Riverdale—If a picture is worth a thousand words, then Lissa Marum’s exhibition of photos of European synagogues speaks volumes. Recently, Marum, 67, took center stage at a wine and cheese reception inaugurating her exhibit of 22 color photos of synagogues and other Jewish sites from Amsterdam to Moscow in Gallery 18 at the Riverdale YM-YWHA until the end of February.
The Riverdale Art Association, a group of neighborhood painters, photographers, sculptures, and other visual artists organized the show. Joyce Gutka, herself a sculpture, photographer, and painter founded the group in 1999, after the City Island gallery that she worked for closed. The Association has 45 members and meets regularly to discuss marketing strategies, critique each other’s works, and hold workshops. They export Riverdale’s talents to the broader community. Artists are showcased in libraries, galleries, and museums in Riverdale and far beyond. Gutka’s work has been displayed at Avery Fischer Hall in Manhattan.
Joyce Gutka is also the volunteer curator for the Y’s Gallery 18. One day while studying art at the Y, she noticed the bare walls decided it would be a good idea to enliven the walls with art. As curator she hosted many vivid exhibits including “Children of the World” and the “Faces of China.” Gallery 18 has featured many Jewish artists including Moishe Margalit and Isaac Chavel.
A few Sundays ago, Marum’s color photos lined the walls and were on sale for $90 except for a photo of the Spanish synagogue in Amsterdam that went for $125. There was a selection of 8×10 oversized postcards in the $15-$20 range. There was no formal talk or Q & A session during the midday reception. Neighborhood residents and art aficionados mingled as Marum circulated in the crowd.
Why would a non-Jewish lady travel all over Europe to photograph Jewish synagogues and cemeteries with so many other subjects to choose from? Marum thought that the photographs would appeal to Riverdale’s large Jewish community, predominantly of European descent. She wanted to convey the tradition and Old World charm personified in the shot of the Spanish shul in Amsterdam where the sextons wear top hats or in the iconic white and gold Maisel shul in Prague that was built in 1592.
Marum’s late husband, Andrew, was an Orthodox Jew, a writer, and linguist. They met in a Midwestern college when they both worked for the Indiana Student. Andrew “won her over…with an outpouring of poems he had written.”
The couple loved to travel off the beaten path and found themselves north of the Arctic Circle and south of the Equator. Andrew loved combining his wanderlust with his linguistic talents and would spend hours practicing his Chinese at Tiananmen Square. His father hailed from Bad Sobernheim in Germany’s Rhineland, and they decided after several trips to Europe to visit the family’s hometown and its synagogue. The shul stands next to the Lutheran church (which may be why it was spared on Kristallnacht).
In the photo labeled “Ecumenism,” the church is seen through the Star of David protruding from the synagogue. It is truly ecumenical since Hans E. Berkemann, the son of the Lutheran pastor, worked to restore it after the war. The synagogue is now a museum and plays an active role in the community as a library and venue for concerts and lectures.
The couple didn’t stop at Bad Sobernheim. Their synagogue quest took them to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Russia, and the Czech Republic. The 22 pictures are photographic harvests from three trips made between 2009 and 2013.
Synagogues like the medieval Altnu shul in Prague (supposedly the oldest still functioning synagogue in the world) are centuries-old landmarks and have been captured by myriad photographers for generations. What makes Marum’s photos unique? She says her photos do not treat the synagogues in isolation but show how they fit in with the surrounding buildings, giving a sense of architectural context, as well as a sense of the buildings being part of the communities in which they were located.
At first glance the synagogues seem like hulking mausoleums in a post-Holocaust necropolis. The photos of Jewish graveyards make all of Europe a graveyard. Many photos are still lifes of extinct synagogues without souls. Marum claims that the photos, far from being lifeless, convey much pathos as in the photo of her husband placing a stone at a memorial wall in Frankfurt, or the bearded man at the Frankfurt cemetery whose face expresses deep nostalgia for a lost world. In the Antwerp synagogue, a man huddles with a youth in passionately passing on the Jewish tradition.
One of the most poignant photographs is the one of the Spanish synagogue in Amsterdam during Sabbath services, as the top-hatted sexton presides over the Torah reading (it is a candid shot). It reminded me of the Shearith Israel Synagogue (popularly known as the “Spanish Portuguese Synagogue”) in Manhattan where I davened as a child and my mother worked with the choir. The New York synagogue is the first established in the colonies and like its European predecessors, the sextons still don top hats and the signs are in Ladino.
When I was a kid, shul meant a storefront shtiebel, a remodeled church, or a faceless concrete structure. Shul was the people and traditions, your friends and the rabbi. Marum’s exhibit eloquently argues that synagogue buildings had souls of their own.
The Y is located at 5625 Arlington Avenue in Riverdale (718) 548-8200
By Jeff Klapper
