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Contemporary Synagogue Art, by Avram Kampf
- Abstract
The most important thing is that people are now beginning to think in terms of synagogue art. For a very long time there was a positive cult of ugliness in the synagogues of the Western world: as in music, and certainly in decorum, anything with an aesthetic appeal was considered, as it were, to be Hukath haGoy, the Way of the Gentile, and ipso facto undesirable. When there was any attempt at renewal, it was along the old familiar lines, and the synagogues themselves were unadventurously constructed in what has been termed the Meshugothic style.
It had not always been so. The old synagogues and synagogal appurtenances not only in Italy (where this might have been expected) but also in Central and Eastern Europe were not infrequently splendidly designed and executed. Nor was figurative art wholly excluded. One of Dr. Kampf’s introductory chapters deals with the interpretation of the Second Commandment in the past, with conclusions which to some persons will seem surprising.
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