Raise the Roof follows the extraordinary decade-long effort by Massachusetts-based sculptors and teachers Rick and Laura Brown to reconstruct the elaborate roof and painted ceiling of what was one of the most magnificent 18th-century synagogues in Poland. The Gwoździec, along with nearly 200 other wooden synagogues, was destroyed by the Nazis during World War II. With their team of more than 300 students and professionals from 16 countries, the Browns grapple not just with echoes of this horrific period of history, but also with warped timbers, tricky paints, and period hand tools. And when their work is finished, it’s evident that they’ve done more than rebuild a lost synagogue—they have recovered a lost world. In 2014, the Gwoździec roof was unveiled as the centerpiece of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.

Sponsored by AJC.