Friday, December 1, 2006
Bar none.
Byzantine arch found at site of renovated Jerusalem synagogue
The arch, a remnant of the synagogue bombed by the Jordanians in 1948, was removed due to the renovation and reconstruction of the synagogue now in progress...
...The Hurva's renovation ended a prolonged architectural argument about how to reconstruct the synagogue, which was the center of cultural and spiritual life in Israel and the Jewish Quarter in the second half of the 19th Century and first half of the 20th. Ultimately, architect Nahum Meltzer's plan to reconstruct the original synagogue was adopted.
The courtyard was purchased 306 years ago by Rabbi Yehuda he-Hasid (Segal), who arrived from Poland with 300 of his students. It sat adjacent to the Ramban Synagogue, built some 430 years earlier and was closed by the Ottomans in 1589. The Ashkenazi community in the Old City numbered a mere few hundred people in those days and Rabbi Yehuda he-Hasid and his students' coming caused much commotion. He died five days later.
His followers began building a yeshiva and synagogue in the courtyard, but the construction was not completed. The Jews were late returning the loan to the Arabs for the project and in 1721 the Arabs burned the uncompleted synagogue and the 40 Torah books it housed. The site remained desolate for 140 years, thus acquiring the name "hurva" (the wreck). A new synagogue was built there by the disciples of the Vilna Gaon in 1864.
The Hurva then became the most splendid synagogue in Israel and hosted important Jewish events until the 1930s. Two days after conquering the quarter in 1948, the Jordanians bombed the synagogue and the Jordanian commander reported to headquarters: "For the first time in 1,000 years not a single Jew remains in the Jewish Quarter. Not a single building remains intact. This makes the Jews' return here impossible."
And that's why, BTW, no one who knows history will quickly allow any part of Jerusalem to return to Arab hands.
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: This reconstructed synagogue will be the highest dome in Jerusalem.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.solomonia.com/cgi-bin/mt4/mt-renamedtb.cgi/6926
Abu El Haj fudges history there, too, deacribing the Hurva as having been "during the 1948 war." p. 186
Hi Solomon,
I admit I was attracted by the title of this post.
After reading the story, I think it is a wonderful development that this synagogue is to be restored to it's former splendor.
But then I felt guilty about getting excited by your title, because this is not really the game we want to play here, "who has it bigger" do we? This is exactly the trap that has many muslims on rage, and that we should try to avoid for ourselves like the pest.
Best regards
You have a point.
It's not a game of one-upsmanship. It's an important statement. When allowed to build a church or synagogue, Dhimmis are not allowed to build it as high as the local mosque. In Europe, Jews for a long time were not permitted to build a synagogue higher than the church.
I hope that this dome will not only be the highest as measured from the base to the top, but that it will be the highest one on the skyline -- a tough goal because al Aqsa and Dome on the Rock start at a higher elevation.
Yeah, the Muslim world will be deeply offended and may riot. Building it will powerfully assert our sovereignty in our land and the irrelevance of anyone's demand that we act deferentially because of our inferior status.
The big danger, of course, is that the dome will become a target, and we'll either have to kick some butt for a change or succumb to pressure from the "international community" and submit to Arab demands.
Uppity Jews. Don't even know how to stay in their place.
By all means rebuild it as seems fitting; whether to the same scale as the original or taller as need be. But under no circumstances rebuild it with a thought for the sons of the men who destroyed it.
http://www.avotaynu.com/InRemembrance.htm
Nice pics.
staronova, as I understand it, the synagogue is on a hill, which will place its dome, when rebuilt, as the highest, not necessarily the biggest.
Now Pablo does make a point here, but it's not the only to be made. Pablo's point is true to our own principles...but...
Those principles, that language of conciliation is not the same one spoken by the ones who have done and are doing the destruction here. Perhaps it's time to start speaking the language of "the other"...that's what we're supposed to do, right?
The Jews have a problem, since Jews, in spite of all their victories, are still viewed as weak, dhimmi people...and in spite of all their victories, still act like weaklings even in victory.
No one likes to be beaten by a weakling. Getting your butt kicked by the biggest kid in the karate class...there's no shame in that...but to be beaten by a contemptible figure...that's shameful, that's embarrassing, that leaves you looking for round 2 or 3 or 4...
No, time to act like winners, like strong people...if Jerusalem is the holiest place on earth for Jews, time to start acting like it.
Build the dome.
For more about the Hurva, see the 2004 documentary film about Louis Kahn made by his son Nathaniel. There is some amazing footage of the long-serving former mayor of Jerusalem, Teddy Kollec (forgive the spelling), then in his 90s, and his assistant, Ruthie talking about how they could have raised the money to construct what Kahn designed easily enough, but the project stalled over concerns that the Muslims would object to the height of the synagogue.
"But under no circumstances rebuild it with a thought for the sons of the men who destroyed it."
I guess this is the point I was trying to make.
I also agree you sometimes need to talk the language of the other when you are addressing the other, but I see a trap in that we might start using it to talk to ourselves.
If the punchline is "this dome will be the highest" you're not talking to me, because high domes have no special meaning to me. You're really talking to the "sons of the men who destroyed it".
We don't build synagogues as a means to assert sovereignity just as we don't do archeology to sustain our narrative. This is a trap that would make all synagogues vulnerable and each archeological finding doubtful. We use them to gather and pray and to learn our history and they're stronger because of that.
Maybe the solution is to neither aim to have the biggest and tallest nor avoid having the biggest and tallest. Just use an unrelated criterion: historical accuracy.
Israelis should reconstruct the dome of Hurva as it was, claiming history as their guide. If it happens to be taller because the synogogue is on a hill, fine. If it isn't taller, fine. But at least one can point to old photos to justify replacing what had already been there. The Arabs could hardly object to anyone rebuilding what they themselves had destroyed, and rather recently at that.
Historical accuracy should also be the criterion for similar projects, if there are any.
For newer religious buildings, the criteria should be: a building's purpose, expected size of the congregation, proportion vis-a-vis the size of the lot, the scale of the neighborhood, etc. Again, if a project happens to be big, fine. But presumably that won't always be the case, so it will be easy to argue that there is no concerted effort by the Israelis to have synogogues dominate Jerusalem's skyline.