Most of the 300,000 visitors who stream into the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center at Ein Karem each year include Marc Chagall’s famous synagogue windows high on their itinerary.
But those who visited the synagogue at the Medical Center this past winter were disappointed. Thirty-five of the 144 panes of glass that make up the famous windows were removed for repairs. They have now been reinstalled in a delicate operation lasting from March 3 to March 12.
The story begins last September when, after a quarter century as a symbol of hope to millions, the windows had to be repaired. Jerusalem’s climate and shockwaves and tremors from the shelling of the medical complex during the Six-Day War had created tiny punctures in the glass, which over the years had spread into cracks. Therefore workmen removed the panes of glass with all the delicacy of the surgeons at work in Hadassah’s nearby operating rooms.
The two “window surgeons” are Alain Pierret, 54, and Michel Buisson, 20 years his junior, who had come specially from France to do the job. They had been dispatched by Jacques Simon, the son-in-law of Charles Marc, who had originally constructed the windows according to Chagall’s directions.
For Pierret this was a return visit. He had been one of the artisans who installed the same panes 25 years ago. “We’re more used to restoring medieval glass windows,” he said, “which are only half a millimeter thick. The Hadassah windows are eight times thicker — or just over half an inch–but they’re still very fragile.”
The last repair job on the windows was in 1967 when shrapnel destroyed four of them during the Six-Day War. Marc Chagall was alive then. He cabled the Medical Center, saying: “Don’t worry about the windows! Worry about Israel. I’ll make you new windows.” And he was true to his word. Following his death, however, the windows have become irreplaceable.
Many people were worried that removing them and sending them to Paris for repair and back to Jerusalem for reinstallation might cause the windows to be destroyed. But those fears have proved to be groundless. The panes are back in place and the windows have been restored to their original role as the jewels in Hadassah’s crown. Visitors to the synagogue can now enjoy them fully.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
