Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on September 22, 2014

Louis Davidsons photos include The Black Synagogue in Augsburg, Germany.

If you want to track down Louis Davidson, try the local synagogue.

Of course, local in this case could mean anywhere from Hong Kong to Morocco, from the Ukraine to Hawaii in any city other than Los Angeles or Tulsa, Okla., between which the retired architect-turned-photographer-historian divides his time when not traveling.

On a midsummer evening in July, Davidson is in Sydney, Nova Scotia, along with his wife Ronnie. The reason? Why, because theres a synagogue to photograph, of course!

Yesterday we shot one in Halifax, Davidson said, launching easily into a backstory about the structure. There was another one in North Sydney until two years ago, when the congregation shrank away to nothing. Originally Jewish families came to Sydney. They were tailors and merchants, and Sydney was a major port because there were coal and iron mines nearby. This is a typical pattern that we have seen in other towns. You get important mineral deposits that bring in the population, and Jews come and settle to service the population as merchants. Once the minerals pay out and the towns dwindle, the Jews tend to move away.

Calgary, Canada

Left behind are synagogues of cultural and local historical significance, structures that Davidson feels are worth preserving, one shutter click at a time. Which is exactly what he is doing through his Synagogues360 project, a photographic record of synagogues throughout the world.

The website synagogues360.com displays Davidsons photos of more than 350 synagogues, an A-to-Z chronicle that takes site visitors from Adas Jeschurun in Stockholm to Zeizmariai in Lithuania. The latter is one of eight remaining wooden synagogues in Lithuania, a former Orthodox Ashkenazi synagogue that is no longer operational. In fact, the exterior makes it resemble a dilapidated barn.

Davidson books journeys to houses of worship that are in some way architecturally or historically significant. He shoots both exterior shots and a series of moving 360-degree panoramas of the interior to take viewers on a virtual tour around the structure. A series of still shots from 30 synagogues will be on display at the Dortort Center for Creativity in the Arts at UCLAs Hillel, opening Oct. 23.

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An eye for synagogue photography: Louis Davidson

Category: Synagogue
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