Century after artist’s death, Jerusalem synagogue restores mural masterpiece
Yaakov Stark died penniless of tuberculosis in 1915; now his early Zionist art at the Ades Synagogue is on show in all its glory
Ilan Ben Zion is an AFP reporter and a former news editor at The Times of Israel.
From the outside, the Great Ades Synagogue doesn’t appear to live up to the name. Inside its modestly proportioned sanctuary, however, its newly restored century-old murals are spectacular examples of early Zionist art.
The synagogues pews brimmed with visitors and congregation members who flocked to Jerusalem’s Nahlaot neighborhood on Sunday to celebrate the restoration of the building’s historic murals.
The initiative, conceived by the Ben-Zvi Institute and IAA and financed by the Prime Minister’s Office and the Jerusalem municipality, took two years to bring the paintings back to their former glory.
The house of prayer was constructed in 1901 by Syrian immigrants from “the glorious Aleppo community,” as the sign on the front of the building reads. After a string of blood libels and the economic decline of the city in the late 19th century, Aleppo’s millennia-old Jewish community began emigrating to Jerusalem, Egypt, Europe and the New World.
The newcomers settled in a new neighborhood called Nahalat Zion, one of a cluster popping up alongside the Mahane Yehuda market, now referred to collectively as Nahlaot.
The synagogue’s magnificent walnut wood ark, inlaid with mother of pearl, and furnishings were imported from artisans in Damascus, but the congregation entrusted its interior design to a young artist who immigrated to Ottoman Palestine from Galicia.
Yaakov Stark made aliyah in 1905 and was among the first graduates of the Bezalel Art Academy; afterwards he became a member of its faculty. Like many Bezalel art students today, Stark lived in a tiny apartment in the new neighborhood nestled alongside the Mahane Yehuda market. After years of gratis work, Stark finished his masterpiece in October 1912; his name, craftily hidden along with the date, appears above the ark nestled inside a Star of David.
He died penniless of tuberculosis in 1915, aged 34.
The ceiling is painted a sky blue, with Stars of David framed by flowers running along its base. On the south, east and north walls, 12 medallions with the icons of the 12 tribes are surrounded by floral designs of the seven species and a repeating pattern of menorahs and Stars of David. A verse from Isaiah 56 — incorrectly reading “my holy house” rather than “my holy mountain” — wrapped in gilded bands encircles the room.
Stark’s decoration of Ades Synagogue, which runs from the floor to the roof, was “the earliest, the most significant and largest Hebrew artwork that we know of,” said Dr. Nirit Shalev-Khalifa, a curator at Yad Ben-Zvi who was integral to the project.
“Entering this synagogue, it’s impossible not to note its beauty,” Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said as he took the podium. He said that while he was proud to show off the city’s new developments, “what excites me more is coming here to a restoration of a [historic] synagogue,” one that’s “exceptional in its splendor” and integral in defining Nahlaot’s unique character.
Preserving the synagogue’s paintings commenced after a disastrous attempt at preservation in 2009 prompted the intervention by experts.
“Over the years, some of the paintings started to disintegrate,” said Rabbi Yosef Shayo, a bearded man with bushy eyebrows and tinted glasses who leads the congregation. A French artist offered his services to restore the paintings, but instead he glued canvas to the walls and reproduced Stark’s paintings in acrylic in what Shalev-Khalifa pithily called “negligent work that was done out of good intentions.”
She told Tablet that the methods used were a “catastrophe” which threatened to ruin the original artwork. Experts from Ben-Zvi and the Israel Museum protested, but congregation objected to their intervention in its private matters. Finally a judge issued an order to desist because the Ades Synagogue was recognized as a historic building.
Jacques Neguer, head of the IAA’s art conservation department, said the project was multifaceted, from stripping the canvas the previous restorer had glued to the walls, to restoring the metal doors and wooden ceiling and the paintings themselves. Determining how the synagogue originally appeared was the greatest challenge.
“We needed to reconstruct each color, each line, each drawing,” Neguer said. His team stripped away layers of paint which covered the original ornate columns between the windows and recreate them. In the women’s section, on a balcony at the back, virtually none of the paintings remained after over a century. After examining some of Stark’s works, Neguer and his team were able to recreate the original.
There are few members of the original Aleppine community remaining at the synagogue, Rabbi Shayo said; congregants from Nahlaot’s pastiche of backgrounds attend it today. Nonetheless, the congregation preserves the traditional melodies and still recites baqashot — songs and prayers unique to the Aleppo community — every Shabbat.
Among those in attendance Sunday was Reuven Amir, son of the synagogue’s former cantor and choir leader, Rahamim Amir. Now a resident of the Katamon neighborhood across town, Amir grew up in a modest house adjacent to the synagogue. He came back to witness the final result of years of restoration work and was elated by the result.
“I was circumcised here, I had my bar mitzvah here,” he said, beaming in the April sunshine outside Ades. “It’s very exciting.”
The Times of Israel Community.