Maribor Synagogue: Between Facts and Reinterpretation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

An interesting contribution with regard to the building history of Marburg synagogue that can also be seen as relevant for building initiatives concerning medieval synagogues in general.

The paper certainly needs an English native speaker, but not too much will have to be modified.

Some further comments and suggestions:

In my opinion, the paper concentrates, from introuction to conclusion, too much and too often on generally emphasising the mistakes of former research. 

Figs 14, 15, 17, 18: Translate "Sinagoga Maribor, 1.faza (rekonstrukcija)", etc.

Figs 15 and 18 are not very meaningful.

The third building phase is not well documented. Does the 1477 document concerning building money for the the synagogue really refer to "a rebuilding of a (damaged) synagogue"? Can one really presume "a landslide or general deterioration of the southern part of the synagogue wall"? Should the 12 florins mentioned in the 1477 document not be compared to Christian "building money" for churches that one regularly finds in late medieval sources and which, not a all, has to mean  re-building but is also used for necessary smaller repairs?

Author Response

This version was sent to a professional native speaking English university lecturer.

Furthermore, I would first like to express my gratitude for the suggestions made by the two reviewers.

Following their advice I modified / expanded the abstract and introduction slightly.

I made a clear distinction between the first two and the last synagogue phase - which I didn't provide a groundplan for, because of the lacking evidence.

To answer one of the highly interesting comments about the datation of the last phase (before 1477); church money does match "synagogue" money. There was a Christian demand as to the Jewish payment of the keeping / construction of the defence wall in the Jewish quarter, but here was no internal (communal) demand inside a Jewish community for a specific sum. The document clearly implies on the building of a synagogue, which in this case most probably was a rebuilding. Still I found this observation helpful, since I added a historic occurrence of an attack and successful capture of Maribor just few years before - Germania Judaica states, that Jewish quarter suffer material damage, and the synagogue in this case forms part of the most exposed section of the wall. One truly has to follow the construction logic in this case: why should the synagogue be restored to the last medieval appearance when there was no actual need for it - Janez Mikuž stated, that they reconstructed a phase from the middle of the century, when the Jewish community was at its peak (which, by the way, is no true). It was rebuilt during or following the large upkeeping works on the whole wall (from 1465 onwards), but most probably following the beforementioned attack of Baumkircher in 1469.

I thank the reviewers for the comments on the photographic material - especially targeting the groundplans. I expanded the text under those groundplans and explained the archaeological chart (all groundplan fotos are therefore modified - the text is translated to English - I got the Autocad versions, which is why I couldn't do it myself before) Insertion of the archeological chart into the groundplan (by the way, the groundplans are actually based on it and on the report on excavations) is crucial for the whole article, since for the first time we interpreted the natural growth and development of the building based on archaeological evidence.

The findings are truly significant for our current knowledge on development of medieval synagogue architecture: Maribor was a very important (late) medieval center (with the famous rabbi Isserlein active there for more than a decade), and its synagogue was not less significant - on the contrary; first, the dimension of the second phase places it among the biggest synagogues of that time, and, according to our finding, the hall was divided into two naves by two columns, which places it next to the Prague Old New synagogue. As about the first phase: orientation towards the SOUTH!!!? And an adjacent cemetery?! This also is highly intriguing and uncommon.

It was not my intention to be overly critical on the 1990s reconstruction, but, we shouldn't forget that any new contributions on the history of the building will have to be based on their evidence, collected in a nearly a decade of conservation. As the topic of this special edition of the IMDB ARTs journal also is synagogue preservation, I don't think I deviated from the topic - especially because the restoration of the Maribor synagogue is still being used a successful example of a synagogue restoration - like being presented in the most complete monography on the medieval synagogue restoration to date, written by Simon Paulus. He could only base his research on the material he got from the Maribor institute for preservation of the cultural heritage, but what he got was definitely incomplete.

I added a small part about the synagogues being turned into churches in the introduction, which is the reason why the Maribor synagogue got preserved and I hope it will intrigue the non-expert public into further reading.

As about a reconstruction of the last synagogue phase (the present hall) - this should be a separate research project and I already discussed it with the Faculty of Architecture in Maribor, to maybe involve students to keep it low budget. It should be supplemented by additional archaeological examinations - I already got some comments by some of the biggest authorities in the field, that it would definitely be worthwhile.

Reviewer 2 Report

Given the international scope of the Arts, the introduction would benefit from a broader discussion of the research into medieval synagogues turned into churches after the waves of Jewish expulsions of the later 1490s. At the moment, the introduction targets inadequacy of archaeological excavations undertaken in 1990s, which is a narrower issue, sadly quite typical of Central and Eastern Europe of that time.

As to the discussion of the evidence, the overall clarity of argumentation would highly benefit if photographs were integrated into the drawings of reconstructions of Maribor synagogue and archaeological charts that have been integrated explained in captions. The overall desire is to have visual materials more informative as to available data and its interpretation as indicative of construction periods.

There is a deviation from scholarly argument in the lines 254-255. The hypothetical dating of Christian graves to 1535 (line 265) falls out of the chronology of evidence and therefore requires either revision or more precise elaboration.

Author Response

This version was sent to a professional native speaking English university lecturer.

Furthermore, I would first like to express my gratitude for the suggestions made by the two reviewers.

Following their advice I modified / expanded the abstract and introduction slightly.

I made a clear distinction between the first two and the last synagogue phase - which I didn't provide a groundplan for, because of the lacking evidence.

To answer one of the highly interesting comments about the datation of the last phase (before 1477); church money does match "synagogue" money. There was a Christian demand as to the Jewish payment of the keeping / construction of the defence wall in the Jewish quarter, but here was no internal (communal) demand inside a Jewish community for a specific sum. The document clearly implies on the building of a synagogue, which in this case most probably was a rebuilding. Still I found this observation helpful, since I added a historic occurrence of an attack and successful capture of Maribor just few years before - Germania Judaica states, that Jewish quarter suffer material damage, and the synagogue in this case forms part of the most exposed section of the wall. One truly has to follow the construction logic in this case: why should the synagogue be restored to the last medieval appearance when there was no actual need for it - Janez Mikuž stated, that they reconstructed a phase from the middle of the century, when the Jewish community was at its peak (which, by the way, is no true). It was rebuilt during or following the large upkeeping works on the whole wall (from 1465 onwards), but most probably following the beforementioned attack of Baumkircher in 1469.

I thank the reviewers for the comments on the photographic material - especially targeting the groundplans. I expanded the text under those groundplans and explained the archaeological chart (all groundplan fotos are therefore modified - the text is translated to English - I got the Autocad versions, which is why I couldn't do it myself before) Insertion of the archeological chart into the groundplan (by the way, the groundplans are actually based on it and on the report on excavations) is crucial for the whole article, since for the first time we interpreted the natural growth and development of the building based on archaeological evidence.

The findings are truly significant for our current knowledge on development of medieval synagogue architecture: Maribor was a very important (late) medieval center (with the famous rabbi Isserlein active there for more than a decade), and its synagogue was not less significant - on the contrary; first, the dimension of the second phase places it among the biggest synagogues of that time, and, according to our finding, the hall was divided into two naves by two columns, which places it next to the Prague Old New synagogue. As about the first phase: orientation towards the SOUTH!!!? And an adjacent cemetery?! This also is highly intriguing and uncommon.

It was not my intention to be overly critical on the 1990s reconstruction, but, we shouldn't forget that any new contributions on the history of the building will have to be based on their evidence, collected in a nearly a decade of conservation. As the topic of this special edition of the IMDB ARTs journal also is synagogue preservation, I don't think I deviated from the topic - especially because the restoration of the Maribor synagogue is still being used a successful example of a synagogue restoration - like being presented in the most complete monography on the medieval synagogue restoration to date, written by Simon Paulus. He could only base his research on the material he got from the Maribor institute for preservation of the cultural heritage, but what he got was definitely incomplete.

I added a small part about the synagogues being turned into churches in the introduction, which is the reason why the Maribor synagogue got preserved and I hope it will intrigue the non-expert public into further reading.

As about a reconstruction of the last synagogue phase (the present hall) - this should be a separate research project and I already discussed it with the Faculty of Architecture in Maribor, to maybe involve students to keep it low budget. It should be supplemented by additional archaeological examinations - I already got some comments by some of the biggest authorities in the field, that it would definitely be worthwhile.