NEWS STORY: Historian hunts, preserves traces of lost Jewish culture

c. 1998 Religion News Service SYRACUSE, N.Y. _ In southern Morocco, preservationists find their way into an abandoned, century-old synagogue of sun-dried mud. They discover, remarkably intact, a wooden ark that once protected the sacred writings of the Torah. In another forgotten synagogue in Poland, workers strip away a coat of red paint to reveal […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

SYRACUSE, N.Y. _ In southern Morocco, preservationists find their way into an abandoned, century-old synagogue of sun-dried mud. They discover, remarkably intact, a wooden ark that once protected the sacred writings of the Torah.

In another forgotten synagogue in Poland, workers strip away a coat of red paint to reveal decorations as elaborate and intricate as any Gothic cathedral. In Romania, a photographer shoots frame after frame to document the meticulously carved Hebraic letters, symbols and designs marking tombstones in a forlorn Jewish cemetery.


Though scattered around the world, these discoveries _ and scores more like them _ will intersect at a Syracuse attic. Here amid overflowing boxes and packed bookshelves, newspaper clippings and racks of slides, computers, wall maps and a half-dozen file cabinets, Samuel Gruber will carefully add the findings to his sprawling database.

Gruber, 41, is among the world’s foremost experts on Jewish cultural and historic sites. Working from the attic of his home, Gruber has devoted his professional life to tracking down thousands of landmarks abandoned, neglected or forgotten after decades of persecution.

He has walked miles into deserted woods to confirm the existence of barely remembered cemeteries and combed isolated villages where no Jew has set foot for a half-century. The quest has taken him to Syria, where secret police tracked his movements; to remote parts of Ukraine, where deeply ingrained anti-Semitism survives; and to Hungary, where he clambered on rickety planks to inspect an historic synagogue’s roof.

He has traveled throughout Poland. There, he documented more than 1,000 synagogues, former synagogues, cemeteries and other vestiges of a once-flourishing Jewish culture. More than 3 million Jews lived in Poland before World War II; today there are several thousand.

“We would drive through these dirty, dusty places that had been thriving communities, but the life, the economy, the culture were all destroyed,” Gruber said. “The cemeteries hadn’t been touched in decades, except to steal the stones for building materials. We would see these things again and again. It was heartbreaking.”

Gruber’s work almost always takes him to places where nothing, or only tiny remnants, of a Jewish community remains. In Crete, a synagogue identified by Gruber is being restored by the World Monument Fund. Only one Jew lives on the island, said John Stubbs, vice president of the preservation organization.

In India, the World Monument Fund is restoring another Gruber discovery, a synagogue featuring willow-patterned Chinese tiles, Belgian crystal chandeliers and clock faces with Hebrew, Roman and Malayalam characters. Only eight aging members remain of a congregation that dates back 450 years.


Saving sites like these is important not only for Jews, but for people of all backgrounds, Gruber said.

In an era of ethnic cleansing and savage tribalism, they prove human history is, indeed, multicultural. They expose the lies of demagogues who weave and exploit romantic myths of pure ethnic societies.

“Jews were settling and living in Polish cities before the Poles,” Gruber said. “To lose the history of the Jews, you lose the history of Poland. If you can save these landmarks, it underscores the identity of Poland as a complex, pluralistic society. Maybe it changes the way people look at their future.”

Gruber works as a consultant to the World Monuments Fund; research director of the U.S. Commission of America’s Heritage Abroad, an independent government panel; and president of the International Survey of Jewish Monuments, a nonprofit, member-based organization.

Stubbs said Gruber has probably done more than any other person to identify and preserve important cultural sites.

“He’s been sort of a one-man band, but his courage and leadership have slowly but surely raised the level of awareness,” Stubbs said. “His contributions are of inestimable value. As a scholar and enthusiast on the subject, he has led the way for many others.”


Gruber said it’s impossible to save every site _ there’s just not enough money. But documenting them can at least preserve in memory the landmarks and the way of life they recall.

The only reason it is known that hundreds of wooden synagogues existed in Warsaw, Poland, is because art students photographed, measured and described them in the 1920s, Gruber said. All were destroyed by the Nazis or in World War II battles.

“When you go to a site, you have to imagine that you are the last person ever to visit it,” he said. “The kind of information you bring back will be the totality of information that will be known about the site. Each piece of information is essential, unique and required.”

Gruber builds his inventory from snatches of information filtering into his attic from around the world by telephone, fax, e-mail and letters. He describes his method as simple detective work requiring reading everything, talking to everyone and following every lead.

He travels when he can but also relies on volunteers in nearly two dozen countries. He provides them with detailed survey forms and inspires them to capture every detail.

Occasionally, he lines up big grants to save significant sites, such as the $150,000 secured from the Getty Foundation to help restore the Temple Synagogue in Krakow, Poland. He also nails down small contributions to care for a gravesite, a section of cemetery or a fading building.


Typically, he finds this money from people who have ancestors buried in a cemetery, or who trace their family history to a small town with a former synagogue once the center of community life.

After discovering one synagogue in Morocco, Gruber followed a trail to Paris, where he found a descendant of the family that owned the synagogue building. The descendant contacted other relatives and established a trust fund to restore and care for the former synagogue.

These small victories “show people that small actions can have big results,” Gruber said. “The action of single person can ultimately lead to a positive solution. If there isn’t a single person to begin the action, then it can’t be solved.”

DEA END GAVIN

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