Stone Synagogues of the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries in the Ukraine and Byelorussia

Abstract

It was here, in the eastern regions of the Polish-Lithuanian State (Rzeczpospolita), that a new type of synagogue building, a fortified synagogue, was introduced on a large scale from the second half of the sixteenth to the early seventeenth century, in the so-called Golden Age of Polish Jewry. Solid walls, narrow, elevated windows, slits in the attics where cannons were positioned, turned the synagogue into the equivalent of a citadel of a feudal castle. Such a building could be incorporated into the city's fortification system, controlling one of the incoming roads and protecting the Jewish quarter. Thus, in Lutsk, the synagogue building with a watchtower adjacent to the prayer hall was referred to as the Small Castle.2 A fortified synagogue could be built within the city walls (e.g., in Medzhibozh,3 Satanov)4 or in the suburbs, usually next to a bridge across a river, where it served as a barbican (e.g., in Shargorod,5 Lutsk). Crowned with an attic, the synagogue would tower above the squatting houses that surrounded it, and thus, serve as one of the city's semantically significant architectural dominants. Various annexes, added to the main structure at various times, surrounded it on all sides except for the Eastern one, thus creating a kind of solidům. As a rule, the narthex6 was to be found on the Western side, while the women's quarters, connected with the prayer hall by special windows, were on the Northern or the Southern side. At the same time, synagogue buildings of smaller size would be erected in compliance with the standards of the earlier period. A typical example is the Golden Rose synagogue (Lvov) started in 1582 by an Italian architect, Paul the Roman, on commission by a merchant Isaak Nahmanovich.7 It was