JEWISH MUSEUM
OF FLORIDA ISSUES CALL FOR MATERIALS FOR EXHIBIT ON POLISH JEWS WHO SETTLED IN
FLORIDA
Deadline is August 2010
The Jewish Museum
of Florida is very proud to announce a new acquisition that is significant to
the Jewish history of Florida, as well as world Jewish history.
Peter Maurice, of England and Spain, donated to the Museum ten Polish wooden synagogue models, which he built. These detailed models depict synagogues in Poland from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries from the villages of Przedborz, Gombin, Zabludow, Gwozdziec, Wysoke Mazowieckie, Lutomiersk, Kornik, Narowla, Glinne and Pilic. They all have distinct architectural elements that are reflective of the time and place in which they were created.
Creating a
Florida Connection Exhibit
To share these
models with the public, the Museum is planning an exhibit to tell an expanded
story of Jews in Florida who came (or whose ancestors came) from Poland. If you
(or someone you know) are one of them, please contact the Museum
Registrar
(305-672-5044, ext. 3167) or email (registrar@jewishmuseum.com)
so that we can create a "Florida Connection" with your familiesÕ
photos and artifacts. Donors need to
provide the dates, names, and places for each photo, document and artifact and
the story overview of the family.
Jews of Poland
and their Wooden Synagogues – Jewish Folk Art
Jews lived in the territory that later became Poland as early as the 8th century when Jewish merchants were part of the trade routes across the continent and by the 10th century, they were turning to agriculture and handicrafts. Then during the Crusades more immigrants came and some became moneylenders. During the 13th and 14th centuries, intense urbanization and rising persecution of Jews in Western Europe encouraged even more Jewish immigration to Poland, where they were welcomed. They lived in concentrated areas of their towns, Òthe Jewish quarter,Ó and the center of their lives was the synagogue.
The period from 1580 to 1648 has been called the
Golden Age of Jews in Poland. Because timber was plentiful and easy to work
with, it was widely used in Poland as building material. The architects and
craftsmen were quite skilled at elaborate designs that followed the rules for
the layout of the synagogue. According to some art historians, the wooden synagogues of Poland
with their painted and carved interiors were a truly original and organic
manifestation of artistic expression—the only real Jewish folk art in
history. The wooden synagogues were memorable because, unlike all previous
synagogues, they were not built in the architectural style of their region and
era, but in a newly evolved and uniquely Jewish style.
Moreover, while in many parts of the world Jews were proscribed from
entering the building trades and even from practicing the decorative arts of
painting and woodcarving, the wooden synagogues were actually built by Jewish
craftsmen. To many people, the Polish wooden synagogue represents the only
indigenous Jewish architecture, that is, a style of folk architecture that is
both unique to the Jews, and not primarily adapted from something else.
The Nazis in
WWII destroyed the early wooden synagogues in Poland, mostly in 1939. Some
built in the 19th and 20th century have been found in
Poland and what is now Lithuania and are in deteriorated conditions.