Today in the Museum

Photo © Israel Museum, Jerusalem, by Elie Posner
	Interior of the Horb synagogue Horb am Main, Germany 1735 Artist: Eliezer Sussman of Brody Painted wood H: 213; W: 480; L: 625 cm Permanent loan from the Bamberg Municipality, Germany Reconstructed through a donation from Jakob Michael, New York, in memory of his wife, Erna Sondheimer-Michael Accession number: L-B68.0002 ; 194/007
This synagogue once stood in Horb, a small market town near Bamberg in southern Germany. Built at the beginning of the 18th century, it was used by the Jewish community of the town and outlying rural areas. The synagogue originally occupied the second storey of a small wooden building. Its Torah ark was set in a niche on the eastern wall, the bimah (reader’s platform) was located in the center of the room, and benches were arranged along the walls. The women’s section consisted of a small room adjacent to the northern wall; the women entered through a wooden door and were able to see into the main hall through a grill in a horizontal opening in the wall. Originally, the walls as well as the ceiling were plastered and completely covered with paintings and inscriptions. Unfortunately, very little remains of the wall decorations. The paintings date from 1735 and are the work of Eliezer Sussman, a well-known Galician Jewish artist who specialized in synagogue decoration. Sussman is known to have decor Publications: Zalmona, Yigal, ed., The Israel Museum at 40: Masterworks of Beauty and Sanctity, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 2005 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