Features
The synagogue's most prominent feature is undoubtedly the beautiful Renaissance-style ark (containing the Torah scrolls) located at the centre of the Eastern wall of the building. Both in its location and in its design, it is like the reredos of the churches of the same period. Painted to look as though it is made of coloured Italian marble, it is in fact made entirely of oak.
Seven hanging brass candelabra symbolise the seven days of the week, the largest of which - hanging in the centre of the synagogue - represents the Sabbath. This central candelabrum was donated by the community of the Great Synagogue in Amsterdam, upon which Bevis Marks' interior is largely based. The candles are still lit today for weddings and the Jewish Festivals. The rest of the year the Synagogue is lit by the electric lights added in 1928.
Twelve pillars, symbolising the twelve tribes of Israel, support the women's gallery.
The synagogue contains benches running parallel to the side walls and facing inward, leaving two aisles for the procession with the Torah scrolls. In addition, backless benches at the rear of the synagogue, taken from the original synagogue at Creechurch Lane, date from 1657 and are still regularly used.
A number of seats in the synagogue are roped off as they belong or have belonged to notable people within the community. Two seats are reserved for the most senior officials of the congregation's publishing arm, Heshaim. Those that hold the positions are welcome to sit in them when visiting the synagogue, but they are otherwise kept vacant. A third seat, fitted with a footstool, has been withheld as it belonged to Sir Moses Montefiore, a very notable Jewish philanthropist. It is the seat nearest the Ark on the central row of the left half of the benches. It is only ever occupied by very senior dignitaries and it is considered a high honour to be allowed to sit in the seat. Recently Prince Charles sat in the seat during the tercentenary service, and Prime Minister Tony Blair for the service celebrating the 350th anniversary of the re-settlement of the Jews in Great Britain.
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask!”
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“The features of our face are hardly more than gestures which force of habit made permanent. Nature, like the destruction of Pompeii, like the metamorphosis of a nymph into a tree, has arrested us in an accustomed movement.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)