Continuity: Traditions of Jewish Art and Architecture

An Exhibition at Boston's Vilna Shul
18 Phillips Street on Beacon Hill, Boston, MA
April 24th - August 31st, 2006
Hours: 11 a.m.–5 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday.

Presenting the Old World artistic and architectural traditions of 17th and 18th century wooden synagogues in Eastern Europe

This exhibition presents the Old World artistic and architectural traditions of 17th and 18th century wooden synagogues from the small towns or shtetls of Eastern Europe. Zabludow and Gwozdziec, two of the most outstanding and well-documented wooden synagogues, are featured. The exhibit documents and celebrates a surprising tradition of prayer hall painting, emphasizing the many points of continuity between the synagogues and paintings from the Old World to the new.

Tragically, all the magnificent synagogues in this exhibition were destroyed along with their communities during the nazi Holocaust. An extensive collection of synagogue photographs and drawings, documented by Polish architectural students and historians, survived the Holocaust and are the basis for this exhibit. They reveal the striking sculptural variety of wooden synagogue forms — a unique combination of both Jewish and Polish architectural traditions. Continuity seeks to recall the significant cultural heritage of Eastern European Jewish communities that was almost completely destroyed after 1939.

Surviving photographs and drawings of the Gwozdziec Synagogue wall-paintings form the most complete documentation of a single Polish wooden synagogue. The exhibition analyzes the Gwozdziec Synagogue wall-paintings and interprets the variety of artistic styles, animal figures, Hebrew prayers, Jewish symbolism, and decorative art that adorned every surface of the prayer hall. According to architectural historian Thomas C. Hubka, the Gwozdziec Synagogue is a “truly resplendent synagogue that exemplified a high point in synagogue art and architecture. Along with other wooden synagogues of its era, the Gwozdziec Synagogue represents some of the finest examples of Jewish art and architecture ever produced.”

The Gwozdziec Synagogue documentation and photographs were prepared by Professor Thomas C. Hubka of the Department of Architecture, University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee. Research for the wall-paintings and for the entire exhibition is based on Hubka’s book, Resplendent Synagogue, Architecture and Worship in an Eighteenth Century Polish Community. Background research on the Polish wooden synagogue is based on the many works of Kasimierz and Maria Piechotka, Warsaw, Poland.