News Brief

Synagogues existing in Poland as far back as the year 7203, more than 1,700 years ago, according to Professor George Lukomski, instructor in architecture, whose drawings of early Polish synagogues went on exhibition here today. M. Skirmunt, Polish ambassador, opened the exhibition.

“The impression persists that the Jews have done work of no importance in art,” said Dr. Lukomski, “but the view has been discredited as the result of research work which has brought to light remarkable artistic work done by Jews in the second and third centuries.

“People know of the synagogue architecture in Spain of the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries and there is a widespread impression that the Spanish synagogues had served as models for synagogues elsewhere, and that their style was the development of the original Jewish style of architecture.

“But research undertaken in Poland recently has shown that these monuments are not all typical of Jewish art. Much earlier there had been a Jewish art created in eastern Europe in Poland, Russia, Rumania and Latvia.

‘JEWISH ARCHITECTURE’

“The Jews who came from Crimea had built their own specifically Jewish architecture.

“From the time of the settlement of the Jews in Poland since the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, synagogues were built which were more indicative of Jewish style. The tolerance that existed in Poland towards the Jews had enabled them to build synagogues in Poland already in the fourteenth century when elsewhere there were no synagogues yet, but prayer houses exclusively.

“They started to build synagogues in Italy and Germany, but these structures were small in size and were not decorative. There were synagogues built in Prague, Worms and Mayence, but they were of smaller importance from the point of view of Jewish representative architectural style.”

Professor Lukomski discussed the wooden synagogues in Poland. He said that they showed strong influences of non-Christian styles and a “very remarkable originality, reflecting the pagoda style of China and a good deal of Pathan and Indian art that spread by way of the Black Sea region.”

“In fact,” he added, “the oldest Polish architecture is today preserved in these Polish synagogues and they preserve the general style of very early form of Slavonic architecture. They fixed the pattern and style of the ancient Slav temples as it was handed down it the written records now available, showing that the type of synagogue varies according to epoch and country.”

The Jewish Dally Bulletin brings you daily complete news of events concerning Jews in at parts of the world.