Albert Barry works on a wooden synagogue reproduction

UNC Asheville’s Center for Jewish Studies will host a film screening and discussion on “The Lost Wooden Synagogues of Eastern Europe” at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 19, in UNC Asheville’s Highsmith University Union Alumni Hall. Film producer Albert Barry will discuss creating the in the film and his journeys to Lithuania to search for lost synagogues. The event is free and open to the public.

In 1999, Barry and a film crew traveled to Lithuania to film the six known, remaining wooden synagogues and through research and discussions with natives discovered four more synagogues. The award-winning documentary tells the story of the synagogues, the life that surrounded them before World War II, and what has happened to them in the last 50 years. Prior to World War II, the Jews of rural Europe built wooden synagogues from the abundant local forests. The synagogues were destroyed during Hitler’s campaign to obliterate Jewish life and culture. All of the synagogues were believed to be lost until six were found in the mid-1990s in Lithuania by a team from Hebrew University.

Barry, a retired photojournalist, has been fascinated by the synagogues and the culture surrounding them for much of his adult life. He began to commemorate the destruction of the Eastern European synagogues by researching their history, gathering rare photographs, and building miniature reproductions. The intricate models are permanently on display in the Judaica Collections at the Library in Boca Raton, Fla. Barry is an award-winning graphic designer and filmmaker and was a photojournalist for Time/Life Publications. His work has been featured in more than 50 newspapers and magazines.

For more information, call UNC Asheville’s Center for Jewish Studies at 828/251-6576.