If I Forget Thee

Some of the most poignant expressions of these feelings were composed by the author of the Psalms:

"By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres" (137, 1-2).

"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither, let my tongue cleave to my palate if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy." (137, 5-7).

"Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion!" (147, 12)

The flourishing of Jewish art during the 18th century, which burst forth in a mighty stream throughout the Pale of Settlement in Eastern Europe was apparent in all areas of creativity and art. Artists began to decorate the interiors of synagogues with wall paintings, and prominent among the themes in the multitude of paintings, were depictions of the Babylonian exile, Zion, and Jerusalem, as an expression of the eternal longing. The visual images in the Book of Psalms such as, "on the willows there we hung up our lyres," stimulated the imaginations of the artists who also incorporated into their work the musical instruments - violin, trumpet, and cymbals - used by the klezmers, the itinerant Jewish folk musicians who would play at Jewish celebrations and at the courts of the Polish nobility.

In 1760, Yehuda Leib, a folk artist, painted an illustration of the verse, "By the waters of Babylon," on the walls of the synagogue of Przedborz, Poland, showing trumpets, czymbal (a Slavic stringed instrument), and a large violin - against the background of an imaginary rendition of Jerusalem, with birds fluttering in the sky. A versatile artist, architect, painter, and sculptor, David Fridlaender, who was active in Poland in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, illustrated the same verse on the walls of a synagogue in Grojec with a painting that seems to contain everything imaginable. On the left of the picture he drew the Tower of Babel, with four storeys rising to the sky. Deer graze in the meadow and birds fly in the sky in a pastoral atmosphere. In the centre of the picture, lyres hang on trees, and on the right is Jerusalem, shown as a typical Polish town with houses with tiled roofs, in the style contemporaneous with the time of the painter. Both the synagogues of Przedborz and Grojec were burned to the ground by the Germans in 1939.

Hundreds of other wooden synagogues containing similar colourful wall paintings expressing longings for Zion, that gave shape and character to the Jewish shtetls of the Pale of Settlement were also destroyed by fire in the early days of World War II.

It was customary to combine paintings of longings for Zion with a picture of Jerusalem as the city of hope. For about two centuries, depictions of the Babylonian Exile were painted on synagogue walls, a custom that continued until the present century. The paintings were often accompanied with written texts, such as verses from Psalms. In two panels from the 1920s, one in Roman, Bucovina, and the other in the Kirznershe synagogue (of the "Fur Hat Makers") in Jasi, Moldova, still in existence and in use to this day, there are representations of musical instruments similar to those then played by the klezmers. It is still possible to see the remnants of these paintings in Romania and Poland in now abandoned synagogues, the new elements alongside the traditional, a shofar, a trumpet, and cymbals, such as in Roman and in Wladowa, Poland.

In 1740, Chaim Segal of Sluck decorated the synagogue of Mohilev, Belorussia, with wall paintings, across the tops of which he inscribed Yerushalayim ir hakodesh ("The Holy City of Jerusalem"). He depicted Jerusalem as a splendid city with many palaces and spires, its focal point being a magnificent building with a tower and a crown on its head, the Temple, the eternal city of the artist's imagination. These wall paintings were preserved by the artist Eli Lissitzky in 1916 when he made an exact reproduction of the paintings together with his reminiscences of the synagogue. The paintings were published in the magazine Rimon-Milgroim in Berlin in 1923. Photographs of the ceiling and interior shots of the synagogue were taken by Rachel Wischnicer-Bernstein, one of the first researchers of Jewish Art, in 1910, and were published for the first time in "The History of the Jewish People," Moscow, 1914. The rare photo that appears here was found among the papers of the noted Jewish actor, Solomon Mikhoels, a victim of the Stalinist era, which are preserved in the General Archives of the Jewish People at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. The synagogue of Mohilev, which was constructed entirely of wood, was burnt by the Germans together with the other synagogues of Belorussia in 1941. In another painting by Yehuda Leib in Przedborz in 1760 ("By the Waters of Babylon"), Jerusalem is depicted as a city of towers. This style of painting had already become traditional by that time.

In the wall paintings of the synagogue in Jablonow, Galicia, of 1727, Jerusalem is shown as an imaginary city with towers rising up from it. Doves and other animals decorate its landscape, as befits the Holy City. The artist apparently drew inspiration for depicting the towers of Jerusalem from the biblical verse, "Uzziah built towers in Jerusalem" (2 Chronicles, 26,9). These multi-coloured wall paintings were printed as lithographs in 1888 by J. Boehniak, A. Wierzblicki and L. Gortz, and were published in the research of Ludwik Wierzblicki on the synagogue of Jablonov at the Academy of Arts of Cracow in 1889. The synagogue was built in about 1670 and was destroyed during the First World War.

In the 18th century, a new element appeared in the depictions of the towers of Jerusalem: the onion-shaped domes in the synagogues of Kamianka Strumilowa, Poland. Clearly, the domes on the spires of nearby Russian Orthodox churches served as models for the painters of synagogues. The artist, Eliezer Zusman Katz, of Brody, who undoubtedly also painted synagogues in Galicia, took sketches of his paintings with him when he was invited to decorate synagogues in Bavaria. Between 1732 and 1740, he decorated synagogues in Colmberg, Bechhofen, Horb, Unterlimburg, and Kirchheim. There too, he capped the spires of Jerusalem with onion-shaped domes, based on the models he had brought with him when he left his native city. Only two of the five synagogues in which Eliezer Zusman Katz painted, survived the Second World War. The first was that of Unterlimberg, built in 1739. The most important are the decorative panels of the synagogue of Horb, built in 1735 which were preserved in the museum at Bamburg, and donated to the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, in 1968. The ceiling of the synagogue has since been recreated in all its glory; in the upper left hand corner of one wall, Jerusalem is depicted with its walls, towers, and gates according to the tradition of wall paintings in the synagogues of Poland. The walls of the Unterlimberg synagogue are painted under the Slavic influence of the painter's childhood, with Jerusalem's towers and buildings as onion-shaped domes.

Jewish artists who lived in the small shtetls of Eastern Europe drew the walls and gates of Jerusalem, landscapes they had never seen in their lives, with a naivètè typical of folk art. The painting of the walls of Jerusalem in the Nicolina synagogue in Jasi, Romania represents Jerusalem as a shtetl. Its houses have gabled roofs and between the houses rise a few domes of synagogues. This Jerusalem is placed in a grassy meadow, surrounded by a wall, the architecture of which is difficult to decipher. These imaginative paintings, noted by a particular lightness and softness, were smashed into oblivion by local builders only days after they were photographed by the author.

On the walls of Jerusalem in the synagogue of Niebylec, Galicia, which has been preserved, and now serves as a community library, is a painting dating from the beginning of the century, and from the same period there is a painting in Jasi, with a mighty stone wall and gates, enclosing the city like a fortress. The houses within it have round, red domes. The Western Wall defends the city from the rear, and on a panel is the verse from Psalms 147, 2: "The Lord builds up Jerusalem; He gathers in the exiles of Israel."

David Fridlaender who decorated the synagogue in Piotrkow, Poland at the beginning of the century, painted Jerusalem as an Oriental city: its houses have flat roofs and spires, one of which is the minaret of a mosque. The huge wall of Jerusalem in this picture is similar to the stone walls in Poland which people built around courtyards when stone was a readily available building material. This synagogue was destroyed during the Second World War and the painting was lost, however, the building has since been restored and now serves as a library. On the southern wall of a synagogue in Radovic, Bucovina, a painting carries the inscription, "The Holy City of Jerusalem, May it Soon be Rebuilt and Established." In the painting is a tall building with a round dome. To the left is the minaret of a mosque, the Western Wall, and the walls of the city with their gates and towers, and the Beit Zion neighbourhood, surrounded by mountains covered with many trees. This is a copy of an original painted in the 1870s by the folk artist Chaim Shlomo Pinia of Safed. This painting was popular in the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe as a souvenir of "The Holy Land and its Borders" in lithographs printed in Vienna in the late 19th century and in Turek, Poland, before the First World War. The Western Wall, the only extant part of the Temple, found its natural place in the wall paintings. The artist who painted the Nicolina synagogue in Jasi portrayed the Wall in an imaginative painting. Between the spires, Jews wrapped in prayer shawls pray before it, while far in the distance can be seen the houses of Jerusalem in a grove of trees. He also painted the Western Wall in a grove, in an open landscape, in the Kirznershe Shul of Jasi. Here, the men wrapped in their prayer shawls, pray on the left side of the picture, and on the right, the women pray dressed in black.

The Sulitza Road Synagogue in Botoshan, Moldova, was built for waggon drivers and porters. The naive and authentic simplicity of the paintings in this synagogue reflect the popular nature of the workers who frequented it. There, the Western Wall (with a Yiddish inscription), is shown as a masonry wall, with a few trees behind it, and next to it are buildings with red domes. This motif is repeated frequently in paintings of the Western Wall in synagogues. It apparently had its origin in seals and brass engravings of associations and institutions, and in the illustrations on the title pages of books and in printers' marks. All of these were produced or printed in Jerusalem in the 19th century, and they all contain the same schematic drawing of the Western Wall.

Depictions of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, have a similar history. In written accounts, in printed souvenir pages, and in folk art, the Temple is described as an octagonal building topped with a large dome, that is, to say, actually the seventh century Islamic Mosque of Omar, known as the Dome of the Rock. Since the beginning of the century, this picture, with variations, appeared on the walls of synagogues such as in the Kirznershe Shul, and the Merarske Shul (the "Synagogue of the Apple Growers"), both of which are in Jasi, and a splendid painting in the synagogue in Roman. The artist signed his painting with the inscription:

"The work of my hands to be glorified/ Abraham Mendel the son of Reb Shlomo/ of Yasi in the year 5680 [1920]."

At the foot of the painting he wrote, "The Holy of Holies with the Foundation Stone." At the beginning of the century, photographs of the Holy Land began to arrive in Eastern Europe, and the landscape of Jerusalem was painted accordingly. The monuments in the Kidron Valley, Absalom's Pillar and the Tomb of Zechariah, are painted in the synagogue of Domrowa, near Tarnow, Poland. The wall paintings and ceiling in this synagogue have for the most part been preserved. Restoration work was begun some years ago, but was never completed, and the synagogue remains abandoned. The works of contemporary artists also provided inspiration for the synagogue painters. A Jerusalem landscape, based on an etching by the famous artist, Efraim Moshe Lilien, found its place in one of the synagogues of Roman.

The last of the synagogue painters on Polish soil was Berl Fas. He finished the paintings of the synagogues of Rymanow, Galicia, in 1930. Above the entrance he painted a double panel. To the right was a landscape with buildings entitled, "The Tomb of the Royalty of the House of David." The ruins of this synagogue have remained since its destruction in the early days of the Second World War. Mysteriously, though it has neither roof nor windows, and was subjected to further looting and destruction after the Jewish population disappeared from the area, several remnants and quotations from the Talmud painted on the walls remain to this day. However, all attempts to restore this building have so far ended in failure.

This marked the end of the 200 year epic of exile in the paintings of synagogues. However, the painter of the synagogue in Bobowa, Poland, outdid them all. He painted the entire city of Jerusalem surrounded by mountains, with its many houses, the Temple and the Dome of the Rock in the foreground, a masonry wall with a monumental gate enclosing it. The painted walls of the Bobowa synagogue were totally covered in whitewash and the building was converted into a girls' school for weaving and embroidery. The Holy Ark, an outstanding work of craftsmanship, was covered by a curtain and thereby preserved. The weaving looms have recently been removed and the building has been handed over to the Jewish authorities. Restoration work has since begun and as the whitewash is removed, parts of a painting of Jerusalem with a golden dome have been revealed. There are plans to turn the building into a museum of the Jewish life that once flourished in the area.

Active synagogues in the old Jewish Pale of Settlement of Eastern Europe still exist in Romania, Moldova, and the Carpathian Mountains. However, in most of the rest of the one-time Pale, virtually all the synagogues have been totally destroyed.

As we have seen, Jerusalem was always in the forefront of the Jews' consciousness - in their homes and in their synagogues. The eternal longings for Zion, Jerusalem and for the Western Wall never disappeared from the consciousness of the local congregations who prayed for redemption.

In Tyczyn, a small shtetl in Galicia, in the attic of a private house, I found a painted sukkah from the early 19th century. Jews are waiting outdoors, for a ship sailing on the high seas that was to gather them up and bring them to the Promised Land, the land of vineyards and palms. At that moment, the Hasidim would sing with enthusiasm (in Yiddish), a paraphrase of a poem by Goethe:

Zu veyst ir dos land vu esroygim bleyen?
Vu zign essen bokser unstodt groz
Gebroteneh taybelach genzelach fleyen gleich in moyl erein
vu rozhinkes vine tut fleissen on a mos
mit lulovim allerlei zeiynen gedekt die decher
un mandeln waksen oif yeden stecken.
Oy ahin, ahin, ahin
oy rebenyu gevald, gevald.
Vort ich mir ahin a vek
oy khotchbi takeh bald.

Do you know the land where citrons bloom?
There the goats eat carobs instead of grass.
Roasted doves and geese fly straight into your
mouth
There raisin wine flows abundantly
Palm fronds crowd on the roofs of houses,
And on every staff almonds grow.
Oy, to there, to there, to there,
And oy, our rabbi, help, help!
I would go there this very minute Even straight away.


Translated by Jeffrey M. Green