Re: [Cz-L] Star of David as architectural decoration in Czernowitz and vicinity

Dear Mimi,

The Residenz ensemble was built by a famous Czech architect Josef
Hlavka (he also built several buildings in Prague and more than 100
buildings in Vienna). Architecturally the Residenz is eclectic, with
seamless combination of Byzantine, Roman, Moorish Revival and
Neo-Gothic styles. Six-pointed stars is a standard element in Moorish
ornamentation. While the old legend attributes the stars on the
Residenz to the acknowledgment of Jewish contributions to the
construction fund (those were very real, the final budget amounted to
the gigantic sum of 1.8 million gold florins), it is impossible to say
whether the stars were of "Jewish" or Moorish origin.

The Archbishop of Bukovina and Dalmatia (his official title) was on
friendly terms with both Czernowitz Jewish religious leaders - Reform
Chief Rabbi Lazar Igel and Orthodox Av Beis Din Binyomin Weiss. I
don't know about laying out the street plan, but with the latter he
regularly played chess - both were very good players - and discussed
various theological issues afterward.

These weekly chess matches were described by the Rabbi Weiss'
grandson. Born Leopold Weiss, he became a prominent war correspondent
for leading German newspapers during the WWI. After the the war, on a
reporting assignment to Palestine he befriended a Saudi prince,
converted to Islam, and eventually, under the new name Muhammad Asad
became a world leading authority on modern interpretations of Sharia
law, writing numerous books on this subject. In the 1940ies he was one
of the founders of independent Pakistan and Pakistan's first
representative to the UN. His memoir "The Road to Mecca" was published
by Simon and Schuster in 1954 and reprinted several times.

Iosif

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Received on 2009-05-18 04:37:24