The Painted Synagogues of Moravia

At a sidewalk café in Vienna my wife, Ronnie, and I gorged on obscenely delicious pastries. Embarrassingly, unable to make a choice from the broad selection, we had ordered one of each.  Our tourist guide book lay on the table among the remnants of our unforgettable indiscretion. Sticky with icing, cream and meringue my index finger rested on a photo of an incredibly ornate building interior with walls lavishly decorated with Hebrew script and colorful designs.  “What’s this?” I asked Ronnie. Studying the guide book she replied that it was the synagogue in a town named Boskovice in the Czech Republic only a day’s drive away. With extensive Hebrew writing and detailed painted designs on the walls and ceiling, the little synagogue was not just unique, it was absolutely gorgeous. Having never before seen a synagogue that was even remotely similar we resolved to drive to Boskovice the very next day.

Boskovice Synagogue

Hebrew Script Ceiling of Synagogue Hallway

Boskovice is a small market town near Brno in southern Moravia. The synagogue sits among the narrow lanes of the section that was once the Jewish ghetto. Following the Holocaust there were only 12 Jewish residents in Boskovice, the last dying in 1996. The building is now owned by the Jewish Community of Brno which maintains it as a Jewish museum and venue for art exhibitions, concerts and cultural events. The gracious, English speaking, museum-synagogue director, Ondrej told us a good bit about the synagogue and Boskovice’s Jewish history. Originally opened in the mid-sixteen hundreds the building has been renovated multiple times over the centuries. By the 19^th century the ghetto had an estimated 2,000 inhabitants and the synagogue grew to become a center for Talmudic study. The Hebrew text embellishing the arches, vaults and fluted columns are passages from the Torah, prayers and names of congregants, while the curling floral motifs and architectural details are typical of Moravia.

Boskovice Synagogue Sanctuary

After a spellbinding hour with Ondrej, it was late in the day. He accompanied us to a picturesque inn about 7 kilometers away. This storybook-perfect inn was a series of interconnected cottages surrounding a courtyard, all in a leafy forest with our room adjacent to a brook. True to our vision of a Moravian country inn, there was a charming dining room complete with a huge roaring fireplace where we and our new friend enjoyed a memorable evening and a bottle of Moravia’s finest wine.

At the synagogue the next morning we met Ondrej for an escorted walk around Boskovice’s once-upon-a-time ghetto quarter. As we walked through an old arched gateway he said, “This gate and the wall defined the Jewish ghetto. However as relations were good between the Christians and Jews, they both went back and forth. In fact, in many places there was no wall -- the Christian houses simply backed up to the Jewish houses.” Our tour complete, Ondrej concluded, “If you liked Boskovice, you simply must see the synagogues in Třebič and Holesove.”

Arriving in Třebič we found a bustling community centered about an oblong town garden-piazza. We set out on foot to find the tourist information bureau, intending to get directions to the synagogue. In front of us, we saw a sign pointing to “Jew Town”.  Following the sign, we headed through a dark passage between two buildings and over a pedestrian bridge crossing the bucolic Jihlava River to a hill covered with old masonry and stucco buildings. This hill with its curvy cobblestoned lanes, too-cute-to-be-true picturesque buildings and all of the charm of a Breughel painting was once the old Jewish quarter.

Třebič Synagogue

The Synagogue, dating from 1669, sits in the center of Jew Town only a short walk up the hill from the bridge. Although there are no longer any Jews living in Třebič, the city has restored the Synagogue, keeping it open as a Jewish museum and exhibition-event venue. There we met a charming young lady with impeccable English skills who, for the paltry price of 2 Euros admission, escorted us through the museum in the second floor women’s gallery and around the old ghetto. She explained that by the 17^th century 60% of Třebič’s population was Jewish and the town was the center of Moravian Jewish culture. In 1848 emancipation laws freed Jews to live wherever the wished. Consequently, during the following half-century Třebič’s Jewish community declined to a couple hundred as most Jews migrated to larger cities. The handful of Jews who returned from the Holocaust had dwindled away by 1952 when the area became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Elaborately Painted Sanctuary of Třebič Synagogue

Like the synagogue in Boskovice, the Třebič Synagogue’s walls are decorated with Hebrew text, yet the fresco wall paintings are much freer, less repetitive and geometric. Our guide explained that although she was not Jewish she was studying Hebrew with a goal of conversion to Judaism. She said her fiancé also plans to convert. They are purchasing one of the incredibly cute old houses in Jew Town where they will live after their marriage next year.

We visited six historic painted synagogues in the villages of the Czech Republic. Each signficantly different from the others, each with its own stories, each are irreplaceable relics of the area’s Jewish past. They are highly accessible from Prague where you can visit the Jewish Museum of Prague, one of the World’s most extensive collections of Judaic art, as well as four incredible synagogues. Tours and guides are available to take you to these treasures or you can do as we did: simply rent a car with a GPS and head out for a memorable Jewish vacation. The entire country is only half the size of Indiana so it’s easy going. Better yet, these are painted ladies that your wife can visit with you!

The Last Jew and the Rope Walker

Visiting synagogues and sites of Jewish interest in exotic locations is a great vacation focus for the Jewish traveler. Yet, you don’t have to travel long distances to find fascinating examples of Jewish history and culture.  Only fifty five miles south of Dallas lies the town of Corsicana, Texas where recently the last Jew in Corsicana treated us to a tour of the amazing Moorish style synagogue, the Jewish cemetery and a juicy bit of local Jewish lore.

Temple Beth El, Corsicana, Texas

In the 1800s many Jewish immigrants ventured west from the crowded port cities where they had entered the United States. With little capital and few marketable skills some became itinerant peddlers. When opportunities presented themselves, these peddlers put down roots, established mercantile businesses and fledgling Jewish communities arose.

The Houston and Texas Central Railroad arrived in Corsicana in 1871. A thriving economy based on cotton, cattle and oil lured more and more Jewish families to the area. By 1898 sixty families organized a Jewish congregation and began construction of Temple Beth El, which was completed in September of 1900. The building is a spectacular example of Eastern European wood and gothic masonry motifs modified for American frontier construction. Similar structures with a large central rose window, flanking arched windows, twin octagon towers and onion domes also exist in Charleston, West Virginia and Butte, Montana.  Attesting to the wealth of the Corsicana Jewish community, the stain glass rose window with a Mogen David and the Ten Commandments below were created in the august studio of Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Corsicana’s Jewish community expanded as a result of a major oil boom in the 1920s. Attracted by the region’s prosperity, the total number of Jewish families rose to approximately 200, almost equally divided between the Orthodox and Reform congregations.  Jews were active in every facet of local life. The importance of Jewish merchants and businessmen was most apparent during the High Holy Days when Jewish owned establishments closed their doors and economic activity came to a virtual standstill. When the oil played out and the city’s economy declined the Jewish community migrated to places offering greater economic and cultural opportunity such as Dallas and Houston. By 1981 the congregation had dwindled to the point that it was disbanded.

The building, with its distinctive architecture, octagonal towers and two onion domes, was in a state of disrepair and scheduled for demolition. A group of concerned citizens formed "Save the Temple," and held dinners, styles shows and musical reviews, and with the help of private donations and state and local grants, were able to raise more than $100,000 to restore the building. It was deeded to the City of Corsicana, rededicated in 1987, and is now used for activities and club meetings.  The interior of the building, aron kodesh, bemah and all remained unchanged. Once a month, a rabbi travels from Dallas to hold services in the historic synagogue for the Jews of the surrounding counties.

Corsicana Synagogue Interior

 After photographing the synagogue we visited the impressive and impeccably maintained Jewish cemetery where one of the tombstones is carved with only the two words: “Rope Walker”.  Our tour guide, the last Jew in Corsicana, told us that very little is known about the deceased, not even his name. He had been hired to perform a publicity stunt to attract customers for the grand opening of Meyers & Henning Dry Goods Emporium. 

It was a hot day in 1884. The mayor of Corsicana was there and a band was playing. The stunt had been advertised widely by M & H as an “astounding, astonishing, amazing, unbelievable, never seen before or ever again act of strength, gravity and defiance of common sense.”  The man would walk a rope strung across Beaton Street from the second story of M & H, catty-corner across the 5th avenue intersection to the roof of Jackson’s Saloon and Gentlemen’s Relaxation Salon. Making the feat even more difficult, the man, having only one good leg and one wooden leg, would walk the rope with a cast-iron stove on his back.

The band began to play. The mayor cut the red ribbon and the peg-legged man started across the rope twenty feet above the ground. When he reached the middle of the rope, the end attached to Jackson’s Saloon suddenly slackened causing the tightrope walker to fall. The cast iron stove fell on him, crushing his chest. He lingered in great pain and by evening, when it was evident that he would die, he asked for a rabbi. As Corsicana had no rabbi, the owner of a downtown grocery store, Bernard Simon, came to him and the man painfully whispered the Shema. The only other thing he said, also in perfect Hebrew, was to ask that he be “buried with my people.”  To this day he lies with his people in the Corsicana Jewish Cemetery.

"To this day he lies with his people in the Corsicana Jewish Cemetery"