Wooden synagogues are an original style of vernacular synagogue architecture that emerged in the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.Wischnitzer, Rachel The Architecture of the European Synagogue. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1964, pp. 125-147Krinsky, Carol Herselle Synagogues of Europe: Architecture, History, Meaning. Cambridge, Mass: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1985, Dover Publications, 1996, pp. 53-58 and in individual town sections The style developed between the mid-16th and mid-17th centuries, a period of peace and prosperity for the Polish-Lithuanian Jewish community. While many were destroyed during the First and Second World Wars, there are some that survive today in Lithuania.
History
According to Maria and Kazimierz Piechotka, wooden synagogues in Poland–Lithuania developed during the Renaissance, sometime from the mid-16th to mid-17th century. This period was described as a time of peace and prosperity for the Jewish community of the vast Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which at its peak occupied much of Central and Eastern Europe. The style was particularly common in the eastern territories of the Commonwealth which now constitute Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. Moreover, such synagogues were predominantly found in smaller townships, villages and shtetls rather than larger cities.
Timber was abundant and inexpensive in the heavily forested Commonwealth, but a large part of the motivation for building in wood rather than stone or brick was the great difficulty of obtaining government permission to erect masonry synagogues.Wischnitzer, 1964, p. 127 The wooden synagogues, which featured multi-layered high roofs, multi-beamed domes, galleries, wooden balconies and arches were built to high standards of craftsmanship.
The synagogues fell victim to obsolescence and neglect over the next centuries. During the Second World War, the Germans burned and destroyed nearly all of the wooden synagogues that were still standing. None remain in Poland today, however, some did survive in Lithuania.
Uniqueness as an artistic and architectural form
The wooden synagogue was "an original architectural genre" that drew on several models, including Poland's wooden building traditions and central plan, masonry synagogues in which four massive masonry pillars that define the Bimah rise to support the roof vaulting.Zimiles, Murray, et al. Gilded Lions and Jeweled Horses: the synagogue to the carousel. University Press of New England, 2007, p. 5 Central pillars support the vaulting of only a handful of wooden synagogues. Instead, in wooden synagogues the vaulting and domes are suspended by elaborate roof trusses. Common features shared by wooden synagogues include the independence of the pitched roof from the design of the interior domed ceiling. The outside of a wooden synagogue gave no hint of the domes and multiple, Baroque vaults that would be found within. The exteriors were decidedly plain, giving no hint of the riot of carving, painting, domes, balconies and vaulting inside. The architectural interest of the exterior lay in the large scale of the buildings, the multiple, horizontal lines of the tiered roofs, and the carved corbels that supported them. The elaborate domed and vaulted ceilings were known as raki'a (Hebrew for sky or firmament) and were often painted blue sprinkled with stars. The Bimah was always placed in the center of the room. Wooden synagogues featured a single, large hall. In contrast to contemporary churches, there was no apse. Moreover, while contemporary churches featured imposing vestibules, the entry porches of the wooden synagogues was a low annex, usually with a simple lean-to roof. In these synagogues, the emphasis was on constructing a single, large, high-domed worship space.Piechotka, Maria & Kazimierz Heaven's Gate: wooden synagogues in the territory of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Warsaw: Institute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences, 2004
According to art historian Stephen S. Kayser, the wooden synagogues of Poland with their painted and carved interiors were "a truly original and organic manifestation of artistic expression—the only real Jewish folk art in history".Alfred "Wooden Synagogues", Commentary, July 1960
According to Louis Lozowick, writing in 1947, the wooden synagogues were unique because, unlike all previous synagogues, they were not built in the architectural style of their region and era, but in a newly evolved and uniquely Jewish style, making them "a truly original folk expression", whose "originality does not lie alone in the exterior architecture, it lies equally in the beautiful and intricate wood carving of the interior".Cited in Mark Godfrey, Abstraction and the Holocaust, Yale University Press, 2007, p. 92
Moreover, while in many parts of the world Jews were proscribed from entering the building trades and even from practicing the decorative arts of painting and woodcarving, the wooden synagogues were actually built by Jewish craftsmen.Godfrey, Mark Abstraction and the Holocaust. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007, p. 92 Other research points to certain synagogues being made by Christian master builders. For example, the early history of the Gwoździec Synagogue is unknown and portions of the structure date back to 1650. The original structure was built in a regional style exhibiting both Jewish and Polish vernacular architecture. In the 18th century there was a dramatic reconfiguration of the prayer hall ceiling. It is believed to be the first cupola of its kind. The timber framers are unknown but presumed to be Christian master builders since until the 19th century Jews were excluded from the trade. The liturgical paintings were made by Jewish artists. Isaac, son of Rabbi Judah Leib ha Cohen and Israel, son of Rabbi Mordecai, have inscribed their names on the paintings in the western ceiling.
The interior vaulting of the Wolpa Synagogue is described by art historians Maria and Kazimierz Piechotka as having been "the most magnificent of all known wooden ceilings" in Europe.Piechotka, Heaven's Gate 2004, p. 64 Of course, since Christians were free to build with brick and stone, few European buildings of the scale of the Wolpa synagogue were ever built in wood. The walls of the main hall were 7.2 meters high. The vaulting, under a three-tiered roof, rose to a height of fourteen meters in three tiers marked by fancy balustrades. Each tier was made up of several curving sections faced in wooden paneling to form a graceful, tiered and vaulted dome. The vaulted ceiling was supported by the four wooden corner columns that rose form the bimah, and by trusses in the roof.Piechotka, Heaven’s Gate 2004, pp. 362-69
Art historian Ori Z. Soltes points out that the wooden synagogues, unusual for that period in being large, identifiably Jewish buildings not hidden in courtyards or behind walls, were built not only during a Jewish "intellectual golden age" but in a time and place where "the local Jewish population was equal to or even greater than the Christian population".Soltes, Ori Z. Our Sacred Signs: How Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Art Draw from the Same Source. Boulder: Westview Press, 2005, p. 180
Types of wooden synagogues Wooden synagogues can be divided into three types by the plan of the building, according to an article by G.K. Lukomski.The Wooden Synagogues of Eastern Europe G. K. Lukomski, Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 66, No. 382 (Jan., 1935), pp. 14-21
The first has a square plan and a pyramidal roof in one, two and even three stages with decorated cornices. The second type, oblong in shape, has a roof decorated with arcading. The third type, more simple, resembles Polish secular buildings used to store grain, hay, etc.
Wooden synagogues may also be divided into three groups according to the shape of the roof and the number of cornices which divide them into stages (of the Mansard type, called in Polish "podcienie"), i.e., roofs with one, two or three stages.
The type with roofs of one stage with perceptibly curved and tilted eaves, are probably the oldest in date. This is a very simple construction resembling a secular building used for agricultural purposes rather than a religious temple - a barn or store-house for grain. Its construction is very logical, or rational; every beam, every pillar and every buttress is clearly visible.
Examples: synagogue at Lanckorona in Podolie; Polaniec; Pareczow; Orsza; Szkloff; Radoszyce; Pilica; Nowogradek; Przedborz; Zydaczew; Brzozdowice; Pieczenierzyn; Jablonow.
The type with two roofs are often very large. It is interesting to note that the facades of the two towers can differ in design. A characteristic detail is the covering of the walls with narrow planks which act as an outer lining. Examples: Gwozdziec; Grodno; Chodorow; Uzlany (Usljany); Kamyenyets; Nasielsk; Njaswisch; Mogilev.
The type with three stages or more. Examples: Nowe-Miasto; Pohrebyszcze; Jedwabne; Narowla; Wolpa; Zabłudów.
Interior decoration
The interiors were decorated with wall and ceiling paintings that, in many cases, covered the walls and ceilings entirely, and with elaborately carved wooden Torah arks.
Thomas Hubka has traced the style of decorative painting in the wooden synagogues to the medieval Hebrew illuminated manuscripts of Ashkenazi Jewry.Hubka, Thomas C. "Medieval Themes in the Wall-Paintings of 17th and 18th-Century Polish Wooden Synagogues", in Imagining the Self, Imagining the Other, edited By Eva Frojmovic, Leiden: Brill, 2002; p. 213 ff.
The intricate wooden decoration of the barrel vaulted ceiling of the Przedbórz Synagogue was considered so beautiful that before the Second World War it drew tourists to the small village of Przedbórz.Mason, Margie "Berkeley Congregation Plans to Re-Create 17th Century Temple", Los Angeles Times, January 26, 2002
Regional variations
Architectural historian Rachel Wischnitzer has traced regional variations in wooden synagogue style. The interiors of the wooden synagogues of Lithuania were not as exuberantly painted as were synagogues of other regions. Instead, Lithuanian synagogues were notable for architectural details such as ceilings with the boards laid in decorative herringbone patterns. Several Lithuanian synagogues featured corner pavilions. The wooden synagogues of Galicia were notable for their elaborate wall paintings.
Influence on art and architecture
Frank Stella's Polish village series draws on images of Wooden synagogues published by Maria and Kazimierz Piechotka in their 1957 book, Wooden synagogues.Gruber, Samuel D. The Blueprint: how a 1959 book changed the architecture of American synagogues, Nextbook, 01.07.09 The Sons of Israel Synagogue, by architects Davis, Brody and Wisniewski, in Lakewood, New Jersey evokes Polish wooden synagogues in modern materials in the shape of its roof. The Temple B'rith Kodesh in Rochester, New York, by architect Pietro Belluschi is roofed with a domed wooden drum intended to evoke the wooden synagogues of Poland. The modern building of Congregation Beth Shalom Rodfe Zedek in Chester, Connecticut was designed by artist Sol LeWitt who conceptualized the "airy" synagogue building with its shallow dome supported by "exuberant wooden roof beams" as a homage to the Wooden synagogues of eastern Europe.Ivry, Benjamin "Sol LeWitt: A Jewish Artist’s Leap Into the Unknown", The Forward, May 8, 2009 Zimmer, William "Art Takes a Prominent Spot In Chester's New Synagogue", The New York Times, December 9, 2001
In culture Wooden synagogues were quite abundant, and several famous authors and artists include them in their works.
Adam Mickiewicz gives detailed description of wooden synagogues in his epic poem Pan Tadeusz, Or, the Last Foray in Lithuania; a Story of Life Among Polish Gentlefolk in the Years 1811 and 1812, first published in 1834.