Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur

1878

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While not front and center, Jewish women are shown here sitting together in the synagogue balcony, or women’s section. Despite the pronounced gender division, the women’s gallery appears full of life. Women seem to be conducting their own business as they confer with one another. Note what appears to be a woman holding a charity box, which could have been used for collecting charity specifically for poor women. Even in this traditional depiction, we can see the artist acknowledging women as more active community participants than we might think based on the strict segregation of roles in the synagogue.

Painting depicting men in skullcaps and prayer shawls in foreground at podiums, one holding a Torah scroll, and women in background in hats and shawls. — *Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur* was one of the last paintings made by Maurycy Gottlieb before his death. Painted from memory when he was living in Vienna, it depicts a Yom Kippur service, possibly in the synagogue in Drohobycz, where he prayed in his youth. The stained-glass windows in the background of the women’s section and the columns supporting the vaulted roof suggest that possibility. The artist included three self-portraits at different ages: the young man with his head leaning on his hand at center, the young boy with the brocade coat at left, and a boy sharing a prayerbook with his father at right. It is thought that the young woman holding a prayerbook at upper left and the woman whispering to another woman are both meant to represent the same person, his fiancée Laura. Oddly, the mantle of the Torah scroll is embroidered with the words “. . . donated in memory of R. Moyshe [the artist’s Hebrew name] Gottlieb, the righteous of blessed memory . . . 1878,” a foreshadowing of the artist’s death at an early age. The work exudes sadness and melancholy, but perhaps minimal devotion. Gottlieb died a year after the painting was completed.

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Discussion Questions

What do you imagine the two women engaged in private conversation in the back row might be discussing?
How would you interpret the artist’s depictions of the men as opposed to the women in this image?
Do you see any clues that Gottlieb painted this image as gender roles slowly began to shift in the nineteenth century?

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 6.