When Harold Hammer-Schenk published his masterful study in two volumes on German synagogues (1780–1933) in 1981, he raised the scholarship on modern synagogue architecture to a new plateau. Hammer-Schenk was not only interested in the diversity of the architectural styles of these synagogues, but granted pride of place to the fascinating deliberations that various synagogue committees held among themselves and with city authorities to decide on the style that seemed to them most appropriate to express their Jewish and German “identity.” Hammer-Schenk placed architectural decisions within the fabric of social and cultural history, and these decisions provided an engaging framework with which to penetrate the sense of belonging maintained by elements within the Jewish communities, whose voices would otherwise be unreachable historically. More than three decades have passed since Hammer-Schenk's work, during which much valuable research has been published on synagogue architecture. Now Coenen Snyder's excellent and challenging book brings the social history of synagogue architecture a step further. Her agenda is a comparative one: she focuses on four northern European cities—Berlin, London, Amsterdam, and Paris—and the synagogues that were built in each of them in the nineteenth century. In the case of Berlin and Paris, her attention is given almost exclusively to those cities' two monumental synagogues of note, the Oranienburgerstraße and the Victoire respectively, while in the case of other cities she devotes her attention to a variety of synagogues. But lest readers without an interest in synagogue architecture avoid this book, I hasten to add that the essence and importance of Coenen Snyder's study lies elsewhere.

A major goal of this book is to widen the perspective on synagogue building in the nineteenth century and to modify the commonly held notion that this century witnessed the construction only of monumental synagogues, as an outcome of the sense of integration and acculturation Jews experienced in major European cities. In order to tackle this stereotype and expand the horizon, Coenen Snyder places the construction of the synagogues within the context of the particular city, its architectural concerns, the nature of its Jewish community, and the political framework in which negotiations took place between city officials and the Jews. Thus, we are treated to four chapters that unravel in great detail the complexity of building synagogues in the public space of these cities, whose city planners were at times significant figures in the process.

No one can dispute that the Oranienburgerstraße synagogue, with its interior Moorish style, inaugurated in Berlin in 1866 following twenty years of internal deliberations (among laypeople, architects, rabbis, and cantors), architectural planning, and negotiations between Berlin Jews and the local authorities on permissions, place, style, and form, was indeed a monumental synagogue with dramatic visibility. This synagogue has rightfully received much attention from scholars, whose work Coenen Snyder finds wanting on certain levels. On the basis of her extensive analysis of the social, aesthetic, religious, and political dimensions of the synagogue's construction, she contends that lurking behind this impressive structure was not the Jews' gratification with their status and success in German society, but rather a sense of insecurity and a need to attain an equality that eluded them. By manifesting their cultured embourgeoisement in the grandest of ways in the synagogue, Berlin Jews believed they would gain the respect and appreciation of non-Jewish Germans and advance their cause of equality. The author's argument integrates a panoply of concerns of those actively involved in the decision-making process and their belief in the representational power of the synagogue, but she accords greater social import to their need for external recognition. Thus, Coenen Snyder claims that monumentality cannot be regarded as proof positive of a sense of integration, not in Berlin and not even in Paris, where the story that unfolds around the Victoire takes on a different dimension, since French Jews had already been emancipated at the end of the eighteenth century. (Possibly to emphasize the difficulties of interpreting monumentalism, the dust jacket of the book features a postcard photograph of the Victoire from an angle in the uncharacteristically narrow street it faces, giving it a cramped aspect and diminishing its grand façade).

Coenen Snyder's research shows clearly that in Paris, the all-powerful and opinionated prefect Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann proved to be a major figure in determining how and where the synagogue would be built. Neither he nor Empress Eugénie had any desire to grant the Jews their desired site. The political context spoke for itself—the Second Republic was not opening its doors to Jews in the way the Third Republic would. In Paris, where the Jewish population grew continuously in the nineteenth century, the entire process of bringing a synagogue into being took only thirteen years. Though the Jewish leadership had attempted to find an alternative location, and expressed disappointment at the final site, they had no choice but to resign themselves to that spot and do as they pleased in the interior. Yet Coenen Snyder seems to understate the assertiveness of the Jewish leaders in turning down some of the suggestions that came from the authorities, when she describes their behavior as “compliant” (255). Minimizing the visibility of the synagogue was a paramount concern of both Haussmann and Eugénie, and they were in positions of power. Their exercise of that power provides the author further evidence that the synagogue produced tells not only the internal story of the Jews but provides important insights into the ways in which they were perceived by others. In the case of France—as others, not fully French.

Was this also the case in London and Amsterdam? Again the author begins with context. London in Victorian England was a sprawling city with a much less centralized authority over construction than in Paris, with no distinct architectural design and no drive toward establishing a national identity, but with an avoidance of ostentatiousness that dovetailed with a Jewish proclivity to blending in. London's synagogues were built accordingly. There was no figure like a Haussmann, a Eugénie, or a Friedrich Wilhelm IV to voice displeasure at Jewish synagogue building, nor was there anyone to demur at the Jews' interest in the Oriental style. The battles took place more among the Jews themselves (including, later, with the immigrants from eastern Europe), resulting in diversified styles and levels of elegance. Economics played an important role. Coenen Snyder convincingly argues that if no signature synagogue was built in London in the nineteenth century, it was because English Jewry's ultimate ideal was to merge with Victorian society and its unassuming nature. Unlike in Berlin and Paris, they were not looking for a site to attract attention and make a statement about their identity. Coenen Snyder is also attentive to the changing role of the synagogue in Victorian England. She shows how it became a space to highlight Jewish soldiers and their patriotic service to the crown, as well as a center where community issues and economic concerns could be voiced, and weddings and funerals staged. London's synagogue culture, then, developed in new ways, in the spirit of its increasingly acculturated and secular constituency.

Amsterdam appears on Coenen Snyder's canvas as an anomaly. When one thinks of that city's synagogues of architectural interest, one has to go back to the seventeenth century, to the heyday of Amsterdam Jewry. Coenen Snyder rather turns her lens to the ḥevra synagogues that emerged in the nineteenth century, largely unassuming and little inclined to the Moorish style—a far cry from the eye-catching Oranienburgstrasse structure. It is the calm and practical nature of these synagogues that the author explores in the context of the changing nature of nineteenth-century Amsterdam society and Jewry.

The nineteenth century generally witnessed the growing attraction to Jews of the cities treated in this book, as well as other major cities across Europe. This book approaches the synagogue as a significant focal point for a discussion of some of the underlying issues that confronted Jews as they made the move to these urban settings. Coenen Snyder's comparative analysis succeeds in highlighting how the different development of Jewish life in these cities, and the unique situations each presented, led to diversity in synagogue building. While one may still appreciate the significant breakthrough in the visibility of the monumental synagogue projects of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Berlin, Essen, Cologne, Brussels, and Budapest, to name but a few), the author convincingly argues that monumentality was far from universal, and wisely demonstrates the need for a more contextualized and diversified approach to the interpretation of these projects.

Yet although this reviewer joyfully lauds Coenen Snyder's impressive accomplishment, the review would not be complete without lamenting the poor quality and paucity of images (we are not even shown the internal space of the Victoire!), the lack of maps (reader unfriendliness, if you will, toward readers who do not have a road map of the cities in their head and cannot easily navigate through the streets discussed), and the overly repetitive nature of some of the author's major arguments. These drawbacks are unfortunate, but “synagogues,” as Coenen Snyder claims, “are great storytellers” (253), and she has shown just that, moving us another notch forward methodologically and thematically.