The ONE Stone Project

The Concept

At a corner in the ground separate from and outside of the Zabludow synagogue there was a large stone half buried in the ground. The stone is visible in photographs of the original synagogue. There are seen a few men standing a short distance behind the stone and talking. Neither the synagogue or the stone exist currently in Zabludow.

In the reconstruction of the Zabludow synagogue a first step has been proposed of locating a stone in the region that will be a good match to the original stone.

The Project

There was a very good and strong response from the masons at the International Preservation Trades Workshops (IPTW) for the Preservation Trades Network (PTN) that was held at the beginning of October 2003 in Columbia, Maryland regarding the prospects of a spring 2004 workshop in the Podlaskie/Bialystok/Zabludow region of Poland in search of a stone(s).

Here are the points currently in mind for the activity:

1) In a manner similar to that of the timber framers and log builders etc. in their fall 2003 workshop for a group of international masons to tour the region, only this time in search of native stones, the glacial igneous boulders, rather than examining timber and log structure.

2) Primary mission to locate one (1) stone a good match to the stone that lay in the ground at the corner of the Zabludow synagogue. There is a poetic resonance to the idea of searching for ONE element of the Zabludow synagogue project, that the stone will be an anchor to the project in both a metaphoric and a physical manner. The search for one stone also reinforces the maxim of KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid).

3) To cut the selected stone in half, one half to be located at Zabludow in a vicinity best approximating the location of the former synagogue (hopefully as determined by the historians and cultural landscape participants at the fall 2003 workshop), and one half to be placed at the Bialystok Skansen where the reconstructed synagogue is intended to be located and in a layout approximating the relationship of the stone to the original timber structure.

4) The cut faces of the stones may be inscribed.

5) Additional stones for the posts of the wood structure need to be considered. Guidance from the technical construction team will be required as to the best sizes of stones (soils & load engineering for the weight of the structure) and the number required. Though there was a great deal of looking in attic spaces during the fall 2003 workshop there was little looking in basements and at traditional masonry foundations. There may also be an interest on the part of masons in investigating the masonry constructions in progress in the area... a potential consideration to be made re: the socio-economic rejection of the quaint and traditional wood structures as being 'poor' and masonry as being a sign of wealth... marketing of wood architecture to a contemporary masonry market [a 'local' point of contact to be made to tie in contemporary Polish craft interest in the structure] will require a wide understanding of the existing built environment and the processes (industrial and craft) inherent to all of the materials intended to be used in the Zabludow synagogue project.

6) A geologist familiar with the region will be required. The stones of the region are an igneous glacial till similar to those found in Upstate NY and Michigan. There is no evidence in the area of limestone, sandstone, slate or marbles.

7) The inclusion in the workshop of masonry apprentice/students from east and west is important. A primary consideration of the Zabludow synagogue project is international and cross-cultural education.

8) As with the fall 2003 workshop, there would be a meeting of east and west in the participation in the search for the stone(s). A small truck with a boom and operator... leastways, a manner of lifting and transporting the stone will be required.

9) It has also been considered that there should be a survey of the ley lines of the reconstruction site and the placement of the ONE stone can serve as a reference point for later landscape & geographic considerations of an intended recreation and layout of a timber village corresponding to the period of the synagogue.

10) It is yet to be determined by the cultural historians as to the significance of a stone in the ground at the corner of a synagogue. The ONE stone resonates with the missing stones from the smaller Jewish cemetery in Zabludow.

11) There is a factor of relative and symbolic 'permanence' in the placement of a stone, particularly a buried one anchored to the earth.

The planners of the ONE stone workshop appreciate any suggestions, assistance, and participation in the activity that can be provided, particularly from the international stone industry of quarriers, fabricators, dealers and stone installers.

With the ONE stone project there is a very tight focus in ONE stone, but there is a compulsion when dealing with an undertaking as culturally complex as the Zabludow synagogue project about a singular entity (Sagan's or Einstein's fixation on zero) as there is an incredible amount of meaning, layers of myth and symbolism, and team direction/alignment that can be derived from the actual physical task of setting one stone, of physically completing one task.

As a poet I've held my spirit to the ground as a stonemason. Without stones to hold down it is too easy to fly off into the big sky. A man in New England who had multiple-sclerosis became a dry stone waller because it was only when he was holding onto a stone, lifting it up, that he could control the involuntary shaking of his body. And then there is the cultural landscape of stone walls that separate, divide, and yet bring order to our lives.

Of course, the ONE stone does not limit all of the other layers of discussion that will occur for the Zabludow synagogue project.

One thing that was clearly brought out at the fall 2003 workshop in Poland is that the "construction" aspect of the project may be a relatively small one in comparison to the BIG story -- acts of genocide, 300,000 years left for an annihilated Chernobyl and poems re: unmarked graves of mothers for example. The reconstruction of the Zabludow synagogue is a catalyst to a multi-layered emotional and cultural context that includes the building and architectural trades, but as well goes beyond construction initiatives. Precise terminology between craftspeople working with tools and materials is important, but the participants in the fall 2003 workshop found themselves greatly conflicted with the task of expressing the emotional weight of what was found through the workshop and that has often proven inexpressible... it is somewhat easier then to avoid depth of emotions and to pick off projects that can be grasped and understood without complexity, either a glossary of timber trade terms (currently in progress), or the search for ONE stone.

As a group the fall 2003 workshop participants have needed room to explore their words, their differences of language and culture and by consensus to settle on those words that are most appropriate to express the individual experiences of the workshop.

Not everyone involved in the Zabludow synagogue project is interested or motivated by the "let-us-build-it" initiative and there was expressed a worry that the project would turn into a "construction project". This worry was countered by a trades and builder's initiated desire that the building when built not be a "dead" building (an empty museum shell without life, the laughter of children, or the context of meaning to the local community), which in turn means that at least the cultural landscape, and the historiographic context of the Zabludow synagogue project is vital to realizing the building and architectural trades initiative.

Significance

"The only significance of the stone as far as I know is in the mythology and folklore.  It was believed that the stone sat next to the synagogue from it's beginning. The stone was referred to as the guardian of the synagogue, and that as long as the stone will be there so will stand the synagogue. Also there are stories of "transgressors" being punished on the stone during the 1600's. Children referred to the stone as the "mount of Sinai" and would play on it. When the synagogue was burned the Jews referred to the rock as an "orphan".  Some of the early Jewish returnees (people who felt compelled to go back and look) to Zabludow in the 1940's and 50's describe being very distressed that not only could they not find the exact site of the synagogue, but that the rock was also missing." Tilford Bartman, keeper of the Zabludow Memorial Website

In an increasingly humble sense for me, particularly the more that I listen and read about the history of the Podlaskie region and Eastern Europe, the Zabludow ONE stone project is akin to a child at the beach skipping one stone with their small hands into the Atlantic waves with the offhand inspiration to force a tide flowing in a different direction, a tide that is towards the inclusion of those who are other than ourselves, a direction that excludes alienation, excludes intolerance and the violence of annihilation.

The Zabludow project is a multi-level, multi-language, multi-cultural project that will take time for everyone that is exposed to digest and process. In this respect a strategy when faced with an overwhelming task is to work on small pieces one at a time and to build up the project vision as something of a collage mosaic of elements. The essence is that in a seemingly random placement of disparate elements there remains the human compulsion to find relationships between the pieces, between the stones, between the separated people. It is a dynamic of the Zabludow project, in that participants and observers will always wonder what it is about and will remain always working with indeterminate information -- not knowing quite enough to know everything being a second-cousin to "negative capability", or the ability to tolerate uncertainty without irritable reaching for certainty -- to be at rest with a world that we do not understand and that in many ways rejects our individual and unique existence.

All of the photos of stones shown here are from the Podlaskie region of Poland.

Copyright © 2003 PreCon LogStrat, LLC All rights reserved.

Photos courtesy of Ken Follett, Lisa Sasser, and Rudy Christian.

Revised: 03/09/06.