Євген Котляр. Синагога бережанських емігрантів у Нью‑Йорку: образи малої батьківщини в Америці

The Synagogue of immigrants from Berezhany in New York: images of «Small Homeland» in America

By Eugene Kotlyar

(Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Fine Arts )

Source: Judaica Ukrainica 3 (2014): 140-169

Publication date: December 1, 2014

Publication type: article

Language: Ukrainian

Full text:

 

Abstract

This article investigates the historical and cultural context, architecture and wall-paintings of the Jewish immigrants’ synagogue, who came from the Galician city of Brzezany (now Berezhany, a city located in the Ternopil region of Western Ukraine) to New York. They founded Congregation Bnai Jacob Anshe Brzezan on Stanton Street Shul (Lower East Side 180 Stanton St.). The synagogue was built in 1913, the painting was done before 1939 and is in a state of decrepitude.
Synagogue Stanton Street Shul is a monument of mass Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe in the late 19th – early 20th century. It is preserved in the Lower East Side – the main area that immigrants lived at the time. The history of the synagogue construction and its appearance suggests the connection between Eastern European and American cultures and refugees’ integration in an American context. The architecture of the synagogue combined the features of plural European style, including defense synagogues within tenement-building style. This synagogue is one of many examples of architecture of the tenement-synagogue type preserved in the LES and elsewhere. The murals show their amateur style. The motifs of the wall paintings are signs of the Zodiac and the Holy Places in Erets Israel. It is the most common representation of Eastern European synagogue decorations, in the interpretation of which can be seen many parallels to the synagogues in New York and Eastern Europe. They are compounds of American and Slavic motifs, from known iconographic sources.

Keywords: Jewish art, Berezhany, Jews in New York, Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe, synagogue art

 

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DOI 10.14653/ju.2014.08