What started as the creation of a simple Jewish New Year’s card has become a journey that has reinvented my life. Inspired by the wooden synagogues of Eastern Europe and their Jewish cultural history, I began to capture their images in block printing.
Wooden Synagogues were built in the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania between 1600 and 1800. Lost Treasures is a collection of linocuts, woodcuts, brush paintings, drawings, and etchings depicting wooden synagogues and a way of life almost destroyed during the Holocaust.
The synagogues was the heart and soul of the Jewish Community. It was a place of prayer and study of Torah. Since Jews had a degree of self-government, the synagogue was a seat of government. It was here that taxes were collected and government announcements were read. The synagogue operated and regulated cemeteries, hospitals, old age homes, schools at all levels and kosher butcher shops. All welfare programs including aid to the poor and sickly, welcoming new residents, originated from the synagogue.
Weddings, bar mitzvahs, and funerals took place in the synagogue. The synagogue was forced to fill quotas for military draft. Many towns had several synagogues, but they all prayed together during the high holy days in the town's main synagogue.
These beautiful wooden structures were lost by the end of the Holocaust. Lost Treasures attempts to bring them and their stories back to life.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to the people who prayed in
Eastern Europe’s Wooden Synagogues, and to
those of us who wish they were still here.