This is an interesting item from the Jewish Heritage E-Report Edited by Samuel D. Gruber (For more info contact samuelgruber_at_gmail.com ):

Jay Waronker Continues Documentation of Sub-Saharan Africa Synagogues

(ISJM News) American Architect Jay Waronker, who documented synagogues in India in the 1990s, will be in East Africa this summer (2008) continuing his documentation of the synagogue architecture of Sub-Saharan Africa begun with a Fulbright grant in 2006. A trained architect, Waronker is especially known for his highly detailed by evocative watercolor paintings of Indian Synagogues which have been
exhibited widely. His choice to supplement more conventional means of building documentation with paintings links him to a long traditional of architectural illustrators who have recorded synagogue architecture since the 17th century. This summer's work is supported by a grant from the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation.

[editor's note: While I am on vacation I am reposting some of my earlier diaries that I consider particularly important, interesting or well read. This was originally posted on Columbus Day]

I experienced an odd sensation today as I was on the subway today. Today was Columbus Day but I had to go in to work for part of the day anyway. The book I am currently reading is King Leopold's Ghost, a pretty horrifying history of the Congo under colonialism.

Reading about colonial genocide in Africa on Columbus Day. Had a kind of irony to it.

I have been ambivalent, in the litteral meaning of the word, towards Columbus Day for years now. I celebrate America and Columbus' "discovery" of the "New World" because the result of his discovery and the ultimate founding of America is that my family, myself included, is alive and thriving today. Without America, my family would have been exterminated in the genocide of Nazi Germany if not before that in the genocide of the pogroms in Tsarist Russia and later Stalin's genocide in the Soviet Union.