BRITISH EMPIRE

ABRAHAMS, ISRAEL, Reader in Talmudic Literature at Cambridge University and author, Cambridge, aged 67, Oct. 6, 1925.

FRIEDLANDER, HENRY L., minister, Brisbane, aged 76, Feb. 3, 1926. Harris, IsidorE, rabbi and communal leader, London, aged 73, July 15, 1925.

HENRIQUES, CECIL Q., lieutenant-colonel, London, aged 69, July 17,

1925.

HENRIQUES, HENRY STRAUS QUIXANO, K.C., M.A., B.C.L., lawyer, author, and president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, London, aged 59, Nov. 12, 1925.

KELLERT, HARRIS, communal worker, Montreal, aged 81, May 31,

1925.

LEE, SIR SIDNEY, biographer, author and editor, London, aged 66, March 3, 1926.

WOOLF, ALBERT M., O.B.E., communal leader, London, aged 69, Aug. 20, 1925.

CZECHO-SLOVAKIA

AFBELES, SOLOMON, former rabbi and communal leader, Carlsbad, aged 95.

FRANCE

WORMS, RENE, professor of Jurisprudence and Social Science at the Sorbonne University, author, and editor, Paris, aged 57.

GERMANY

AUERBACH, ERNST, jurist and communal leader, Frankford a.M., aged 65, Feb. 20, 1926.

AUERBACH, LEOPOLD, author, Berlin, aged 78.

FRAENKEL, EUGEN, professor, pathologist, and bacteriologist, Hamburg, aged 73.

Moss, ALBERT, jurist and professor at the university in Berlin, aged 79, June 1, 1925.

PREUSS, HUGO, professor of law, former Minister of the Interior, author of the draft of the constitution, and civic and communal leader, Berlin, Oct. 9, 1925.

WARSCHAUER, ADOLPH, librarian, author, editor, and communal worker, Breslau, aged 70, Oct. 13, 1925.

HUNGARY

NEZEI, MORITZ, lawyer, former deputy, and civic and communal leader, Budapest, aged 89, Nov. 21, 1925.

ITALY

LATTES, ELIJAH, Professor of Greek and Roman Antiquities, and author, Rome, aged 82, June 21, 1925.

MANASCI, GUIDO, professor of history of Italian literature and author of libretto of "Cavalleria Rusticana," Leghorn, aged 58.

MORTARA, ACHILLE, director of the state railways of Southern Italy and former president of the Jewish Religious Community of Rome, Rome.

NETHERLANDS

DUPARC, M. I., Chief of the Department of Art and Science of the Ministry of Education and educator, The Hague, at Paris, aged 55, May 30, 1925.

ELTE, HERMAN, educator and Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau, Haarlem, aged 80.

JITTA, JOSEPHUS, jurist, former professor at the Amsterdam University, president of International Law Association of The Hague, The Hague, aged 71.

PALESTINE

BURSTEIN, ABRAHAM AARON HAKOHEN, rabbi and director of the Yeshibath Merkaz ha-Rabh, Jerusalem, aged 60, Dec. 6, 1925.

SCHILLER, SOLOMON, teacher, writer and communal and Zionist leader, Jerusalem, aged 62, Oct. 31, 1925.

POLAND

KOWALSKI, JUDAH LEIB, senator, rabbi, and Mizrahi leader, Wloclawek, at Breslau, Germany, aged 61, July 24, 1925.

SOVIET RUSSIA

LEVIN, JUDAH LEIB, poet and author, Kiev, aged 85.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE SYNAGOGUE

By WILLIAM G. TACHAU

The study of the Synagogue is the study of the history of Israel. No period of its existence is conceivable without this place of public worship and religious instruction. Very early the Synagogue became the central institution of Judaism and owing to its existence, later on, after the dispersion, the very life of the faith was preserved.

The Synagogue, then, was the center of activities of each community, just as the Temple at Jerusalem had been the center for the entire people. Indeed, the Synagogue became for each scattered community a sanctuary in miniature in compensation for the loss of the Temple. Therefore, no matter how details may vary in different countries, Synagogual worship was the most important visible expression of Judaism, and it was the chief means of uniting the Jews scattered throughout the world.

It is probable that the Synagogue existed even during the period of the Temple, but it is certain that places of congregation during the exile in Babylon offered the beginning of the present houses of worship. The word "Synagogue' comes from the Greek and means an assembling together. The word itself, of course, came into use long after the captivity, but places of assembly and prayer existed throughout the land long before they were mentioned in history by the name of Synagogue.

To give an adequate, critical survey of synagogual plan, it is necessary to trace its history from its inception. The earliest actual place of worship of the Jews is known as the tabernacle, which, in arrangement, was fundamentally a repetition in movable tents of the triple Egyptian Temple system that consisted of court, hall and cella. The enclosure around the tabernacle formed a court twice as long as it was broad; there were twenty-one columns upon the sides and eleven upon the front, erected like tent poles. These supports had silver capitals and stood in sockets of bronze. White immovable hangings were fastened between these columns, except at the entrance on the eastern front where movable curtains of blue, purple and scarlet linen filled the open spaces.

1. ELEVATION AND PLAN OF MOSAIC TABERNACLE

The tabernacle itself (figure 1) was placed near the western end of the enclosure, and in the square place in front of it (a),