas were not required and because there was no anti-Semitism in China, Shanghai was the only option. As a result no other place in the whole world saved so many Jewish lives – almost 20,000 German and Austrian Jews.

At its peak, Shanghai had a Jewish community of 30,000-40,000 people. The well settled Baghdadi families contributed to the welfare of the new-comers. When refugee children filled the existing Shanghai Jewish School in the International Settlement to breaking point, the community was able to lease a vacant building in Hongkou. And by November 1939, they were running the Kadoorie School for German-speaking children.

The greatest irony of the war era was that Shanghai remained open to Jewish arrivals despite the fact that the city was under control of the Japanese. And even though the Japanese were allies of the Nazis, a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania, Chiune Sugihara, issued thousands of visas that allowed Jews to escape Europe for Japan or China. Every one of these fortunate people owed his life to Chiune Sugihara and the wonderful city of Shanghai.

German refugees arriving in Shanghai, 1938

But by May 1943 Japanese officials forced all stateless people living in Shanghai to move to one suburb (Hongkou), and turned it into an urban prison camp. Artdaily.org showed how 20,000 German and Austrian Jews were crammed into the neighbourhood, many families squished together in a room. Disease and starvation were inevitable, so the Jews tried to help themselves by setting up clinics, soup kitchens, schools and shelters. But it was never an anti-Semitic plan by the Japanese. They only rounded up stateless people and left the Russian Jews, who all had their Russian passports still, totally alone.

Ohel Rachel synagogue had been built in 1920 to provide religious services for a large group of Baghdadi Jews who had earlier settled in this port city. Built by the Sassoon family, this lovely building was one of the most significant symbols of Shanghai’s colourful Jewish history. The Sassoon family built many of Shanghai's land marks: the Peace Hotel, Grosvenor House, the Metropole. The Kadoorie family, which founded the China Light & Power Company and today owns the Peninsula Hotel Group, is also descended from Sephardi Jews who found a successful life for themselves with the Sassoon family.

But when the Jewish community emigrated to Australia and other countries, the synagogue became part of the Shanghai Education Commission compound. Now visitors may not enter the synagogue, except during World Expo 2010. The World Monuments Fund has added the synagogue to the 2002 Watch List of 100 Most Endangered Sites.

After WW2 ended, fighting continued in the civil war between the Chinese Nationalists and Communists. Israel evacuated several ships of Jews from Shanghai as Mao Zedong's Red Army crept closer in 1948. Several towns in Israel were settled entirely by Shanghai survivors. San Francisco has a synagogue founded by former Shanghai residents. Australia became a very popular destination for families on the move again.

Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum

Jewish schools, shops and concert halls were closed, and most synagogues were demolished. So modern visitors who go on an organised tour will want to see the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum. This museum has the most wonderful photos, newspapers produced by the refugees and artefacts left behind by families who may have lived in Shanghai for decades. A stone monument in peaceful Huoshan Park tells visitors that the neighbourhood was once a designated area for stateless refugees.

What is there to see now? Not much. Eber says Jewish self-definition is intimately related to the creation of cultural institutions, not to the creation of farms, forests or even urban architecture. Jewish Shanghai had more musical classes and halls than Odessa, more coffee shops than Vienna and more vocational schools than the Bauhaus. But the facilities that once gave life to the Jewish community have disappeared since the 1950s. It was an extraordinary 100 years.

*The very best photos come from Passage Through China: the Jewish communities of Harbin, Tientsin and Shanghai, written by Irene Eber. This catalogue accompanied the 1986 exhibition held in Bet Hatefutsot, The Nachum Goldmann Museum of the Jewish Diaspora, Tel Aviv. Happily it was given to me by Ron Tait, son of a Shanghai mother.

Sam Moshinsky wrote Goodbye Shanghai: A Memoir, published by Mind Film in 2009. Moshinsky’s experience of wars, changing regimes, different currencies and a variety of schools reflected the evolving political landscape and his parents’ stateless status. The book shows how they were sustained, in their beloved Shanghai haven, by their Russian Jewish culture and community.

Segovia's secret synagogue revealed: first time since 1492.

It must be the dream of every historian to be the first person to discover something that turns history-writing upside down. I can imagine, for example, the excitement of the first historians to uncover the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947. Did they realise what they had in their hands? Did they understand that so much of subsequent history-writing would have to be modified, in light of the new discoveries?

Segovia's aqueduct bridge. Photo credit: George Dragicevic

The Israeli newspaper Yediot Achronot broke a smaller, but still exciting story in 27/12/2009.

A Spanish decree from 1412 had forced the Jewish population of Segovia to live in a specific area - it went from the Almuzara, to the section of the city walls located between the old slaughterhouse and San Andrés Gate. The area was closed by seven gates and the main street was Calle de Judería Vieja/Street of the Old Jewish Ghetto.

Segovia's Calle de Judería Vieja is still clearly marked today

Don Abraham Senior (c1410-93) became one of the most influential Jews to serve the Spanish royals, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. Together with his friend, statesman and financier Isaac ben Judah Abrabanel, Don Abraham Senior undertook to farm the revenues and to supply provisions for the royal army, under contract from Queen Isabella. As royal treasurer and court Rabbi, Don Senior enjoyed a very close relationship with the royal family, at least until the two monarchs decreed the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.

Even then the relationship continued - in June 1492, Don Senior and his son were baptised in Valladolid with the king and queen and the primate of Spain acting as sponsors. Presumably Senior converted to Christianity to be able to remain in the country. Still, if he did maintain a secret synagogue for his fellow Marranos in his home, even the very influential Don Senior would have been taking a huge risk.

screened women's section of synagogue (Yediot Achronot)

This is the story of how Mrs Udiya Band, a distant descendant of Don Senior, visited the palace and searched for a synagogue that presumably had not hosted a Jew for 517 years. Any knowledge of the synagogue in Don Senior’s palace had been totally lost! The local Segovians were certainly not aware of its existence.

A thorough family investigation done by Mrs Band and her children before arriving in Spain suggested that a synagogue had indeed once operated in Don Senior’s medieval palace. The family knew that the palace was now kept by UNESCO and by the local authorities. On arriving in Segovia, Udiya Band planned to stay for two days, to see the palace and the synagogue, and to continue on. She had already seen the testimonials written by Abraham Senior describing prayers held in his house and stairs to another (secret?) storey. What Mrs Band found was that half of the Segovian palace had been taken over by the Franciscans, and was now being used as a monastery.

synagogue's holy ark (Yediot Achronot)

Despite not believing that there had ever been a synagogue there, the Department of Culture of the municipality was helpful to the visitor; the mayor provided Mrs Band with a guide and announced that the whole palace would be open to her. The guide pleaded with the priests in the monastery and he was finally informed that he would receive the key the next morning, under the condition that no one must see where Mrs Band was exploring.

One wonders why, if the municipal mayor was interested in the project, were the Franciscans so secretive?

Mrs Band received the key and a second guide spirited her into the monastery via a small back door and through some corridors. She finally came to a large room – on the right side was the women’s section with star of david signs and in front were the bima/reading desk and the holy ark. Udiya Band was gobsmacked, and so was the guide. On the Jews’ holy ark, there was an altar and a crucifix to be sure. But otherwise it appeared as if the last of the Jewish congregants had just departed for a spot of Sabbath lunch. 517 years ago!

The guard said that everything has been kept in its original form except for one difference: there had been no windows originally - just small vents near the floor through which air could come in. Here the secretive Marranos could pray without being seen from the street. And there was indeed a side stair case which was not being used these days - that was the stair case Don Abraham Senior had used to reach the synagogue.

Segovia is just north of Madrid

Apparently Mrs Band’s story did not end in Segovia. Upon returning to Israel, Udiya Band got in touch with historian and ex-President of Israel Yitzchak Navon and the historian Chaim Berneit. I will be very interested to hear what happened next because there are so many questions to ask. If Don Abraham Senior really did die in 1493, for example, who continued running the secret synagogue for the Marranos in the Senior palace?

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Almost as an afterthought, I want to clearly differentiate between Don Abraham Senior's clandestine synagogue and the Main Synagogue of Segovia. The latter synagogue was never secretive, although the front entrance was not directly from the street, but via a courtyard. The Main Synagogue was also confiscated by the Catholic Church and the Crown, and converted into a church in 1419, dedicated to Corpus Christi. Within a couple of years, the bishop of Segovia gave the building to the Monastery of Santa María de Párraces who used it as a church until a terrible fire in 1899.  The church was restored in the early 20th century and is now open to the public; its synagogue origins are still clearly visible and readily acknowledged.

Segovia's Main Synagogue, later Corpus Christi Church, front entrance

The white walls, horseshoe arches and elaborate capitals in Segovia's Main Synagogue appear to be very similar to the synagogue architecture I have seen in Santa María La Blanca in Toledo.

Segovia's Main Synagogue, later Corpus Christi Church, columns

In fact the Juderia of Segovia is full of beautiful old medieval houses, as Slice_n_dice has shown. These houses are two or three storeys high, with exposed wooden beams and whitewashed facades. The whole historical centre has been lovingly restored and conserved, which might surprise people who think of Spain as being a major player in life-threatening medieval anti-Semitism. Apparently there had been five synagogues, a Jewish cemetery, two butcher shops, a hospital and two Talmudic schools in Segovia's Jewish Quarter, during the halcyon days of Spanish Jewry.

59 Brick Lane Spitalfields: Christian, Jewish, Muslim

By the mid-late C17th, the long street in the East End of London called Brick Lane was being built up from the south. The Huguenots were fleeing religious persecution by the Catholic Church and Catholic government in France. After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, tens of thousands of Huguenots sought sanctuary in Britain and brought with them their weaving and silver-making skills.

Traders and weavers lived next to, but not necessarily in Spitalfields. Their late 17th and C18th domestic buildings were well appointed terraced houses, perfect for housing the French weaver families once they became successful; fine city mansions were built around the newly created Spital Square.

substantial  houses, built since 1700

59 Brick Lane, on the corner of Fournier Street, was a plain but quite elegant, rectangular dark brick building with tall arched windows. Even in a heavily built up street like Brick Lane, natural light could flood into the spaces inside.  The building was described as having 2 storeys with a plain band between floors, 6 windows with red brick gauged arches and stone keys, recessed windows, a Palladian window in centre with semi-circular headed windows at sides (1st floor) and 4 segmental headed windows (2 blank in centre) on ground floor.

How was this building used over the centuries?
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today 59 Brick Lane is an elegant mosque

The first community to use 59 Brick Lane were the recently arrived Frenchmen. The Huguenot community built La Neuve Eglise as a Protestant Church in 1743, along with a small school. As these Calvinists worked hard and prospered, some of them could afford to build large and handsome Georgian houses around Brick Lane, with glass-ceilinged workshops in the attics, where they set up their weaving looms. They didn’t forget their religious values either. In 1700, there were nine French churches in Spitalfields, although by the end of two generations of English born Huguenots, the French-speaking community was clearly being assimilated through inter-marriage.

Interior of 59 Brick Lane, when used as a Methodist chapel  (above)

Interior of 59 Brick Lane, when used as a Jewish synagogue (below)

The next group to use 59 Brick Lane were a different people. The London Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews used The Jews’ Chapel, as they called the building in 1809, to encourage the physical restoration of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and to encourage the Hebrew Christian Messianic movement. The Society only lasted for one decade in Brick Lane.

John Wesley himself had lived not far away on City Road and preached his first covenant sermon at a chapel, just off Brick Lane. The simplicity and plainness of The Methodist Chapel, as the Wesleyans called it in 1819, would no doubt have suited them well.

When the local silk-weaving trades went into decline, the abandoned properties in this suburb were sublet and in the C19th the East End became a cheap place to live. Waves of impoverished and rather desperate immigrants arrived over the decades, slowly prospered and then moved out of Spitalfields as soon as they could. So as Icons Of England has shown, the building changed a number of times as each community established its own place of worship here.

With the huge influx of Yiddish-speaking Jews from Eastern Europe flooding into the East End in the 1880s and 1890s, our Methodist Chapel was converted into The Spitalfields Great Synagogue in 1897. Brick Lane was the heart of London’s Jewish community and this was the principal synagogue of the area. Plus there were schoolrooms under the roof for children of the masses of impoverished, hard working refugees. From the 1960s, the Jewish community in the East End dwindled, many moving into more salubrious north London. The building eventually closed.

Since 1976 this building, Brick Lane Jamme Masjid, has been one of the largest mosques in London; 4,000 worshippers can fit into the prayer hall. The mosque has particularly served the religious needs of the large Bengali community which arrived after World War Two. The non-structural fittings like pews were removed, the opening in the centre of the gallery was reduced in size, made octagonal and moved eastwards, while retaining the columns on the ground floor supporting the gallery. A partition wall was inserted around the western end of the ground floor, and a qibla was constructed on the ground floor under the SE corner or the gallery. The northern and central vaults were also converted to prayer halls. Rooms adjacent to the prayer halls were adapted for washing.

Once again there is an school for religious instruction here, on the first floor, but this time it is an Islamic school. The former Huguenot chapel and former Great Synagogue in Fournier St and the adjacent former school buildings, now used as ancillary spaces for the mosque, are Grade II listed buildings.

Princelet St Synagogue, behind this Huguenot house

Another of the handsome Georgian houses in Spitalfields that were built by the Huguenots eventually became the Princelet St Synagogue. The front of the building is a former Huguenot house built in 1722, but at the rear was a synagogue, built in 1862. Like the other 38 synagogues in the City and the East End, Princelet St Synagogue lost its Jewish population in the two decades after WW2 ended.

Sandy's Row Synagogue, men on the ground floor, women section in the balcony

Sandy's Row Synagogue is fascinating for two reasons.  Firstly the synagogue was established in 1870 by a society of Dutch Jews, not Russians, Ukranians and Lithuanians. Secondly the synagogue, formerly a French Chapel, is the only extant, functioning synagogue in the East End today.

Two projects based on Spitalfields have recently come to my attention. Firstly a BBC programme called Saving Britain's Past was shown in Dec 2009. It did not ask whether the old Huguenot chapel cum synagogue should now be a mosque - that is beyond dispute. Rather it asked how today’s Bengali families could make the area their own, while not destroying the heritage value of old Spitalfields.

Georgian home in 27 Fournier St, restored by the Spitalfields Trust

Secondly The Spitalfields Trust bought crumbling Regency (1809-15) houses in Whitechapel, selling them on to Londoners who then let the Trust rebuild them observing strict conservation rules. For six years, Homes & Property has followed the story of the horseshoe of homes in a run-down part of East London. In this year’s Georgian Awards, presented by the Duke of Gloucester, the restoration work was highly commended. Plus The Spitalfields Trust project won first prize in Country Life’s national restoration competition.

One renovation stands out in particular. Fournier Street was the last street to be laid out on the Wood-Michell Estate and was originally known as Church St. 27 Fournier Street was built by Peter Bourdon of Spitalfields, who was granted a 98 year lease in 1725, the date that appears on the rainwater head on the front of the building. The weaver Mr Bourdon was believed to have been a prominent member of Spitalfields society. I assume from his surname that Mr Bourdon was a Huguenot. He would be delighted with how 27 Fournier St looks today.

The Tired of London, Tired of Life blog recommends visiting London's Museum of Immigration at 19 Princelet Street. The museum's home page says that 19 Princelet Street is a magical unrestored Huguenot master silk weaver's home, whose shabby frontage conceals a rare surviving synagogue built over its garden. The staff are working to save the building and to create a permanent exhibition documenting the history of the Huguenots, Irish, Jews, Bengalis, Somalis and others who shaped this Spitalfields.

Kerala India: Christian and Jewish architecture restored

The Jews of Kerala State (on the SW coast of India), who arrived in India some 2,500 years ago, settled in and around Cochin/Kochi as traders. They were attracted to Muziris, which was a thriving port that had trade contacts with the Mediterranean, the Middle East, China and East Africa. By the 18th century, there were 8 synagogues in five different Kerala towns and villages: 3 in Cochin, 2 in Ernakulam and one each in Parur and 2 other towns.

The Kerala Jews lived in safety, but it seems that most opted to emigrate to Israel after the new state was established in 1948. Some 75,000 Indian Jews left their homes, synagogues, schools and cemeteries behind; few families remained to look after the communities’ resources which inevitably began to moulder.

Parur Synagogue, 1615

An American architect, Jay Waronker, recently documented 34 synagogues across India, including 7 that he found in Kerala. Fortunately his work and watercolour versions of the buildings have been published.

Michael Freund noted Kerala State was keen to celebrate its multi-religious heritage. The state cherishes its composite culture and wants the synagogues to be sites where locals and visitors can have memories of the Jewish connection. The state government of Kerala, along with the central government, has put aside a large amount of money to renovate and restore temples, synagogues, churches and mosques. The entire initiative is known as the Muziris Heritage Project.

The first synagogue in Cochin, located in the quarter of Old Cochin known as Jew Town, was destroyed in the Portuguese persecution of the Jews in the 1500s. The second synagogue, built under the protection of the Raja of Cochin along with Dutch support, is the present Paradesi (foreign) Synagogue. The most visible part of the synagogue is the 18th century clock tower, which, along with other parts of the complex, underwent repair work in the late 1990s. This lovely building is decorated with hundreds of 18th century hand-painted porcelain tiles.

Paradesi Synagogue, Cochin

Not far from Kochi, the Paravoor/Parur Synagogue 1615 was built on the ruins of a synagogue that had already stood for 500 years. But a blaze in 1662 could have been set by the Portuguese colonisers since they had laid claim to Kerala and they burned the Paradesi Synagogue in Kochi about the same time. The Kerala Jews never suffered from anti-semitism at the hands of their Indian neighbours, but the Portuguese colonisers did try to institute the Inquisition.

Preservation plans for this Parur site were drawn up by an important Indian conservation firm, the same firm that had been commissioned by the Kerala office of the Indian Department of Archaeology to restore the nearby Synagogue of Chennamangalam. To reach the synagogue, turn from the main street of Parur onto Jews' Street. At the entrance to this street were two tall granite pillars, an indication that the Jews lived in a self-imposed ghetto.

The synagogue architecture must have once been very attractive; there's a colonnaded pathway that leads from the two rooms, at the street entrance, to the main entrance door of the synagogue in the small courtyard beyond. The stairs to the balcony have unusual flat, shaped supports for the railing and the balcony, with its decorated and gilded supporting beams, have already been restored.

But many important elements were removed. And as the synagogue had not been used since the 1970s, even the remaining elements required repair and restoration. On top of the neglect of 30+ years, the monsoonal climate had a harsh impact on the exterior base, windows, roof tiles and external doors.

Parur’s synagogue was built in the traditional style of Kerala. The style combines white-washed polished lime over a soft reddish-brown local stone walls, timber framing, deep eaved roofs covered with terracotta tiles, wooden latticed screens and large shuttered windows. Drawing from the vernacular design of the region, the influences of the Portuguese and Dutch imperialists, Hindu and other religious building practices, the Parur synagogue added its own Jewish liturgical elements, resulting in a distinct approach to synagogue architecture.
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Kadavumbagam synagogue, with Parur's ark and reading desk

Because Kadavumbagam synagogue's original fittings were taken to Moshav Nehalim in Israel in the 1950s, the reconstructed Kadavumbagam synagogue in India had to be furnished with a Torah ark 1892 and bimah desk from the nearby Kerala community of Parur. So it is a bit sad that we can best see the carved and painted teak fittings of Parur synagogue, but only by visiting the Kadavumbagam synagogue. At least they were saved.
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St Francis Church, Kochi, 1503

Let us compare Parur synagogue to local Christian architecture, built in approximately the same era. St Francis CSI Church 1503 in Kochi is the oldest European church in India and has great historical significance as part of European colonisation of the sub-continent. The Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama, died in Kochi in 1524 whilst visiting India. His body was, for some long time, buried in this very church.

Most importantly for this article, the casual visitor might not be able to tell the difference between St Francis Church's external architecture and Parur Synagogue's external architecture.

St Thomas Syrian Church, Parur, 1566

Examine St Thomas Jacobite Syrian Church 1566 in North Parur where the mortal remains of the Syrian Orthodox Archbishop of Jerusalem were entombed. When founded, the new church was consecrated in the name of St Thomas the Apostle; the event was inscribed in old Tamil script, in a granite plaque embedded in the wall near the church’s front door.

St Mary’s Church in Bharananganam was first built in 1004 AD, initially  a small church that may have looked like a local temple. When the Portuguese were in command of the affairs of the Christian communities, they wanted to rebuild churches in Christian style.  Finally in the very early 20th century, St Mary's had become large and Gothic, although still built with local materials. 

St Mary's Bharananganam

Bharananganam may not be the largest town in India, but St Mary's became very important when a local woman died and was eventually canonised. Pilgrims flocked to St Alphonsa's grave in the firm belief that illness could be miraculously cured there. The church was renovated just before Pope John Paul II arrived to honour St Alphonsa in 1986, the first ever papal visit to Kerala and India's first ever female saint.

Kochi, Kerala State, SW India

Jewish Dutch architecture in Suriname

A newly restored C18th synagogue from Suriname is a treasure that has been transported to Israel & installed in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. The museum’s new wing, dedicated to Jewish Art and Life, was reopened to the public in July 2010. Here visitors can view the lovely South American synagogue interior, alongside synagogue interiors from Italy, Germany and India - a pilgrimage of Jewish ritual traditions from around the world, all in one day.

But why did Jews flock to Suriname in South America in the first place?  And why did they not move into Cuba, Bermuda, Jamaica or Curacao as we saw in Caribbean Jewish Communities just a few months ago?

Neve Shalom Synagogue in Paramaribo - exterior and interior

Suriname’s first European community emigrated from the Netherlands in the mid-17th century. It was then that the Jews of Spanish and Portuguese origin, who had eventually ended up in the Netherlands after the Iberian expulsions, immigrated to Dutch Guiana/Suriname. In fact the Jews were among the country’s earliest European settlers.

Some historical records refer an early, wooden synagogue in Suriname that was built in the 17th century in Thorarica, Suriname's first Capital. Certainly the numbers were there: there were 92 Portuguese Jewish families and 12 German Jewish families in the colony, giving 570 persons who had holdings of 40+ plantations. However nothing remains of Thorarica township today.

Thorarica's Jewish community eventually moved to Jodensavanne, a settlement on the Suriname River, 50 km south of the capital Paramaribo. Later another, more organised group migrated to Suriname and headed straight for the Jodensavanne area. A third group arrived in 1664, after their expulsion from Brasil. Jodensavanne (Dutch for Jewish Savanna) was specifically established as an autonomous Jewish territory, dedicated to sugar-cane plantations.

The Jodensavanne community really did acquire great internal autonomy. The Congregation Beracha ve Shalom/Blessings and Peace was founded, building a wooden synagogue for itself in the years 1665-71. A second synagogue, made of imported bricks, was constructed in 1685.  This community became the heart and soul of the entire colony of Suriname.

Sadly Jodensavanne declined during the mid C18th, and most of the Jewish community moved to Paramaribo. In any case, the remnants of the colony were destroyed by fires in 1832. All that survives today is the beautiful Jodensavanne graveyard with its marble grave stones imported from Europe; they are a silent witness to the wealth and success of a once-impressive colony.

Jodensavanne graveyard

In the newer capital city of Paramaribo, the original wooden Neve Shalom Synagogue building was constructed in 1719 by Ashkenazi Jews. But circumstances changed and, like in other New World cities, the synagogue had to be enlarged to its current size in the mid 1830s. This building is the only active synagogue today in the country, serving the entire Jewish community (now only 300 people). Suriname itself is small. The smallest independent country in South America has a total population of only 480,000 people.

Within a very short time, the local Sephardic community wanted their own synagogue and built Tzedek v' Shalom Synagogue. Tzedek v’ Shalom, built in 1736 in Paramaribo, was typical of Spanish and Portuguese synagogues in the New World. According to Jerusalem’s Israel Museum, this Suriname synagogue was directly inspired by the Esnoga, the famous Portuguese synagogue of Amsterdam.

Tzedek v Shalom Synagogue exterior, still in Paramaribo

Tzedek v Shalom’s architecture sensibly integrated traditional European design with local architectural features such as a simple, symmetrical structure; white walls and large windows that open the interior to natural light; and a sand-covered floor. Impressive brass chandeliers, sourced from the Netherlands, hung from the ceiling.

Tzedek v Shalom Synagogue interior, moved from Paramaribo to Jerusalem

Nearly one third of the entire population of Suriname emigrated back to the Netherlands in the era just before independence was declared in 1975. Apparently Suriname citizens feared that the new country would fare worse under independence than it did as distant Netherlandish colony, but it was very damaging to those who remained.

The Jewish community also lost the heart and soul of its membership in these couple of years. The two Paramaribo synagogues continued functioning but, finally, the Ashkenazi and Sephardic congregations merged in 1999. Tzedek v’ Shalom ceased to function as a place of worship and the space was rented out. The synagogue’s interior, along with its original ceremonial objects and furnishings, were transferred to Jerusalem’s Israel Museum in 1999, where it has now been restored to its original beauty.

Suriname (in green) on the north coast of South America

A reference worth pursuing is "The Synagogues of Surinam" by Gunter Bohm, in the Journal of Jewish Art, Vol 6, 1979.