Author Michael Palmer discusses his book, “Eric Mendelsohn’s Synagogues in America” (An Adult Ed. Zoom)

In the post-war and post-Holocaust climate, the duality of Jewish and American identity became more crucial than ever, and congregations were eager to express their integration into a modern America through their buildings. Between 1946 and 1953, the German-Jewish architect Eric Mendelsohn (1887-1953) designed and built synagogues that soon became the benchmark of modern American synagogue architecture.
Mendelsohn’s work is recorded in exquisite detail by Michael Palmer, a photographer whose work has explored the architectural legacy and relevance of the German Jewish exodus from Germany in the 1920s and 1930s.