Metal Work
The synagogues of Poland-Lithuania used a considerable amount of metal work. The silver appurtenances for the decoration of the Scripture scrolls were mostly imported from Germany and Austria and later, after the annexation in 1795, from Russia as well. However, lamps, chandeliers, candelabra, sconces made of brass, which were found in large quantities in the synagogues and in domestic use, were produced in the country. Only one name of a brazier, Baruch (eighteenth century), has survied as well as photographs of some of his candelabra in the synagogue at Pogrebishche in the Ukraine. [Note: Landsberger, "Old Hanukkah Lamps," HUCA, XXV, 366.] The Ark of the "High Synagogue" at Cracow (seventeenth century) bears an inscription saying that Zelman and Hayyim, sons of Aaron, made the iron doors for it.
The Work of Scribes
An eminently Jewish profession was that of the scribe, who copied by hand the parchment scrolls of the Pentatueuch for the use of the synagogue. Also, certain books for individual patrons were still written by hand in the eighteenth century. Copied from printed texts, they were occasionally embellished with vignettes and colored figure illustrations. The synagogue at Pogrebishche possessed a daily prayer book (siddur) of this type copied by Aryeh Yehudah Leib, son of Baruch, and dated 1735. The synagogued at Wolpa owned a holiday prayer book (mahzor) produced by Hayyim Meerowish in 1781. An anonymous work was the parchment siddur of 1712 with figure illustrations in color, dedicated to Abraham, son of Moses, in Rzeszow, Galicia. These scribes and draftsmen were also the designers of the curtains of the holy Ark which were decorated with symbolic motifs embroidered in silver and gold thread on silk or velvet. A number of Ark curtains, signed by the embroiderers who made them, have been discovered in various synagogues. They date from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
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