It is now possible to access or view many synagogues and even some Jewish cemeteries online via various digital platforms. Some are detailed digital reconstructions of synagogues that were destroyed during World War II. Some are digitalized constructions of existing buildings, which can be “toured” online.
We have highlighted some of these in earlier posts, this one and this one.
This time, we want to draw attention to the recent laser scan digitalization of three synagogues in the Bucovina region of western Ukraine that are noted for their elaborate interior decoration.
The scans, which allow the user to zoom in on details and virtually tour the spaces, are aimed at documenting, studying and digitally preserving these paintings and were carried out by Skeiron, an organization founded in 2016 whose aim is the “Preservation and promotion of Ukraine’s cultural heritage through digital technologies and immersive research.”
One of the synagogues, the Beit Tfilah Benjamin Synagogue in Chernivtsi, is currently in use by the local congregation.
Built in 1923, it has been well documented and analyzed. The scholar Boris Khaimovich wrote an insightful book focusing on its its wall paintings, which date from the late 1930s, that provides a rich analysis of the iconography of synagogue paintings in this part of eastern Europe in general: The Work of Our Hands to Glorify: Murals of Beit Tfila Benyamin Synagogue in Chernovits. Kiev: Spirit and Letter, 2008.
You can find a detailed documentation of the synagogue on the Center for Jewish Art web site HERE. This includes a computer model of the synagogue that was already created some years ago by the Center for Jewish Art’s Sergey R. Kravstov.
The New Great Synagogue in Novoselytsia was built in 1919, and its paintings date from the 1920s. They are very similar to those in Beit Tfilah Benjamin Synagogue. Though the building in is very bad condition (after being used as a youth club after WW2 and then abandoned), the paintings are largely intact, having been painted over with whitewash, which served to protect them. They were discovered and revealed by experts in 2009.
You can see a full documentation of them HERE on the Center for Jewish Art web site.
The murals in the Groise Shil (Great Synagogue) in Chernivtsi were discovered little more than a decade ago and are preserved in fragmentary form in a room of the building, which is now used as a carpentry shop. They are believed to date from 1937.
Click to read the article “Synagogue Decorations in Present-Day Ukraine: Practice in Preservation of Cultural and Artistic Heritage,“ by Eugeny Kotlyar – Lyudmyla Sokolyuk – Tetiana Pavlova
Here below are the laser scans of the three synagogues.
1 comment on “Ukraine: Laser scans document the elaborate murals in three synagogues in the Bucovina region of western Ukraine”
this could have been one of my grandfather’s synagogues