Resplendent Synagogue: Architecture and Worship in an Eighteenth-Century Polish Community

by Thomas C. Hubka

Thomas C. Hubka, an architectural historian known for his work on American vernacular architecture, immersed himself in medieval and early-modern Jewish history, religion, and culture to prepare for this remarkable study of the eighteenth-century Polish synagogue in the town of Gwozdziec, now in present Ukraine. Hubka selected the Gwozdziec Synagogue - one of the finest examples of a small-town wooden synagogue from the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth - because of the completeness of its photographic and historical records. This truly resplendent synagogue exemplified a high point in Jewish architectural art and religious painting, a tradition that was later abandoned by Eastern-European Jewish communities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Because the Gwozdziec Synagogue, like so many others, was destroyed by the Nazis, this book revives a spiritual community lost to history. Graced with more than 150 historical photographs, architectural drawings, maps, diagrams, and color illustrations, Resplendent Synagogue vividly recreates the spiritual heart of a once-vibrant Jewish community. Hubka reads the synagogue both as a historical document and as a cultural artifact.

288 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2003

Reviews

[Micebyliz]

A detailed analysis of the wooden synagogue structure along with some historical and artistic research.