The Lions on the Ark: A Miraculous Story

No, not THAT Ark.

Here’s a fascinating story involving the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, Jewish influence on America, and a miracle that I personally experienced!

Synagogues in Europe, built over the last few centuries, often featured depictions of lions on the Ark of the Law (the Aron HaKodesh). Whereas nowadays these lions are usually embroidered on the curtain, historically they were carved out of wood and placed on top of it, on either side of the Ten Commandments.

The prevalence of lions in Tanach, Mishnah, Midrash and Talmud reflects the fact that lions are not just African animals; they also lived in ancient Israel and were very much part of people’s lives. Jewish tradition, whether in synagogue art or men called Aryeh, continued that, even when they moved to the shtetls of Europe and there were no lions anywhere. In my new book The Lions Of Zion, I write about how it demonstrates both the historic and ongoing connection of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel.

I was pondering this a few months ago, because at the Biblical Museum of Natural History the lion also prominently features in our Hall of Biblical Wildlife. Aside from our taxidermied lions, it’s in our exhibit about the Mishnah in Avot, which speaks about being as powerful as a lion, as brazen as a leopard, etc. This exhibit was inspired and dedicated by our board member Dr. Steve Weiss, the world’s greatest Pirkei Avot bibliographer and collector. We have numerous reproductions of historic art depicting this Mishnah, and since much of this art is from synagogues, we decided to arrange it all in the form of an Aron HaKodesh (a different type of Art of the Ark!). And once we were doing that, I figured that it would be great to also have a pair of lions on top of it, just as was done in Europe.

So, where are all those ancient European carved lions from synagogues? The answer is that they were almost all burned in the destruction of European Jewry. But Dr. Weiss, who also knows about this topic, told me something fascinating.

Of those Jewish woodcarvers who produced these lions, some of them escaped Europe and made it to America at the beginning of the 20th century. In America, they continued to carve lions for the newly built synagogues serving other Jewish refugees. But there wasn’t enough of a living to be made from that. And so they turned their skills to other purposes.

The early 20th century was the age of the great American fairground. Carousels were all the rage. And so these Jews found employment carving lions, horses, and other animals for these fairground carousels. So, if you see an old carousel with a lion that looks suspiciously similar to the lion from atop an Aron HaKodesh, it’s because it was carved by the same person!

This phenomenon was so distinctive that the American Folk Art Museum actually once ran an exhibit on it. Called Gilded Lions and Jeweled Horses: The Synagogue to the Carousel, it featured examples of both. Here’s the exhibit description:

From gilded lions to high-stepping horses, the sacred to the secular, and the Old World to the New, “Gilded Lions and Jeweled Horses: The Synagogue to the Carousel” traces the journey of Jewish woodcarvers and other artisans from Eastern and Central Europe to America and the unsung role they played in establishing a distinct Jewish culture in communities throughout the United States. The exuberant artworks stand as a testament to a history of survival and transformation and provide a surprising revelation of the link that was forged between the synagogue and the carousel as immigrant Jewish artists transferred symbolic visual elements into this vernacular American idiom.

And here’s a photo from the exhibit, which ran from 2007 to 2008. On the wall at the back are lions from synagogues; in the foreground is a carousel lion carved by Marcus Charles Illions (1874–1949). Born in Vilna, at age 7 he started apprenticing as part of the Eastern European Jewish tradition of magnificent wooden Torah arks. The Vilna Lion-Carver later ended up in Coney Island, working with other Jewish immigrants on carving animals for carousels!

Fascinating! When I discovered this, I was all the more determined to exhibit such lions on our Ark. But how would we do that? The European carved lions were destroyed. The American carved lions had long fallen out of style; some had been sold years ago on auction sites but there were no longer any available. I had the idea to obtain photos from auction sites, use specialized software to turn them into 3D models and then 3D print them, but when a tech friend did this, the results were disappointing. I was obsessed with this challenge, but there seemed to be no solution.

And then one evening during the time that I was grappling with this problem I was driving in Jerusalem and got hopelessly stuck in traffic on King David Street. Nothing was moving. So I absent-mindedly started looking around at my surroundings. To my right was a very large expensive art and Judaica store, with a large glass-walled front display room, filled with all kinds of things. No carved lions in the room! But I looked through my car window, through the store window, all the way to the very back of the room, and there was a doorway. And through that doorway, I saw a pair of carved lions on the wall! See if you can make them out in this photo.

Once I’d gotten out of the traffic and managed to park, I made my way back to the store. And there they were - an original huge pair of carved lions, painted gold, from an early 20th century Lower East Side synagogue. The owner actually had several pairs - he had purchased all of the ones that were put on auction! Of course they were very expensive, but I reached out to Dr. Weiss and he was delighted to purchase the most beautiful pair and add them to his Pirkei Avot Aron HaKodesh.

As a follower of classical Jewish rationalism and someone who is aware of psychological illusions regarding coincidences, perhaps I’m not supposed to see this as Divine Providence. But I can’t help it! What are the odds that as possibly the only person the world dead-set on finding such lions, and at precisely the time of my life when I wanted them, I would happen to get stuck in traffic right outside the only store in the world that actually has such a thing, and that I would never normally visit, but due to being stuck in traffic happen to notice something right at the back of the store?!

Maybe that makes me a poor candidate for flying the banner of rationalism and science. So sue me! Meanwhile, come visit the Biblical Museum of Natural History and see our lions!