No Jewish tradition in architecture?

[Solidarity Foundation <svzandt...>]

The discussion about nusach is great, but when Bob Wiener says "It seems
that we have no Jewish tradition in architecture," I think that we need to
know something about the old wooden synagogues of Russia and Poland. These
were a unique architectural tradition in almost every way, and they were
often built, as we know from documents, by Jewish contractors and carpenters
and decorated by Jewish painters and carvers. Some dating from the 17th
century survived into the 20th, but in fact nobody knows how far back they
go. One of the very oldest was in my grandfather's shtetl of Ostropol
(Yiddish: Ostropolye), Ukraine. Hitler (yemakh sh'mo) had every one of
these synagogues burned down. The new complex of the National Yiddish
Book Center in Massachusetts is "based" on this style. Photographs can be
found in a book by Piechotka published in Poland, and another more recent
one is:

Yargina, Z. WOODEN SYNAGOGUES (series: Masterpieces of Jewish Art).
Moscow:
Image, 1993. ISBN 5-86044-021-9

Let's not underestimate the originality of traditional Ashkenazic music
-- AND PERFORMING STYLE, BY THE WAY (that aspect seems so often forgotten
in these discussions about aesthetics!!!!), either.

Itsik-Leyb Volokh (Jeffrey Wollock)

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