Today in the Museum

Photo © Israel Museum, Jerusalem, by Elie Posner
	Interior of the Vittorio Veneto synagogue Northern Italy Wood, carved and partly gilt L: 1050; W: 580 cm Gift of Jakob Michael, New York, in memory of his wife, Erna Sondheimer Michael Accession number: B05.0005 ; 194/001
The synagogue from which this interior comes stood in the small town of Vittorio Veneto near Venice. For more than two hundred years it served a small local Ashkenazi community, which had been settled in the area since the Middle Ages. Towards the end of the 19th century the Jews moved to larger centers, and by the end of First World War the synagogue was no longer in use. The original synagogue occupied the second and third stories of a simple building. This modesty was customary in Italy before the Jews were emancipated, the result of local restrictions and the Jews’ own desire to avoid drawing attention to their synagogue. The interior, however, is elegantly designed in typical Italian Baroque style, rather like a reception room in an aristocrat’s palace. Clear examples of this style are the broken pediment of the Torah ark and the shimmering surface of its carved decoration. The interior plan is typical of Italian bipolar synagogues: the reader’s desk is located in a niche opposite the Torah ark Publications: The Jewish World 365 Days, from the Collections of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Publisher: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York, U.S.A., 2004 The Israel Museum, Publisher: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2005 Digital presentation of this object was made possible by: The Ridgefield Foundation, New York, in memory of Henry J. and Erna D. Leir