eishiya reviewed Synagogues of Europe by Carol H. Krinsky
Great overview of a varied history
4 stars
One of the review quotes on the back describes "Synagogues of Europe" as "encyclopedic", and that's a good word for it. It achieves an impressive balance between breadth of scope and depth of detail, covering synagogues of varying levels of historical and architectural significance, but each with a worthwhile story. The book traces the threads of influence from one building or event to another, and shows how these communal centres reflected the local views about the Jewish community - both their own, and those of the goyim.
The first part of the book explains the relevant basics of Judaism, covers the common features of synagogues and reasoning behind them, and traces the history of Jewish religious buildings from antiquity to the modern day through various influences and trends. The second part describes many specific synagogues, including how they came to be built, their features unique and otherwise, and their legacy. …
One of the review quotes on the back describes "Synagogues of Europe" as "encyclopedic", and that's a good word for it. It achieves an impressive balance between breadth of scope and depth of detail, covering synagogues of varying levels of historical and architectural significance, but each with a worthwhile story. The book traces the threads of influence from one building or event to another, and shows how these communal centres reflected the local views about the Jewish community - both their own, and those of the goyim.
The first part of the book explains the relevant basics of Judaism, covers the common features of synagogues and reasoning behind them, and traces the history of Jewish religious buildings from antiquity to the modern day through various influences and trends. The second part describes many specific synagogues, including how they came to be built, their features unique and otherwise, and their legacy. The book makes heavy use of cross-references to provide additional context, which is great, though it can get wearisome if you're reading all the way through.
The illustrations vary in quality. Plans and detailed drawings are included for some buildings and some synagogues have photographs of both exterior and interior, though many are represented by only a mediocre photo or drawing. For the most part, I think the illustrations do their job well, though I'd love to see an edition with more. Some of the best illustrations are greyscale reproductions of paintings and lose much in the conversion, but fortunately through the magic of citations and the Internet, you can find the colour versions yourself.
If you're writing about or drawing synagogues in Europe before the 1980s, especially during the 19th century, I think this is a must-have. Even though that's not the case for me, I found it useful to fill some context often missing from more "general" resources that, intentionally or not, tend to focus on Christian architecture and history.