After a long hiatus, we have posted a new Have Your Say personal essay, Researching the History of Swedish Synagogues — in Italy, by the Swedish scholar Daniel Leviathan.
Leviathan, an archaeologist, studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, specializing in biblical and classical archaeology, with one of his focus areas ancient synagogues.
He is now working on a PhD in Jewish Studies at Lund University in southern Sweden, exploring the history and architecture of the five main synagogues (as well as others) that were erected in Sweden from the creation of the country’s first Jewish community in the late 18th century up until World War II.
He is currently based in Rome, at the Swedish Institute of Classical Studies, carrying out research on the Swedish Christian architect Fredrik Wilhelm Scholander (1816-1881), who spent three formative years in Italy in the 1840s and went on to design the Great Synagogue in Stockholm, inaugurated in 1870.
In his essay Leviathan describes his work and its focus.