R EVISITING THE “B LIND S YNAGOGUE ”: V ISION AND V OICE IN D OUBLE -N AVE P RAYER H ALLS Ilia Rodov Architecture and Ritual Performance To the best of our knowledge, the double-nave arrangement of synagogue space emerged in Worms in 1174/75 and was subsequently dupli- cated in many Jewish centers in Germany, Bohe- mia, Austria, Hungary and Poland, until the late ifteenth century. 1 he long-term survival of this idiosyncratic composition with two or three pil- lars on the hall’s longitudinal axis implies that it succeeded in providing a proper spatial setting for the ritual performances of many medieval Jewish communities. Scholarly interpretations of the sig- niicance and function of the double-nave syna- gogues are usually preoccupied with the iconog- raphy and textual sources. 2 he present paper 3 is a brief extension of formal iconographic research of synagogue architecture invigorated with analysis of aural and visual com- munication of worshippers during prayer. 4 Al- though the analysis here concerns material objects and images, the phenomenology of interpersonal communication addresses elusive human practic- es and perceptions, which have never been deter- mined entirely by written directives and thereby cannot be reconstructed comprehensively from them. 5 his applies to both synagogue archi- tecture and liturgy that follow sacred texts and halakhic prescriptions, but cannot be reduced to them or deduced from them alone. Speaking allegorically, the proposed approach treats the relation of architecture to human activ- ity like the relation of a seashell to its mollusk: while living, the organism constructs a building dovetailing the body and facilitating its activities; afterwards, the hollow shell cast behind preserves 1 Abraham Neu, “Interior of the Worms Synagogue.” he entrance door, rectangular windows, and a small door to the “women’s synagogue” are seen from left to right, respectively, on the left-hand wall. Lithograph, before 1842. Jewish Architecture in Europe: New Sources and Approaches, eds. Katrin Keßler and Alexander von Kienlin (Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2015), 83-94.