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A characteristic of human civilization is our obsession with aesthetics.
In the Jewish world, there is traditionally a tension between our yearning for beauty and the demand of the halakha (religious law) that synagogues art not distract worshippers or breach the biblical commandment that “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness” [Exodus 20:3].
In most cases, the community determines which art is acceptable in its synagogue. From the beginning, synagogue art reflected community taste and local culture. Synagogues were decorated not only with Jewish verses and symbols but also with biblical scenes, figures and images of animals, and even with mythological and pagan imagery.
