A photographic guide to 180 of NY’s most beautiful historic Orthodox synagogues
Amateur photographer Michael Weinstein turns his hobby into a history with a new compilation documenting the most stunning houses of worship of the five boroughs
Reporter at The Times of Israel
NEW YORK — To sit on a polished wooden pew in the upstairs sanctuary of the Eldridge Street Synagogue is to take a seat alongside history.
Built in 1887, the synagogue, which is also a museum, is one of 180 Orthodox houses of worship featured in Michael Weinstein’s new book “Ten Times Chai: 180 Orthodox Synagogues of New York City.”
In his photographic ode to New York City Jewish history, Weinstein included 100 Orthodox synagogues in Brooklyn, 35 in Manhattan, 35 in Queens, five in the Bronx, and five in Staten Island.
“For me, personally, I wanted to contribute to the historical record. During the Holocaust hundreds of synagogues were burnt in Europe. We don’t know what they looked like,” he said, sitting on a polished wooden pew in the upstairs sanctuary.
“This is a way to preserve that history. Some of these synagogues are hanging on by a thread and may not be here in 20 or 30 years. It’s important for people to know, for their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, what kind of effort went into building something so beautiful,” he said.
With its trompe l’oeil marble, flower-like chandeliers, and peacock blue walls spangled with stars, the Eldridge is certainly beautiful. And recently restored to look as it did in 1917, it also tells the story of immigration and change.
“It was a place of sanctuary for people fleeing anti-Semitism, pogroms, maybe economic hardship. They came to a well-lit, beautiful space. Maybe they were living in a tenement. Maybe they worked in a sweat shop or push cart through crowded streets. This space is really a memorial to that. We are surrounded by communities experiencing that same thing,” said Courtney Byrne-Mitchell, who is part of the museum’s visitor services.
One need look no further than across the street. One hundred years ago the signs on storefronts were Yiddish. Many are are now in Chinese. Where pushcarts once squeezed through crowded tenement-lined streets, delivery trucks move past double-parked cars. Like all of New York City, it’s a neighborhood of perpetual change.
Something about those layers of history and transformation spoke to Weinstein.
In 2015 the 53-year-old financial analyst and amateur photographer started volunteering with connect2ny, Friendly Visiting for Holocaust Survivors.
His visits’ locations paralleled his family’s history and took him beyond Brooklyn where he lives, to Queens where he was born and where his parents and maternal great-grandmother lived. He found himself back on Manhattan’s Upper West Side where he lived after college, as well as in the Lower East Side where grandparents and paternal great-grandparents lived after emigrating from the Pale of Settlement in Russia.
He often stopped in to see local synagogues, each one as unique as it was familiar. The book features synagogues built by Syrians, Bukharians, Russians and Germans.
He started snapping photos on his cell phone. When he had upwards of 60 images he started wondering whether he should do a book.
So he Googled New York City synagogues. There were literally hundreds. Too many for a book, he said. So he decided to concentrate on Orthodox synagogues and settled on 180 — or 10 times chai (the Hebrew numerical equivalent of 18, and also the word for “life”).
He wasn’t sure how many photographs to include in the book until he visited Lincoln Square Synagogue. Learning there were exactly 613 lights inside the sanctuary he decided his book would have 613 photographs — one for each of the 613 mitzvot.
The project took three years. Cell phone photos don’t reproduce especially well for a photography book, he said. He had to return to some synagogues three or four times.
He wrote letters explaining his project to the synagogues. While nearly every synagogue welcomed him, Weinstein said he knows it wouldn’t have been the same had he been a woman. Several of the synagogues he photographed, particularly those in certain Hasidic communities, prohibit women in the main sanctuaries. That prompted him to take photographs from the women’s balcony.
“I wanted men to get a perspective of what it’s like from up there. I tried to give different perspectives in the book. The more we understand different perspectives the better we are,” he said.
And that is why Weinstein dedicated his book not only to the Holocaust survivors he visits, but also to religious freedom.
“I traveled through over 60 different neighborhoods throughout the 5 boroughs, I became more cognizant of the diverse religious institutions that are the fabric of NYC. I walked by churches — Episcopalian, Baptist, Lutheran, Protestant, and Roman Catholic, to name a few. Even non-denominational ones. I also took note of other churches and community centers, places like Greek Orthodox churches, Chinese, Japanese, Korean churches, Mosques, even Polish and Russian orthodox churches,” Weinstein said.
“It confirmed my belief that for the most part, New York City is more like a ‘tossed salad’ than a ‘melting pot,’ with people establishing themselves, or just passing through the most diverse city in the word,” he said.
