An important new book on synagogue architecture has just been published. Titled In the Shadow of Empires: Synagogue Architecture in East Central Europe, it is a collection of essays by JHE friend Sergey R. Kravtsov, of the Center for Jewish Art in Jerusalem, a leading expert on synagogue architecture.
Bar Ilan University scholar Ilia Rodov provides the Introduction.
The book includes both site-specific essays centered on individual buildings as well as thematic chapters dealing with the history and meaning of synagogues.
Published by Grünberg Verlag, it is a 294-page, soft-cover book. (ISBN 978 3 933713 54 4)
A launch will take place at the Conference “Jewish Architects – Jewish Architecture” in Hamburg November 6-8. At present, book can be ordered at this link.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter One:
Synagogues of Galicia as Cultural Heritage
Chapter Two:
The Turey Zahav Synagogue: Architecture, History, Memory, and Future
Chapter Three:
Jewish Identities in Synagogue Architecture of Galicia and Bukovina
Chapter Four:
Synagogue Architecture of Volhynia: A Search for Identities
Chapter Five:
Wooden Synagogues of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: Between Polish and Jewish Narratives
Chapter Six:
Architecture of “New Synagogues” in Central-Eastern Europe
Chapter Seven:
The Israelite Hospital in Lemberg, 1898–1912: “Jewish” Architecture by an “International” Team
Chapter Eight:
Architecture of the Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue in Jerusalem: From Diaspora to the Holy Land
There is also a Bibliography.
Kravtsov has written and published widely about synagogue architecture. Among his recent books is Synagogues in Ukraine: Volhynia, an encyclopedic, 2-volume catalogue by Kravtsov and Vladimir Levin of the Center for Jewish Art, Hebrew University. (Published in 2017 by the Center for Jewish Art/Zalman Shazar Center).
Kravtsov and Levin also recently collaborated in compiling Historic Synagogues of Europe, an online searchable database of more than 3,000 synagogues across the continent, which was launched in February 2018.