Sukkot in Iwanowa, 1916

This is a postcard printed in Germany depicting a Jewish alley in the town of Iwanowo in the Austrian Empire in 1916. As with many places in Eastern Europe, this town has been ruled by many different countries and has had various different names. Today it is located in the Ukraine and is called Ivano-Frankivsk, although it was also previously known as Stanyslaviv, Stanyslavov, and Stanislau. The photograph shows a narrow, crowded, and muddy street. A ditch is running alongside the houses on the right side of the street, and the entrances to the homes are small bridges across the ditch. A few people can be faintly seen in the photograph. Some of the roofs of the houses on the street have been lifted and are held in place by large planks. At the bottom of the postcard is the caption: “Sepple alley in Iwanowa during the festival of Sukkot in 1916.”

It seems that the Jews who lived in this street built their houses with a roof that could be raised. When the festival of Sukkot arrived in the month of Tishrei, they opened the roof, laid schach (the branches used for the ceiling of a sukkah), and sat under it. In this way, they fulfilled the mitzvah (commandment) of sitting in a sukkah that is open to the sky. It is possible that the sukkah was built inside the house with the roof raised due to lack of space in the narrow street or cold autumn weather conditions. It is also possible that sitting in the sukkah inside the house provided a sense of security at a time when hundreds of pogroms were taking place in this region.

This photograph is part of a series of photographs taken by German soldiers (some of whom were Jewish) during World War I, documenting the areas in the Eastern Europe that were occupied by the German Army. For many Jews in Western Europe, these photographs were their first encounter with the Jews living in shtetls in Eastern Europe in the Pale of Settlement. This encounter had large impact on many of these Western Jews whose connection to Jewish tradition was influenced by the “discovery” of more traditional Jews and Jewish lifestyle.

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Discussion Questions

Observation

• What type of item is this?
• What do you see in the picture?
  Describe the houses.
  What is unusual about them?
• Describe the street.
• What caption appears at the bottom of the postcard?
  What language is it written in?

Reading Between the Lines

• This photograph was taken in a Jewish street in the town of Iwanowa (also known as Stanisławów, Stanislau, or Ivano-Frankivsk).some text
  • What festival do you think is being celebrated in the picture?
  • How do you know?
• What is the connection between a raised roof and a sukkah?
  How do you think the sukkah looked?
  Do you think it was different from the sukkot that you know? In what ways?
• Why do you think the Jews of Iwanowa built their sukkot in this way?
  What problems were they trying to solve? (Hint – think of the situation in Russia during Sukkot).
• What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of building a sukkah inside a house instead of outside?
• What are the requirements for a sukkah according to Jewish law?
  Do you think that the sukkot in Iwanowa follow the requirements?
• Can you think of other adaptations or creative solutions for observing Jewish laws and customs that were prompted by the environment in which Jews were living?
• How do the climate and social circumstances influence the way that Sukkot is celebrated outside of Israel? What effect, if any, do you think these factors have on Sukkot celebrations outside of Israel?
• This photograph was taken in an area of Eastern Europe called the Pale of Settlement.
  What was this area?
  Why did the Jews live there?
  What was life like for Jews living there in 1916?
• This is a photograph of a Jewish area that was taken by German soldiers in World War I. Many Jewish people in Western Europe were impacted by these pictures that exposed to them traditional Jewish life and people.
  How different was the life of Jews in Eastern Europe from that of Jews in Western Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century?

Connections

• Have you ever sat in a sukkah?
  Have you ever built a sukkah?
  If so, was your sukkah adapted to life in your city or country? In what ways?some text
  • How do you celebrate the festival of Sukkot?
• Watch the trailer about the sukkah design competition called Sukkah City.
  What are your thoughts about the sukkot in the film?
  What do you think the architects in the film would think about the sukkot on the postcard?

Creative Ideas

• Design your ideal sukkah.
  What materials would you use?
  What would it look like?
• Create a collage or presentation of sukkot from around the world.some text
  • Search ​the National Library website and the internet for sukkot from various times and places.

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