The new permanent museum display in Synagogue Groningen is increasingly taking shape. If all goes well, the opening will be in September.
The exhibition will feature various historical objects from the growing collection of Synagogue Groningen. In this and upcoming newsletters you can read the stories behind a selection of these silent objects from the past of Jewish Groningen
This time: a colored chalk drawing of the interior of the synagogue by Ploeg artist Max van der Wissel.
Interior of the synagogue in Groningen – Max van der Wissel (Photo by Harm Bellinga, Arte del Norte)
Colored chalk, presumably 1930s
Property Jewish Congregation Groningen NIG-G
This chalk drawing by Max van der Wissel (Epe, 1906 – Haren, 1999) is the only color image that still exists of the pre-war interior of the synagogue in Groningen.
Striking is the multi-colouredness of the building: the green wall on either side of the Holy Ark and the red-brown side walls and Moorish pillars. During the restoration of the synagogue in 1981, these colors were restored as well as possible.
The Holy Ark depicted was removed in or after World War II. She was much bigger than the current one. Also made of a completely different material: then wood and carvings, now brass and inscriptions. The Ark is decorated at the top with a Star of David. It consists of a central part and two narrower side rooms. The stepped upper parts of the side rooms harmonize with the (inverted) stepped stained glass windows in the adjacent wall.
Clocks and candlesticks
About that height are also two clocks. These were Sabbath clocks used to indicate the beginning and end of the Sabbath.
The large copper chandelier was sold by the Jewish community after the war. With the proceeds, the retirement home Beth Joles in Israel was sponsored.
Below that is the bima: the place where the Torah is recited during the service. Candlesticks stand on the walls of the bima.
At the bottom right of the image is a copper lantern, with a sphere in the upright and at the top two curved parts from which a total of four lamps hang. Upstairs, in the gallery, we see similar lanterns on two columns, but shorter.
Top right is one of the two large stained glass windows that close off the transept on either side. This window is largely original from 1906. The other one was destroyed in the 1980s by a fire and an explosion in a house (of pleasure...) next to the synagogue in the Nieuwstad.
Max van der Wissel
Max van der Wissel studied at the Minerva Academy in Groningen in the 1920s. He belonged to the second generation of Ploeg artists.
Van der Wissel died at the age of 87.