OPINION | THE GREAT SYNAGOGUE SAGA | TEXTBOOK CASE OF RESTITUTION GONE AWRY | STOLEN ELECTION SAGA | THE LJC | THE AJC | THE GWF | USCPAHA
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On the agenda:
(1) Have the more than one million Orthodox Jews worldwide who consider themselves “Lithuanian” (Litvish) been consulted and respected? Do their future pilgrimages and tourism merit consideration?
(2) Is the sacred site of the Great Vilna Synagogue per se the right place for a new secular community HQ, Yivo, gourmet food projects, and more? What would Yivo’s founders think? What would the synagogue’s centuries of worshippers think? The Gaon of Vilna’s famed place, proudly in the sanctuary, would now be in the cellar, a ruin to be gazed down on from the secular pleasures in the ultramodernist upper floors.
(3) Is it conceptual, architectural and historic justice to rebuild (on the Great Synagogue’s still extant — and now archaeologically revealed — main-sanctuary-level ruins that can be restored) a modernist building? We asked some veteran architects to characterize the spirit of the proposed building (collage below). The replies included: Nordic modernism, Scandinavian-spirited, barn structured, warm minimalism, critical regionalism. The concept of a shul (synagogue) was not among the associations. Would this be happening to a major sacred Christian shrine recently unearthed and excavated that had flourished for centuries in the hallowed spirit of Old Vilna churches?
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