Parshas Bereshit (בראשית – in a beginning), Genesis 1:1-6:8.
Gd creates the world and sanctify the seventh day. A little before this first Shabbat, he creates Adam and Eve and places them in the middle of the Garden of Eden. Gd commands them not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The snake convinces Eve to eat it and she urges Adam to eat it too. As a result of this fault, Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden of Eden.
Gd decrees that henceforth man will live by struggle, hardship and woman will give birth in pain and humans will experience death. Eve gives birth to Cain and Abel. Cain kills Abel. Gd punishes him for his crime. A third son is born of Adam, Cheth, ancestor of Noah.
Ève, cachée derrière l’Arbre de la Connaissance, remet un fruit à Adam (représenté que par une main et une jambe). Le serpent est enroulé autour de l’arbre et regarde Adam. En haut à gauche la citation :
Genesis 3:6 – בראשית ג ו
וַתִּקַּח מִפִּרְיוֹ, וַתֹּאכַל
and she gathered of its fruit and ate it
The first Jewish community was established in 1563. In 1761, a Baroque-style synagogue was built on the site of the wooden one destroyed by the fire of 1733. The 8 bays of the main hall are exceptionally large for a Polish synagogue; Professor Krinsky1 thinks this reflects the sense of security felt by the Jews who lived under the protection of the castellans of Lancut. In the 19th century an external staircase was built allowing women to access the gallery.
In 1939, the Jews were expelled from the city. In 1940, Jews from Krakow took refuge in Łańcut. But, in 1942, they were locked up in the Szeniawa2 ghetto or killed in the cemetery. The Nazis set fire to the synagogue, but thanks to the action of Count Alfred Potocki (1886-1958) the fire was brought under control. After the war, the synagogue was used as a grain storage. Between 1983 and 1990, a major restoration project was undertaken. Today, the synagogue houses a museum of Judaism.
1 Carol Herselle Krinsky, born in 1937 in Brooklyn, she is a professor of history at 20th Century Architecture at New York University and Fellow of the Society of Architectural Historians.
2 Southwest of Poznań, Central Poland