Lost Synagogues of Europe
Paintings and Histories
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Jewish Publication Society
Publishing:1st Nov '25
£28.99
This title is due to be published on 1st November, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
Lost Synagogues of Europe chronicles and recreates in vivid color paintings the life stories of nearly 80 majestic-and destroyed-European synagogues, each one a testament to the approximately 17,000 synagogues decimated during the Third Reich and early takeover of the Communist regimes. After World War II only about 3,300 buildings remained standing, and just more than 700 are still in use as synagogues. This exquisite and significant work of historical preservation collects, organizes, and documents their stories.
In four chapters organized by inauguration dates (1600s, 1700s, 1800s, and 1900s), author and artist Andrea Strongwater shines light on 77 synagogues built from the early 1600s to 1930 and spanning 16 European countries where destruction was rampant: Austria (6 synagogues), Belarus (3), Croatia (2), the Czech Republic (5), Estonia (1), France (2), Germany (26), Italy (1), Latvia (2), Lithuania (5), Luxembourg State (1), the Netherlands (1), Poland (15), Russia (1), Slovakia (2), and Ukraine (4). Strongwater lovingly illustrates their exteriors and interiors and tells stories of their history, Jewish community, and architectural significance. These synagogues were considered important enough to have been documented in their time, and so here they do double duty: reminding us of the many thousands of other synagogues that were obliterated without having left any historical record.
A foreword by Jewish Theological Seminary Chancellor Emeritus Ismar Schorsch examines the evolution of the synagogue “from a sacred place to a sacred book.” A map of the 2024 political landscape of Europe (with Pale of Settlement and Russian Poland, mid-1800s) helps readers locate each city, town, and country. A cross-reference guide of synagogue locations by country enables readers to find synagogues in the cities and towns of their ancestors.
In all, Lost Synagogues of Europe helps to revive a thriving European Jewish culture and heritage that needs to be remembered today.
“Lost Synagogues of Europe is a remarkable contribution to a variety of disciplines. It offers a virtual tour across European Jewish communities, with equal attention paid to art, architecture, the Gentile authorities’ stance toward its Jews, and the changing historical context, from Roman times till the first decade of the new millennium. Andrea Strongwater tells a painful story of Jewish communal focal points targeted for destruction primarily by Nazi Germany, but also by its Soviet ideological rivals. It leaves us hopeful that as we show a new generation the beauty of what was lost, the Nazi effort to make Europe Judenrein can somehow, to some extent, be undone.”-Shay Pilnik, director of the Emil A. and Jenny Fish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Yeshiva University “Andrea Strongwater’s paintings of European synagogues destroyed in the Holocaust allow us to connect emotionally with them-and, in that sense, bring them back to life for us. Her concomitant history of these synagogues broadens our understanding of these homes of Jewish living and thereby serves as new, important testimony to Jewish life lost in the flames of the Shoah.”-Vladimir Levin, director of the Center for Jewish Art at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem “This is a must-read book. Andrea Strongwater’s remarkable paintings and meticulously researched histories honor and help bring back to life lost Jewish communities in Europe, especially during World War II. Her dedication, evident in every detail, has earned her well-deserved accolades. I highly recommend Lost Synagogues of Europe for everyone interested in Jewish history and preserving Jewish memory.”-Rabbi Justin Schwartz, Jewish educator at Temple Beth Abraham, in Tarrytown, New York
ISBN: 9780827615694
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
277 pages