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About the project

In 2016 PaperCat collaborated with ‘Anu’- the museum of the Jewish people (‘Beit Hatfutsot’) for a special custom project. We designed and produced a series of 6 pop-up cards of important historical synagogues from around the world. Some of the synagogues were renovated over the years and still stand today, and some were destroyed. The project was related to the opening of a permanent exhibition of models of synagogues from around the world.

We chose these synagogues for the pop-up cards:

1. “Beth Shalom” synagogue in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, USA. Built in 1959 by the architect frank Lloyd wright.
2. The wooden synagogue in Zabludow, Poland – Built in 1637, and destroyed during the second World War.
3. “Ibn Dannani” synagogue in Fez, Morocco. The synagogue was built in mid-17th century, renovated and re inaugurated in 1999.
4. “Tempio Israelitico” in Florence, Italy. Built in 1882. Architects: Mariano Falacini, Prof. Vincente Micheli, Marco Treves.
5. “The Great synagogue of Warsaw”, Poland. Built between 1872 and 1878, designed in the Neo-Classic style by Leandro Marconi, an Italian architect. It was destroyed by the Nazis during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in May, 1943.
6. “Eliyahu Hanavi” Synagogue, Nabi Daniel Street, Alexandria, Egypt. It was rebuilt in 1850 with contributions from the Muhammad Ali Dynasty.

The working process

‘PaperCat’ made a thorough research on all of the synagogues in order to understand the unique shape of each synagogue and also its colors and environment. It was a complicated project since some of the synagogues were destroyed in World War II and were not documented in photos. After the deep research, we started the actual process with sketches of each building details. All synagogues were hand-illustrated in great details, and it we made a serious investigation so they’ll be faithful to the original buildings.

We also made white models to examine the pop-up shapes. When we were engineering the shapes, we had to consider the limitations of the material – paper, and plan how exactly it will be folded and cut to be as similar as possible to the real building.

Eventually, it was very satisfying to see our pop-up cards series come to life.

This line of cards is being sold at the museum shop of ‘Anu- the Jewish museum’ in Israel and online, along with other ‘PaperCat’ products.