Evening star., 1933-04-09

degree, through the demands made by
similar Reform societies throughout the
country. Thus were established the
CONGREGATIONS Har Sinai in Baltimore,
Emanuel in New York, Keneseth Is
rael in Philadelphia, Sinai in Chicago
and many other of the leading Reform
congregations Of today.
A medieval Jew, transposed to this
age through some cabalistic necro-
NANCY, would find much that was
strange and puzzling, but probably even
more that was familiar and understand
able in the synagogue of today. He
would feel most at home, of course, in
some of the older European centers of
Jewish worship. He might even recog-
nize some of them. The synagogue of
Worms, built in the eleventh century,
and the famous Altneu Synagogue in
Prague, built a century or two later,
are the oldest in the world.
The history of the latter Is almost
a counterpart of the history of the
Jewish race. Catastrophe has hovered
over it a hundred times during the
dark centuries. Fire has licked at its
walls, floods of the River Moldau have
eaten greedily of it's foundations, paths
of pillage and destruction left by
bowling mobs, have ended miraculously
at its very doors. Within, the blood Of
martyred worshipers has been spilled
on floor and walls. Yet it stands in
tact, and our medieval Jew would find
nothing about it that was strange ex-
cept, perhaps, that the street on which
it faces has risen, and one now enters
the synagogue by descending steps into
cellar.
The synagogue at Amsterdam,
| though not built until the latter half
of the seventeenth century, would also
seem familiar to our venerable visitor
Time has changed it little, either out
wardly or in the rituals which take
place before its holy Ark.
In contrast to these old houses Of
worship, to which tradition and legend
cling like vines, are the synagogues in
Russia. The largest and most beauti-
| full among them have been despoiled,
and the majority have been turned to
civic uses.
In other parts of Europe, too, our
medieval Jew would find that hundreds
Of synagogues built III his time have
been destroyed through fire, pillage or
the wantonness of hostile mobS. He
would find that other synagogues have
been metamorphosed into churches by
papal edict. The Synagogue of Toledo,
built In the fourteenth century, exists
today as the Church de Nuestra Sonora
de San Bonita and in Seville an old
synagogue is now the Church of st.
Baralome.
Were our Jew given wings to follow
from the air the dispersion of his CO.
religionists over the face of the earth
he would probably receive his greatest
shock from the boldness with which
his brethren had built their shrineS in
the great cities. In his day synagogues
were built in the ghetto, in the darkest
and most malodorous part OF the COM
munity, in a narrow, crooked street
that the sunshine could not enter, and
the Gentle, unless on destruction bent,
would not.
Variety of Architecture.
Though he might be impressed by
the size of some of the synagogues, our
Jew would not be surprised at the
variety of their architecture. Jewish
builders have always been strongly in
fluenced by the country in which they
were building, partly because they did
not want their work to stand out too
prominently in hostile eyes. Our Jew
would hardly be able to distinguish the
the secular buildings about; in Je-
rusalem he would see domed syna-
gogues with mosque-like minarets. He
would recognize the Romanesque syn
agogue at Worms and the Gothic and
Byzantine synagogue at Prague. At
Nagasaki, in Japan, the synagogue
would appear almost as a pagoda. He
would see in Newport, r. l., and in
Charleston, S. c., synagogues in char
acteristic Colonial or Georgian style.
Even in the newer synagogues. in the
building of which no restraint has
been necessary, no distinctive pattern
has been followed
1t is true that were this pious Jew
to drift to earth somewhere in these
United States, or even in a few places
elsewhere, he would refuse to enter
some synagogues that at a distance
would seem to be welcome refugees for
his weary spirit He might, as did
Chief Rabbi Cook of Palestine a few
years ago, refuse to enter Conserva-
tive synagogue in Montreal because its
ark, contrary to Talmudic regulation,
was not built at the east wall-the
wall nearest Jerusalem. He might con-
slider it profane beyond redress that
the rabbi should lead a prayer with his
back to the ark. Certainly he would
consider it sinful that no mechitza, or
separation by curtain or grille of the
women from the men in the congrega-
tion, was present in the synagogue.
Yet were he adventurous enough to
stif1e his first aversions and continue
on, he would recognize much and in
| his way understand much more of
what was about him. He would gaze
with knowing eyes at familiar decora-
tlons about the ark and hangings-
the interlacing triangles, the Lion of
Judah, the flower and fruit forms.
There are only few emblems, char
acteristically Jewish, which may be
used to give an air of devotion to a
synagogue, and our venerable visitor
has seen them all in his own day.
Our Jew, wandering out of the syna-
gogue proper. might think of the club
rooms and school rooms and libraries
as so many Beth Ha 'madrashim, or
houses of study. He would not be so
far wrong, either, for more and more is
Hebrew being taught in synagogue
schools, while increasing stress is be-
ing laid on Jewish history and Jewish
1 topics in general at the forums and
meetings of various kinds that make
up the cultural life of the synagogue
Appropriately enough. our Jew would
find himself most at home, so far as
the United States is concerned, in this
countrys oldest congregation-Shearith
Israel, on Central Park West in New
York City. Here architecture and serv-
ices alike would strike many familiar
chords, for since its founding in 1855
this Spanish-P Portuguese community
has maintained its ritual practically
intact, although it has changed its
building several times.
Certain Reform Synagogues, however,
would probably prove too much for even
the most liberal minded of medieval
Jews. In Rabbi Stephen S. Wises Free
Synagogue in New York City there is
not even an ark! What profound men
. tai and spiritual adjustments would
our visitor have to undergo to accept the
confirmation of girls and the holding OF
Sunday services? Were our visitor from
medieval France, he might not be sur
prised to see worshipers with uncovered
heads, for some of the congregations OF
i the time are said to have discarded that
! Oriental custom, but he would unques-