A suggestion by a Waterloo School of Architecture professor to build a synagogue at the site of the largest single massacre of Jews during the Holocaust has developed into a unique liturgical and reflection space visited by people of all faiths.
Seven months after Robert Jan van Pelt mentioned the idea, an outdoor synagogue opened in Babyn Yar, a ravine in the Ukrainian capital city of Kiev where more than 33,000 Jewish men, women and children were murdered on a single day in 1941.
The Babyn Yar victims and the millions of other Jews killed during the Holocaust will be remembered during International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27.
Shaped like an oversized Jewish prayer book, the Babyn Yar synagogue is unfolded in the morning and folded back up at night.
To accompany the opening of the synagogue, van Pelt produced a book entitled “An Atlas of Jewish Space — How Beautiful Are Your Dwelling Places, Jacob."
See A synagogue unfolds for all faiths for the full story.