Photograph: Wooden synagogue.

European Jews

Southwestern Krai, Volhynia province, Novograd-Volynsky district, Shtetl of Polonnoye

1912

Gelatin silver printing with chemical development (DOP)

11,6 x 15,1

РЭМ 4997-21

Jewish ethnographic expedition of S. A. An-sky. In the Southwestern Territory, wood was the main construction material for synagogues. The wooden synagogue style originating from Galicia was named “Carpathian” and spread all over Eastern Europe in the 18th and 19th century. For all their diversity, wooden synagogues had common features: a praying room close to a square in its shape, anteroom (“polish”), tall roofs, attachments, and galleries.