If you were to poll the average American Jewish man and woman on the street about what constitutes normative American synagogue architecture, stained glass windows would probably be the very last thing that comes to mind. Some folks might be quick to conjure an image of an elaborately decorated Moorish-like interior; others, jokingly, might bring up the parking lot, and still others, especially if they are accustomed to davening in an Orthodox shul, might allude to the mechitzah, the partition that separates male and female worshippers.
Stained glass windows, though, rarely make the cut. At first blush, this omission is hardly surprising. When most American Jews think of stained glass, chances are they automatically associate the medium with the church — with the grand cathedrals of Europe — rather than with their own, more modest, home-grown institutions.
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