Wooden synagogues: a thread

Known for their intricacy, originality and creativity, wooden synagogues were a prominent form of architecture throughout Eastern Europe that is almost nonexistent today. Most of what is left are photographs and documents from before the Holocaust.

Most of the pictures we have of these synagogues are from Jewish photographer Szymon Zajczyk, who was murdered in the Warsaw Ghetto.
Thanks to the surviving work of Zajczyk, we can see what these synagogues looked like. Here is an example from a synagogue in Pilica, Poland.

The Wolpa synagogue in present-day Belarus was considered to be the most beautiful amongst these wooden synagogues and one of the most amazing works of wooden architecture. A replica of this synagogue was built in Bilgoraj, Poland in 2015.

Perhaps the most well-known and best-documented of these synagogues was the Gwoździec Synagogue in modern-day Ukraine. It was built in 1652, and like many of these synagogues, had an extremely detailed and elegantly-painted ceiling, with the beautiful bima in the center.

The Gwoździec Synagogue has been recreated by Handshouse Studio, and can be seen at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. There is also an entire documentary called Raise the Roof about recreating the synagogue's interior.

The wooden panels of the wooden synagogue in Unterlimpurg, a village in the northern area of Baden-Württemberg. It was painted by Eliezer Sussman around 1738. Amazingly, it survived, as the panels have been held in the Hällisch-Franconian Museum

Another wooden synagogue with a similarly-designed, intricate, beautiful ceiling was the synagogue in Chodorow, Ukraine. The synagogue was built in 1652 and painted in 1714 by Ben Mordecai Lisnicki.

The ceiling of the Chodorow synagogue has also been recreated, and can be viewed at the Beit Hatfutsot museum in Tel Aviv.

Wooden synagogue in Zabludow, Poland, with a painted ceiling.

And here's another example of a wooden synagogue with a beautifully painted ceiling. It is in Mogilev, Belarus, and was painted in 1740.
A 3D reconstruction of this synagogue was made recently, which you can view here:

One of my personal favorites of these wooden synagogues is in Przedborz, Poland.

Absolutely gorgeous wooden synagogue that was in Valkininkai, Lithuania.

You can see just how intricately carved the exterior of these synagogues were, with incredibly interesting patterns throughout. See these synagogues from Jedwabne, Poland and Ashymany, Belarus

Wooden synagogue that was in Jurbarkas, Lithuania. Built in 1790. View of the Bima from both sides, and torah ark.

The picture on the left is the wooden synagogue in Kelme, Lithuania. The picture on the right is the bima from the Oudtshoorn synagogue in South Africa. Its torah ark was created as an exact replica of the torah ark in the Kelme synagogue.

Wooden synagogue that was in Bechhofen, Germany.

Detail from the torah ark and bima of the wooden synagogue that was in Izbelin, Poland (modern day Belarus).