The Center for Jewish Art
Documents Endangered Jewish Visual Heritage
The only two synagogues in Dushanbe, Tajikistan were demolished on 18th May 2008. Had it not been for the architectural documentation by the Center for Jewish Art of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, another Jewish monument would have vanished without a trace.
The Great Synagogue of Berezhany, Ukraine, built in 1718, is no more. It collapsed into total ruin in 1994. All that remains of this magnificent edifice is the detailed documentation which the Center for Jewish Art carried out in 1992.
Collapse and ruin is the fate of hundreds of synagogues in Eastern Europe, the Baltic States and thousands of others throughout the world. While we can never bring the synagogues and their communities back to life, we can preserve their memory through the documentation and study of their remaining visual culture.
The CJA was established in 1979 as a research institute at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to preserve the artistic heritage of the Jewish people. The CJA’s wide range of activities includes documentation, research, education and publishing in all aspects of Jewish art, from antiquity to the present day.
In the past twenty-nine years, the CJA has documented endangered Jewish art and architecture in forty countries, particularly in Eastern Europe- except for Poland, the Balkans, North Africa, the Caucasus and Asia. All of the documentation, which includes detailed textual descriptions, architectural plans and photographs, is incorporated into the Jerusalem Index of Jewish Art, the world's most comprehensive and systematic Jewish art database. The Index comprises over a quarter of a million written descriptions and photographs of ancient and modern Jewish art, Hebrew illuminated manuscripts, ritual and ceremonial objects, as well as synagogues, Jewish public and private buildings, mikvaot, cemetery chapels and tombstones.
It is impossible to physically preserve the entire visual heritage of the Jewish people. It is, however, technically possible and economically viable to virtually preserve much of the cultural treasures through a systematic documentation of all objects and synagogue buildings before they disappear. Our ultimate goal is to place the material on a computerized database so that it can be accessed by all via the internet. Samples can be viewed in our site http://cja.huji.ac.il.
METHOD OF DOCUMENTATION
There are four stages for completing documentation:
- General Survey
- Documentation and Photography in situ
- Processing the Data
- Publishing
- The General Survey is conducted to gather information regarding the Jewish visual heritage (ritual objects, manuscripts, synagogues, cemetery chapels and tombstones) in the target country. The researchers make contact with local people, map out the itinerary and set the duration necessary for each location.
- Documentation and Photography follows the survey. Field documentation includes detailed photography, measuring and writing a full description of an object, its decoration and inscriptions. Architects measure and sketch and describe the buildings, in order to draw a complete set of architectural plans. For cemeteries each tombstone is measured, inscriptions are copied and land surveyors measure the cemeteries for geodesic maps.
- Processing the Data into the Jerusalem Index of Jewish Art’s database is done concurrently with research, using a program especially developed for the Index. The descriptions are computerized in special templates which enable cross-sections of fields alongside photographs and architectural plans. For special buildings the architects design 3-D solid models in the computer, reconstructing the space of the original structure, and its changes throughout the ages.
- Publishing: The results of the research are published in either book form or on CD ROM, whenever funds are available.
