The Architecture of Jewish Identity: The Neo-Islamic Central Synagogue of New York

Abstract

In this essay, I study the neo-Islamic Central Synagogue in New York (1872) as the expression of a complex web of cultural identification and differentiation on the part of the Jewish community for which it was constructed. I examine the shift uptown away from immigrant origins, poverty, and Orthodoxy in relation to ambivalence toward Reform Judaism, which had embraced the neo-Islamic architectural style in both the United States and Europe. The tensions inherent in situating the congregation within the larger Jewish world were complicated by the position of the community with respect to its Christian neighbors. The contradiction between the community's initial calls for architectural modesty and the ostentation of the building designed by Henry Fernbach manifest, in the vocabulary of the cultural analysis of W. E. B. DuBois, a "double-consciousness." I have used two interwoven methods in interpreting this material: archival research and comparative study establish the impact of patronage and the originality of the architect; a culturalstudies approach investigates intentions and reception through analysis of journalistic coverage of the late nineteenth century, related to the history of the congregation and the wider Jewish community during this period.

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