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 Eastern Europe that Agnon could use its disappearance as a marker of traditionalism in decline.