Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, Berlin. The great success of the late twentieth-century “nonrabbinic Judaism” movement has been the general acknowledgement that the Jewish world in late antiquity was indeed complex, and that classical rabbinic sources only convey some of that complexity. This said, visual sources provide little evidence for a religion that was greatly […]
Bialystoker Synagogue, Manhattan, details of the wall and ceiling paintings. In Eastern Europe, this tradition of painted synagogues, often with signs of the zodiac, was quite common before the Holocaust, and it is maintained in a few remaining synagogue buildings—most prominently the Bialystoker Synagogue in lower Manhattan. This kind of decoration, as uncommon as it is […]
Bialystoker Synagogue, Manhattan, details of the wall and ceiling paintings.In Eastern Europe, this tradition of painted synagogues, often with signs of the zodiac, was quite common before the Holocaust, and it is maintained in a few remaining synagogue buildings—most prominently the Bialystoker Synagogue in lower Manhattan. This kind of decoration, as uncommon as it is […]
We see in this design of the Dura Temple of Dagon the garments that the High Priest wore, the utensils and objects that were used in the Temple to offer sacrifices and the other people who served in the Temple.
Bialystoker Synagogue, Manhattan. In Eastern Europe, this tradition of painted synagogues, often with signs of the zodiac, was quite common before the Holocaust, and it is maintained in a few remaining synagogue buildings—most prominently the Bialystoker Synagogue in lower Manhattan. This kind of decoration, as uncommon as it is in our world, was so common in […]
The above tiles are from a Synagogue in Hamat Tiberias. The Hammat Tiberias Synagogue is an ancient Synagogue on the outskirts of Tiberias, located near the hot springs just south of the city. The synagogue dates to 286 and 337 CE, when Tiberias was the seat of the Sanhedrin. Two synagogue sites have been excavated at […]
Here is a picture of a ceiling of the synagogue of Chodorow, Ukraine. It has subsequently been destroyed. You see diagrams and verses for each of the 12 tribes you would expect to see in a synagogue.
Sephardic Lebanese Synagogue, Brooklyn, by Zehava Benjamin.
Torah shrine of the Sephardic Lebanese Synagogue, Brooklyn, by Zehava Benjamin.
In 1922, Nahum Slouschz, the first “Hebrew archaeologist,” associated the fine limestone menorah that he had recently discovered at Hammath Tiberias with supposed priestly behavior in that synagogue. Slouschz writes: “I could not doubt that we had found here a Menorah made faithfully on the plan of the Menorah of the Holy Temple. This model […]