"One Tisha B'Av afternoon in the late-80s, photographer and filmmaker Judah S.
Harris took a walk in Harlem in search of some of the synagogues that once
existed in this former Jewish neighborhood.
"Written a decade ago (2006),
his essay "Where Synagogues Once Stood" documents his exploration of the places
where synagogues once stood, both in New York City and also in Jerusalem, where
the grandest of synagogues once welcomed an entire
people.
""Visiting
the places where synagogues once stood, where Jewish communities once thrived...
can be one way of internalizing the meaning of Tisha B'Av, especially if the
structures — their exterior architecture and Hebrew inscriptions — still remain
visible but the life within them does not.""
