Customer Reviews

Resplendent Synagogue: Architecture and Worship in an Eighteenth-Century Polish Community (Tauber Institute Series for the Study of European Jewry)

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I found this beautiful book while looking for more information on the lost world of my ancestors. I got my answer, one of them is mentioned twice in this book, as the young Rabbi of the newly built synagogue in Gwozdziec, around 1731. The text is very accessible, detailed and extremely informative, the illustrations and drawings are amazing; one can only imagine the years of meticulous research that went into recreating the lost art of wooden houses of worship and the accurate description of daily life and interaction between the various ethnicities of the region. Recommended to everyone interested in the art and history of Europe (Poland, Ukraine and vicinity), religious buildings and Judaism. Congratulations to Professor Hubka, the result is a resplendent art book.

Wonderful in its whole!

Lovely illustrations, reasonable commentary as to both objective history and subjective interpretation all contributing to a jewel of a work. People may argue with some of the conclusions made by the author, but I can find no better ones at the present. Considering all of the tracts on the architecture of Churches, more really should be available on Synagogues.

Most of what is currently available on such construction is limited to modern works and certainly very little can be noted of the largely-destroyed buildings of Europe in the wake of WWII. Some areas of structures' vestiges has been shown in pictures in Silent Places, but with no intent to reconstruct them.

For those who want to understand Jewish Culture of the Shtetl, at least in the microcosm, a work such as this is essential. The fact that it is achieved in such a thorough manner is a major plus here!

If you think that you might be interested in this area, you really are remiss in not getting, or at least reading, this work.

I used this book for visual research for my graduate thesis project, a set design for "The Dybbuk." Don't know what I would have done without this book since all of the wooden synagogues in Poland are gone. Thank G-d there is some documentation.