Artist: Abraham Shulkin
Date: 1899
Size: 364 x 243 cm
Museum: The Jewish Museum (New York, United States)
Technique: Carved
All aspects of traditional Jewish life are based on the Torah-the first five books of the Hebrew Bible- and ongoing rabbinic interpretations. Handwritten on parchment, the Torah scroll is read in the synagogue in front of the congregation on the Sabbath and Mondays and Thursdays, and on holidays. When not in use, the scroll is usually housed in a Torah ark-a cabinet set in or against a wall, traditionally the one oriented toward Jerusalem. In Eastern Europe, Torah arks were often made out of wood and decorated with elaborate carvings incorporating mythical and symbolic creatures as well as vegetal motifs. Stylistically, this Torah ark, made in Sioux City, Iowa, by Russian Jewish immigrant and amateur woodcarver Abraham Shulkin, shows a close connection to Eastern European wooden Torah arks. The iconography of the eagle and the traditional images of the Tablets of the Law and the hands opened in the priestly gesture were often featured in Eastern European arks from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, all of which were destroyed during World War II. The synagogue of Izabielin, in Lithuania, not far from Shulkin
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