The painting "Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur" (1878) is the best-known work by Polish-Jewish painter Maurycy Gottlieb (1856-1879). It is also the work of Jewish art that has undergone the greatest number of reproductions and prints. For many, this work is the archetypal artistic representation of the Yom Kippur prayer in an Eastern European Jewish town. However, a close look at the piece raises many questions regarding the accuracy of the scene. For example: How did a colorful tallit (prayer shawl) come to appear in the painting, in view of the fact that such items appeared only much later? Also, how is it that the picture depicts the women sitting close to the men's section and not behind a fabric partition?
Gottlieb began his art studies when he was only 15 years old. In his early paintings he was influenced by Polish patriotism, but after reading texts about Jewish history, he began to paint Jewish subjects. At first, he sought to treat combined Jewish- national Polish themes, such as the ratification of the Statute of Kalisz, granting special protection to the Jews, by the 14th-century Polish King Casimir.
Gottlieb, who died when he was only 23 years old, painted "Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur" in the last year of his life. He painted the picture from memory while he was living in Vienna. The synagogue that appears in the painting is the synagogue of his childhood town in Galicia, where he lived until the age of 13.
The painting shows about twenty figures inside the synagogue. In the background, a women's section is visible, raised slightly higher than the men’s section. Among the female figures, Gottlieb’s fiancée, Laura Henschel-Rosenfeld (who later broke off her engagement to him and married someone else) is featured twice, on both sides of the central pillar. She appears on the left side as a young woman holding a small prayer book to her heart, while on the right she leans down and whispers to her mother.
In the foreground, in the men’s section, nine figures are visible, some of them self-portraits of Gottlieb himself at different ages. The most prominent figure in the painting is that of young Gottlieb wearing a colorful striped tallit. Around his neck he wears a Star of David necklace engraved with his Hebrew initials. The young man appears to be caught in a mood of deep thought, as befitting the Yom Kippur synagogue environment.
In the center of the painting sits a somber older man, his eyes downcast and a Torah scroll in his hands. The silver mantle adorning the scroll carries a Hebrew inscription “In memory of the late Moshe Gottlieb of blessed memory, 1878”. Thus, the artist depicts himself as a child, as a teenager, as a young man, and as a deceased member of the congregation.
Gottlieb's self-portrayal as a dead man invokes the custom of praying for the souls of the deceased on Yom Kippur, and reflects the introspective mood of the day. However, a few months after producing the painting, the artist suddenly fell ill with severe flu and died within a few days. The tragic death of this talented young man occurred, in a terrible coincidence, in the exact year that he himself chose to paint on the cover of the Torah scroll.
In an interview with the Galician Jewish writer Nathan Samueli in 1878, Gottlieb explained the motivation behind this painting:
"This subject… came to me from one of the students of the academy, as he reminded me of my people and my roots. While I was in the painting workshop [in Krakow], my heart overflowing with thoughts and my soul drunk with all the great and sublime ideas that surrounded me, convinced that the walls separating me from all the nations had already fallen… and perceiving myself as a brother to all human beings… one of my fellow painting students told me in a middle of an argument: 'Don't forget who and what you are: just a wretched, despicable Jew, a worm and not a human. You people have always been inferior, and even now, anyone can trample you if they want to…” When I heard these awful words, I felt a horrible pain in my heart. All of the wounds of my people awakened inside of me; they called upon me - so I vowed to devote all of my strength and talent to my people.”
The Melton Centre’s international M.A program specializing in Jewish Education offers an entire class about this painting, as part of a Jewish art course.