The tradition of Jewish woodcarving in Eastern and Central Europe was focused on the synagogue, the place of prayer since the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem
in 70 CE. It was not until the second half of the seventeenth to the late eighteenth century that the greatest period of wooden synagogue construction occurred. Galicia is thought to be the province where wooden synagogue architecture developed, in part because it had the largest Jewish population and was heavily forested.
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Exterior of the wooden synagogue in Chodorów, Ukraine, mid-seventeenth century/ photo courtesy Polska Akademia Nauk, Instytut Sztuki, Warsaw |
Wooden synagogues were distinguished by their enormous wood-shingled roofs, which covered the sanctuary. The complex, multitiered roofs and the domed structure beneath them were the dominant architectural features of these buildings. The prayer hall, the heart and soul of the synagogue, was usually square in plan, with each wall measuring about 45 feet, creating an area of about 2,025 square feet. The interiors with their highly decorated walls, vaults, ceilings, and domes stood in striking contrast to the dark,
rough-hewn exteriors.
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Detail of the ceiling and ark from the synagogue in Chodorów, Ukraine, mid-seventeenth century /photo courtesy Polska Akademia Nauk, Instytut Sztuki, Warsaw |
They housed structures such as the fantastic, enormous carved and painted Torah arks (the cabinets that protect the scrolls of the Torah), the bimahs (speakers’ and readers’ stands), and the amuds (lecterns). Eastern European Jewish immigrants to the New World built places to worship based on their memories of the wooden synagogues in the villages they had left behind.
