The Time of Synagogues in France, 1791-1914

The 19th century was for French Judaism a time of splendour that witnessed the building of huge synagogues, real temples that signified a new period of Jewish spirituality and culture. A little more than 200 years ago, on September 27th, 1791, the Revolutionaries declared the emancipation of the Jews in France. A period of confrontation between tradition and the demands of modernity started at that point: synagogues were no longer forbidden and became the reconstructed temples of an integrating community.
The concept of synagogues was then to be reinvented. Despite becoming an institution and an official monument, they were still a refuge of Jewish culture for which any other means of expression was almost impossible. The architectural projects wavered between expressing a will to be integrated and the importance of stating a specific identity. The resulting model, translating an inspiration from other cultures and the survival of a Jewish consciousness, was to last until 1914, when the famous synagogue designed by Hector Guimard was inaugurated, and would eventually be replaced by a return to tradition and to a fundamentalist aesthetics.
An essential fragment of Jewish and national history, these monuments had never been studied as a group. This documentary exhibition thus displayed around 100 buildings and projects, from huge synagogues to modest rural buildings, of various styles. Through the presentation of these works and objects, this retrospective made it possible for the public to understand what a synagogue is, and its spiritual and symbolic function, by making them enter the heart of this sometimes mysterious place.
Exhibition organised with the support of the Fondation du Judaïsme Français and the Consistoire National