The Jewish Cultural Code in the Visual Semiosis of Crimea

For many centuries, Crimea has been a crossroads of national cultures, the way "from the Varangians to the Greeks", the center of the intersection of cultures of the East and West. The uniqueness of the Crimean cultural ecumene is a synthesis of languages, traditions, theosophical views introduced by each of the ethnic groups during their migration. The peoples whose cultures have become milestones in the formation of the Crimean cultural landscape can be conditionally attributed to three groups. The first group includes ancient and non-existent ethnic groups that disappeared as a result of wars, or dissolved in the subsequent Crimean ethnic environment: Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, Khazars, Pechenegs, Polovtsians, Goths, Huns, etc. The second, the most numerous group, includes peoples who have an ancestral territory, for some of whom Crimea later became a new homeland: these include, first of all, the Greeks, who appeared in antiquity, Italians (Genoese) and Armenians, whose periodization of the Crimean stage of culture dates back to the Middle Ages, as well as numerous peoples of Russia, Western and Eastern Europe – Russians, Ukrainians, Germans, Bulgarians, Czechs, Jews, Poles, Estonians, etc. – as a result of political and social migrations in Modern and Modern times, primarily in connection with the decrees of Catherine II and the development of the Crimea by the Russian Empire through external and internal colonization. As a third group of peoples, old-time ethnic groups that have no homeland other than the Crimea can be distinguished: Crimean Tatars, Crimean Gypsies (Krymurya), Karaites and Krymchaks. This distinction is conditional: the variegated diversity of the cultural landscape of Crimea has been formed over the centuries, each ethnic group, on the one hand, has contributed to the general Crimean culture, and on the other, the Crimean land has become the place of a new formation of the identity of each people ^[10].

The famous Russian culturologist and sociologist Nikolai Yakovlevich Danilevsky (1822-1885) in his program work "Russia and Europe" (1869) deduced a number of "cultural and historical types", one of the most important categories defining which is religion. "Religion is the moral basis of any activity" ^{[2, p. 157]}, "Religion is the predominant interest for the people at all times of their life" [Danilevsky, Russia and Europe, p. 225], "Religion was the most essential, dominant (almost exclusively) content of ancient (...) life, and (...) it also contains the prevailing spiritual interest of ordinary (...) people" ^{[2, p. 577]}. Ethnic identity, therefore, was based historically (before the globalization of the twentieth century), primarily on religious dogmas. This thesis is also confirmed by other ethnographers, in particular, Vladimir Vasilyevich Stasov.

It is impossible to identify the determination of the Jewish cultural code without referring to the fundamentals of the religious beliefs of the peoples of the Crimea professing Judaism – Ashkenazi Jews, Karaites and Krymchaks.

The term Jew has several lexical meanings. The first of them, the most general, is the definition of a group of people whose religion is based on the Torah (the Mosaic Pentateuch), but without its continuation (unlike representatives of other Abrahamic religions – Christians and Muslims, in whose holy books – the Bible and the Koran – the Torah is supplemented by subsequent sections). Thus, this definition classifies groups not by ethnic (anthropological), but by confessional. According to this classification, Jews include:

- Ashkenazi Jews;- Sephardic Jews;

-Jews-mizrahim – common name of Eastern Jews – (Bukhara Jews, Georgian Jews, mountain Jews, Persian Jews, Ethiopian Jews);

- karaites; - krymchaks;

- Russian Judaizers;

- subbotniks.

The second meaning, narrower, consists in defining the term Judaism as both a denomination and a Jewish ethnic group, in this case Judaism acts as a national religion ^[3].

Our research does not concern the issues of anthropology and ethnogenesis of Jews, Karaites and Krymchaks, we consider the commonality and connotations of symbolism in decorative and applied art exclusively on the available examples, most of which (preserved artistic artifacts) belong to the second half of the XIX - first third of the XX century.

The peoples living in Crimea and professing Judaism (a religion based on the Torah – the Mosaic Pentateuch) include:

Ashkenazi Jews are an ethnic group professing Talmudic Judaism (whose creed is based on the Tanakh (consisting of the Torah (the Pentateuch of Moses), the books of the Prophets and Hagiographers) and the Talmud (the book of interpretations of the Tanakh by the sages). The term Ashkenaz comes from the Hebrew name of medieval Germany, which has been found in Jewish sources since the tenth century. Ashkenazim were called Eastern European Jews-immigrants from Germany who settled as a result of migrations in Poland and the Baltic States. The spoken language of the Ashkenazim was Yiddish, a German dialect, and the language of worship was Hebrew (Hebrew). Ashkenazim are followers of the Palestinian tradition in liturgics.

Another Jewish subcultural region was Sefarad, which included the Iberian peninsula and the southern part of France. Natives of this region are called Sephardim. Due to their separate development, there are differences in cultural characteristics, languages and liturgical practices between Ashkenazim and Sephardim. Sephardim are followers of the Babylonian practice of worship, their literary language for a long time was Arabic, and their spoken language was Ladino.

Italian Jewry, as a subcultural type, combines features of both traditions – both Ashkenazi and Sephardic.

The Jews who migrated to the Crimea with its annexation to the Russian Empire, overwhelmingly belonged to the Ashkenazim, who subsequently created their own traditional community on the territory of the peninsula ^{[3, p. 52]}.

Karaites – ("reading")  (self–designation – "karai" or "karai" in the singular, "Karaim, karaylar" - in the plural), the people of Crimea, professing non-Talmudic Judaism (self-designation Karaism), the essence of which is following the Torah and not accepting any of its interpretations (including the Talmud). Despite the fact that the Karaite language, like Crimean Tatar, belongs to the Kypchak group of Turkic languages, the writing of the Karaites and Krymchaks is based on the Hebrew alphabet ^[5].

The Krymchaks (self–designation "krymchakh" in the singular, "krymchakhlar" in the plural) are the people of Crimea, professing Talmudic Judaism of the Sephardic sense with admixtures of local traditions.   The ethnonym "Krymchak" first appeared in official documents of the Russian Empire in 1844, to distinguish this Jewish group from Ashkenazi Jews who migrated to Crimea from Russia and Poland since the end of the XIX century. The names "Crimean Jews", "Constantinople Jews", "Turkish Jews", "Crimean Rabbanites", "Crimean Rabbinists" are also found in documents and literature. In the khan labels issued in the XVI century to individual representatives of the community, there is the name "yahudiller Karasu" – ("Jews of Karasubazar"). At least from the XVI – XVII century. The Crimean Tatars switched to the ethnolect of the Crimean Tatar language (Kypchak group). An interesting feature is the use of the Crimean people as the pronounced name of the Almighty "Allah", which indicates a single continuum of not only everyday speech terms, but also religious concepts ^[6], ^[14].

Folk decorative and applied art clearly demonstrates the synthesis of cultures, the common ethno-cultural field. Such interpenetration is a natural consequence of the compact residence of peoples on a single territory, which is clearly confirmed by the presence of a continuum of ethno-cultural codes of decorative and applied art.

The relevant direction in this context is the comparative semantic-symbolic, typological and stylistic study of the works of decorative and applied art of the Jews of Crimea: Jews, Karaites and Crimeans, as well as the analysis of stable symbols based on a single source underlying the religion of each of the designated ethnic groups - the Torah, in the continuum of which are displayed as common ethno–cultural origins, so is the uniqueness of each ethnic group.

Visual semiosis is a subsection of semiotics, a science that analyzes sign systems and their connections.

According to the philosophical dictionary, the main functions of sign systems include: a) the transmission of a message or the expression of meaning; b) communication, human interaction, emotional impact. The implementation of these functions requires the presence of certain sign systems and the laws of their application. In accordance with this, there are three main sections of semiotics: 1) syntactics, which studies the internal structure of a sign system; 2) semantics, the subject of which is the meaning of signs; 3) pragmatics, which studies groups of people using certain sign systems.

Semiotics, as a philosophical trend, emerged at the end of the XIX century, simultaneously developing in two directions: semiology and pragmatics. The foundations of semiological research are contained in the works of the Swiss philosopher, linguist and semiotic Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), who dealt with the semiotics of the linguistic sign and derived the concept of a "two-sided sign" consisting of a signifier (word) and a signified (form value).  The connection of the signifier and the signified, according to Saussure, is conditional: the meanings of the sign may differ for different groups of people ^[12].

The founder of pragmatics was the American philosopher, mathematician and logician Charles Sanders Pierce (1839-1914), who considered signs (both artificial, for example, letters, and natural, for example, psychological reactions) from the point of view of logic. The scientist believed that the whole universe consists of signs, the decoding of which lends itself to logic. In other words, a sign can be called anything that means (for a certain person or group of people) a certain object. At the same time, Pierce called symbols signs that do not outwardly resemble the signified object, but have an arbitrary ratio adopted by a certain group of people ^[11].

The Belgian Association of Semiotic Authors Mu (transcription of the Greek letter ?) (founded in 1967), operating at the University of Liege, in the 70s– 80s, developed the structure of semiotics, according to which signs function on three levels: iconic, symbolic or index.

Italian philosopher, cultural theorist, specialist in semiotics and medieval aesthetics, writer Umberto Eco (1932 – 2016), relying in his research on the development of the concept of the sign of Ch. Pierce, developed the concept of a sign and a set of signs to codes that mean not a specific, but a generalized object. In his work on the theory of semiotics, published in 1976, U. Eco called a message transmitted by a sign or a series of signs a text.

The theory of cultural text has become one of the key postulates concerning ethno-cultural interaction put forward by the Soviet and Russian cultural critic and semiotic Yuri Mikhailovich Lotman (1922-1993). He is the author of the theory of the "semiosphere" of culture created on the basis of the works of French structuralists. Lotman's works present the concept of a single mechanism of semiotic space: "the semiotic universe as a set of separate texts and languages closed in relation to each other" ^[9].  It is Lotman who begins to refer to the concepts of "language" and "text" not only as a "system of signs, a means of communication, a system of storing and transmitting information", but also, without abolishing this definition, considers these categories in the context of cultural semiotics.  Subsequently, the Russian cultural critic Andrey Yakovlevich Flier (born 1950) includes the definition of "Cultural text" in the thesaurus of the main cultural concepts.

The theory of cultural text was addressed in their works by the Russian cultural critic and art theorist Nikolai Andreevich Khrenov (born 1942), the Russian historian and cultural critic Alexander Alekseevich Khlevov (born 1969), the Russian cultural critic and art theorist Igor Vadimovich Kondakov (born 1947), the Russian cultural critic Diana Sergeevna Berestovskaya (1934-2020), etc.

The Jewish pictorial semiosis is a derivative of a number of cultural components, which is shown by us in the diagram (Fig. 1), which was based on the diagram of the Japanese management theorist, chemist, statistician, engineer, professor of the University of Tokyo Kaoru Ishikawa (1915-1989), the so-called "Fish Bone" (Fig. 1). This diagram of the analysis the root causes of a process or phenomenon are similar to a fish ridge, where the "head" is the initial data, the "bones" are the parameters that bring changes to the process, and the "tail" is a derivative.

Fig. 1

In our case, the "head" or general introductory data is the ethnic culture of the Jews of the Crimea, the "tail" is the Jewish pictorial semiosis of the Crimea. "Bones" are variables that affect the final result, these are:

1. Ethnic groups2. Religion

3. Styles

4. Semantics

The ethnoses include the studied Jewish peoples of the Crimea: Jews (Ashkenazim); Krymchaks (Sephardim); Karaites.

The directions of religion (religious teachings) include: Ashkenazi and Sephardic Rabbinism, Hasidism, Karaism.

The artistic styles of the epochs include: Hellenistic Classicism, Scythian-Sarmatian, Asia Minor, Seljuk, Moorish Mudekhar style, Baroque, Modern.

The semantics include: texts of the Torah, Talmud, Midrash, local and borrowed myths.

This scheme represents the process of formation of the Jewish pictorial semiosis of the Crimea in its most general form, showing which important components affect the final result. Further in the text of the section, we will consider in detail the sequence of this process and its components.

Traditional visual elements of any ethnic decor are divided into two types:

1. Elements of the ornament (images repeated with a certain periodicity);

2. Separate stable images and/or plots.These two types can be represented in one or another ethnoculture at the same time, or (due to restrictions on images of one kind or another, for example, people and animals) only one of them, mainly an ornament, can be present.

According to the definition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, ornament (ornamentum – "decoration" (Latin) is a pattern, the applied purpose of which is the decoration of objects, architecture, works of art, as well as the actual human body. The ornament accentuates or reveals the architectonics of the object of which it is the decor. The elements of the ornament are abstract or stylized motifs. Regarding the origin of the ornament, there are a number of theories, most researchers tend to believe that the visual symbolism of ornamental elements had an applied, magical meaning, being used as amulets. The second most important function of the ornament is aesthetic, which is a consequence of the development of technological and ideological processes in society. In general, with the development of society, both of these functions continued to exist in synthesis, which allows researchers, knowing the cultural codes of certain ethnic groups (cultural landscapes), to determine the values of both individual elements of ornaments and their totality.

Vladimir Vasilyevich Stasov (1824-1906) in his fundamental work "Russian Folk Ornament" focused on the archaism and symbolism of ethnic ornament, emphasizing the need to preserve the rapidly disappearing ethnic material: "The ornament of all new peoples in general comes from the depths of antiquity, and the peoples of the ancient world never concluded a single idle line: every dash here has its meaning is a word, phrase, expression of well-known concepts, representations.   The rows of ornaments are a coherent speech, a consistent melody that has its own main reason and is not intended for the eyes alone, as well as for the mind and feelings." Thus, Stasov anticipated the concept of "cultural text", focusing on the symbolism of visual elements in folk art ^[13].

According to Vladimir Nikolaevich Toporov (1928-2005), the rhythm of the ornament is based on a repetitive ritual, on which semiotics is based in general. "The ritual becomes a semantic "point", which, generating new meanings from itself, fills being with meaning. It was the ritual that was destined to become the soil on which such processes as ontologization, personalization, subjectification, semiotization, historicization were born and/or performed primarily."

In addition to the ornament, that is, compositions of elements repeated at different intervals, there was also a second type of images in folk art – individual stable images or plots present in all types of decor, regardless of techniques and technologies. The etymology of these plots goes back to magical or religious meanings, they were connected with the ideological postulates of various cultures. Both ornamental and narrative visual images could often be borrowed by some peoples from others. One of the striking examples is the supposedly ancient Indian sign of two crossed triangles forming a six–pointed star, present in the visual cultures of different peoples and faiths, today known as Magendavid - "Star of David". Sometimes common symbols (the image of the sun or stars, as well as a tree, flower, wave) appeared simultaneously in different cultures, which was associated with the worship of the forces of nature – the most archaic of folk beliefs. As for the traditional plots for Judaism, these were, in addition to ornaments, key images from Scripture, illustrations for Midrash, which often had an eschatological meaning, illustrations for the Scroll of Esther and other symbols, the semiosis of which will be discussed in detail below. 

According to the classification of folk ornament proposed by the Ukrainian art critic Mikhail Romanovich Selivachev (born 1946), supplemented and expanded by the Crimean art critic Nuria Munirovna Akchurina-Muftieva (born 1958), the elements that make up the ornament, as well as individual stable images in folk art as a whole are divided into three categories: physiomorphic (including stylized images real figures and objects), abstract (geometric) and epigraphic (textual). In turn, physiomorphic images are divided into five subsections: zoomorphic – images of real and mythical animals, anthropomorphic – images of a person, as well as parts of the human body or their conventional symbols, phytomorphic – images of plants and their parts, as well as significant compositions from different plants, skewomorphic – images of ritual and everyday objects and astral – images of celestial bodies – the Sun and stars ^{[1, p. 205]}.

In the pictorial tradition of the Jewish peoples of the Crimea, according to this classification, the presence of different types of images was distributed heterogeneously. Thus, in Jewish Ashkenazi folk art, the main iconic elements were images of symbolic animals, birds, fish, as well as mythological creatures – chimeras. A large number of images also included a human figure or part of it. Plant (phytomorphic) and astral elements were also present, but to a lesser extent of significance. In Karaite and Krymchak folk art, on the contrary, phytomorphic and geometric elements formed the main repertoire of pictorial motifs. The differences in the pictorial cultures of the Ashkenazim, on the one hand, and the Karaites and Krymchaks, on the other, also consist in the fact that in the Karaite and Krymchak pictorial practices there is mainly an ornament, and not a separate stable plot (the exception is, perhaps, only the Tree of Life), while in the Jewish Ashkenazi culture there are quite a lot of such plots, mainly illustrating the Midrash. These differences are related to the proximity and influence of the traditions of Crimean Tatar art on the art of Karaites and Krymchaks, with its strict prohibition on the depiction of humans and animals.

To clarify the determination of the Jewish cultural code of folk art in the all-Crimean space, it is necessary, first, to determine what its function is decisive for this study. Secondly, to analyze the available sources (verbal and visual) containing information about the typology and meanings of individual symbols and images in the decorative and applied art of Ashkenazi Jews, Karaites and Krymchaks.

 Under the cultural code in modern cultural studies, it is customary to understand the key to the concept of a certain picture of the world. The very concept of "code" comes from a technical environment, its meaning consists in deciphering languages, however, the meaning of the term has been expanded to a philosophical level. There are several definitions of the cultural code:

1. Cultural code as a sign structure (in visual semiotics – a certain circle of images);

2. Cultural code as a system of ordering (use) of symbols (in our case – in pictorial symbolism, for example, in ornamentation – canon: type of construction, composition, order of precedence, values, etc.)

3. Cultural code as a kind of accidental or natural correspondence of the signifier and the signified (in visual embodiment, it can be applied to archaic symbols present simultaneously in the cultures of many peoples, for example: sun, tree, wave)

The functions of the cultural code are:

a) deciphering the meaning of individual phenomena (texts, signs, symbols) – in the absence of a code, the cultural text remains closed (in the case of visual semiotics, for example, ornament, in this case it is perceived only from the point of view of stylistics, compositional features, color, etc., without deciphering the meanings of its elements and their totality)

b) the relationship between the signifier (sign) and the signified (object, phenomenon, meaning);

F. Saussure explained the term cultural code with the help of linguistics, language construction. However , the subject of our monograph is more closely advanced by U. Eco is a semiotic concept of the S-code (semiotic code), according to which the construction of an utterance (or, in our case, an image) is conducted according to strictly defined canons, rules of combinatorics. Also, according to him, the same statement (image) can be understood differently (from different angles) by representatives of different groups. So, in the case of an ornamental motif (for example, a tree), its meaning can be perceived differently by representatives of different ethnic groups.

Russian and American linguist and cultural critic Roman Osipovich Yakobson (1896-1982) introduced the concept of a subcode into the scientific thesaurus to describe systems of several codes. This term can also be applied to folk ornaments: in the cultures of different ethnic groups (for example, Armenians, Jews, Crimeans and Karaites) there are compositions with similar symbols, but their interpretations differ from each other in accordance with religious and general cultural characteristics.

Exploring the vast layer of artifacts (as well as their archival photos) located in museum and private collections belonging to three Jewish ethnic groups of Crimea and including significant pictorial elements, we consider it appropriate to present the codes of the Jewish pictorial semiosis in the form of a diagram of the type of Euler circles (Fig. 2). Diagram of the Swiss, Prussian and Russian mathematician and mechanic Leonhard Euler (1707-1783) – "Euler circles" is a scheme that allows you to visually identify the relationships between certain subsets by superimposing geometric planes on each other.

fig. 2

We have identified five codes with the help of which the main meanings of any traditional images concerning Jewish culture are revealed, with the following names:

1. Sefer Code (Book) 2. Menorah Code

3. Number Code

4. The Rimon Code

5. Bestiary Code

Code Sefer – "Book" (Hebrew)

it is the main one, which includes all the other codes, in the diagram it is depicted as a large lilac circle, inside of which there are four other circles (codes). The Sefer code includes key verbal sources that are the basis for all Jewish postulates.

The main difference between Judaism and other ancient beliefs was monotheism. According to the religious beliefs of the Jews, God, through the prophet Moses, gave them a set of laws (Covenant) in the form of tablets, obliging to strictly adhere to the commandments and not to honor other gods. Subsequently, the covenant was formed into a set of sacred books, which include the Torah (the Pentateuch of Moses), Neviim (the Books of the Prophets) and Ktuvim (Scriptures), on which Judaism as a creed is based. In recognition of the extremely important role of this code in the life of the Jewish people, it is sometimes referred to simply by the word Sefer – Book, in many parts, Sfarim – Books. The Commandments and Laws of Moses constitute "the semantic core of Judaism ... the basis of the Jewish religion, as well as the basis of Jewish ethics and law"; this is "the central document of Judaism" ^{[7, p. 5]}.

The canonical version of the written Torah was designed by the scribes Ezra and Nehemiah. In 457 BC, the scribe priest Ezra brought to Jerusalem from Babylon a version of the Torah used by the Babylonian exiles. There were other versions of Scripture in Jerusalem at that time, so there was a need to streamline the canonical version of the Torah. Ezra and Nehemiah have done this work for 13 years with the support of dignitaries and elders (the autonomous Administration of Judea). After the completion of the written canon of the Law, it became necessary to popularize, introduce and explain it. Thus, in Judaism, the second part of the Law was formed – the so-called oral, consisting of interpretations of the written Law.

The active process of forming the Oral Law – the Oral Torah began in the IV century BC. The oral Torah contained eschatological ideas that were not illuminated or poorly illuminated in the written Torah: about the immortality of souls, the afterlife, the Last Judgment – the posthumous retribution for earthly sins (violations of the commandments), as well as many prescriptions concerning religious andhousehold rituals ^{[7, pp. 3-27]}. There is a postulate that the Oral Torah was given to Moses simultaneously with the written law, but it was written down by the sages later. The written formalization of the oral Law – the Talmud – dates back to the II–V centuries. According to the figurative characterization of the Israeli rabbi, Torah translator, founder of the Institute for the Study of Judaism Adin Steinsaltz (1937-2020), "If the Bible [means the Torah – author's note. articles] are the cornerstone of Judaism, then the Talmud is its central pillar supporting the entire spiritual and philosophical code ... (It) is a collection of oral laws developed by generations of sages in Palestine and Babylonia up to the beginning of the Middle Ages."

The Oral Law, united by the common name Talmud ("teaching" – Hebrew), consists of two components: the Mishnah and the Gemara.

The Mishnah, in turn, includes Halacha, Midrash and Haggadah. The Mishnah in its present state was edited in the third century . Yehuda Ha-Nasi. The first printed edition of the Mishnah appeared around 1485 . 

Halakha is a set of laws, prescriptions (both in written and oral Torah). The Code of the basic laws of Halakha, used up to the present time inclusive – Shulkhan Aruch (lit. "set table" – Hebrew) It was structured and recorded by the Spanish rabbi, a major authority and expert on the Jewish canon, Yosef ben Ephraim Karo (1488-1575).

Midrash is a genre of homiletic and exegetical literature consisting of sermons by sages, parables that explain the essence of a particular law or phenomenon described in the Torah.

A ggada is a creatively reworked parable or a real story from the life of the sages, presented with artistic fiction, demonstrating in the form of an allegory the effect of a prescription or punishment for its non–fulfillment. The Aggada is also essentially a midrash. The earliest Midrash that has come down to us is the Easter Haggadah, which contains a description of the Passover holiday and prescriptions for the traditions of its veneration.

The name Gemara was originally positioned as a later synonym of the Talmud, that is, interpretations of the Torah and Mishnah, which arose in the era of persecution of the Talmud as an anti-Christian work. In a number of sources, Gemara is called the Talmud as a whole, as well as its individual chapters. However, in fact, the Gemara is a separate and later source containing additions and interpretations of the sages to the already existing chapters of the Mishnah.

Kabbalah belongs to one of the most famous and widespread (up to the present time inclusive) mystical and esoteric currents of Judaism, in which the ontological essence of God and his role are considered, as well as attempts are made to interpret certain hidden meanings of the Torah. The current arose in the XII century, but its main spread was in the XVI century. Initially, the term Kabbalah was used for all books that were not included in the Pentateuch, and later for the entire Oral Law, but since the 12th century the sages began to emphasize the esoteric component of their teachings. During the heyday of Kabbalistic teaching (1270-1320), the main book of its postulates was written – Sefer ha-Zohar, or, abbreviated, Zohar ("book of radiance" – Hebrew). The book contains mystical interpretations of various Torah plots. In fact, the Zohar is a book of Midrash eschatological content, written on behalf of travelers to Eretz Israel (the Land of Israel), the main theme of which is the knowledge of God, and at the same time, the recognition of his unknowable.

Yellow Circle – Menorah code;

The name of the Menorah (as the main and most ancient Jewish symbol) is given to a code that deciphers a group of skewomorphic images of Jewish cult attributes.

The initial description of cult objects is described in the Torah in the form of prescriptions given by God to create and equip the Tabernacle of the Covenant (to store the tablets of the Torah), and subsequently the First and Second Temples.

The main shrine, which has a special place in Judaism, is the Torah ^[8]. The reading of the Torah is the basis of the liturgy on Saturdays and holidays. The Torah is a scroll written on parchment by a specially trained master, a copyist soifer – from the word Sefer – "book" (Hebrew); every four parchment pages are sewn together with special threads, forming ieria sections, connected, in turn, into a scroll. The ends of the scroll are attached to round wooden rollers etz Chaim – "Tree of Life" (Hebrew), with handles on both sides; wooden discs are put on between the handles and the roller, supporting the scroll, while it is in an upright position ^[8]. The very name etz Chaim emphasizes the paramount importance of the Torah in the Jewish worldview, it is a symbol of eternal life. Among the Sephardim, the Torah was traditionally placed in a case made of wood or metal, among the Ashkenazim – in an embroidered cloth cover, most often velvet. In the Middle Ages, the tradition of lavish decoration of the Torah case was established – it is crowned with metal (silver, sometimes gilded) crowns – crowns of Keter Torah - "Crown of Torah" (Hebrew), or metal finials in the form of garnets – rimmonym. Keter Torah and rimmonim are often supplemented with bells, in memory of those that were attached to the clothes of the high priests. A special plate with a hammered ornament is suspended on a chain, often inlaid with semi–precious stones - torashild or tas. The Tas contains an inscription with the name of the holiday and serves to quickly find the right place in Scripture, since the synagogue usually has several Torah scrolls, each of which is wound on ets Chaim in a certain place corresponding to the inscription on the shield ^[4]. It is forbidden to touch the parchment with your hands, therefore, when reading the scroll, use a special pointer yad – "hand" (Hebrew), in the form of reproducing a human hand with an outstretched index finger. The ceremonial character of the object finds expression in its rich decoration: most of the poisons are made of silver, but there are bronze, bone and wooden pointers. A ritual object close in meaning and design to the Torah scroll is Megila Esther – "the scroll of Esther" (Hebrew) – one of the Old Testament books traditionally read during the Purim holiday, however, unlike the Torah scroll, the scroll of Esther is attached only to one roller on which it is wound, the second end remains when reading free. Apparently, this difference is due to the small (compared to the Torah) volume of the scroll of Esther. The case in which Esther's scroll is kept contains images of scenes illustrating its content.

 According to the text of Scripture, the covenant on the manufacture of the menorah was given to Moses by the Almighty on Mount Sinai simultaneously with the commandments: "And you shall make a lamp of pure gold; a lamp shall be made hammered; its thigh and its stem, its cups, its ovaries and its flowers shall be of it. And six branches [should] come out of its sides: three branches of the lamp from one side of it, and three branches of the lamp from the other side of it. Three almond-shaped cups on one branch, ovary and flower; and three almond-shaped cups on the other branch, ovary and flower. So on the six branches coming out of the lamp. And on [the] lamp there are four almond-shaped cups, its ovaries and its flowers. The ovary is under its two branches, and [another] ovary is under its two branches, and [another] ovary is under its two branches, at the six branches coming out of the lamp. Their ovaries and their branches should be of the same, it is all of the same coinage, of pure gold. And make seven of his lamps, and he will light his lamps, so that he will illuminate his front side. And the tongs to it, and the scoops to it are made of pure gold. From the talent of pure gold, let them make it with all these accessories. Look, and make them according to the pattern that was shown to you on the mountain" [Exodus (Shmot) 25:9].

 According to the description of the Torah, during the wandering of the Jews in the desert, the menorah stood in the Tabernacle of the Covenant, and later, during the period of the First Temple built by King Solomon, there were five gilded menorahs along the northern and southern walls. Literally translated, the menorah is a "lamp" (Hebrew), however, the concept is traditionally applied to the synagogue seven–candle, all branches of which are deployed in one plane. With all the variety of menorahs, regardless of the territory and period of their creation, they all have a resemblance to a tree, which is directly indicated in the above text of Scripture.

Three-four-five-candle lamps, made for both temple and household needs, are also close to the menorah. They make up a significant part of the repertoire of Jewish decorative and applied art. In front of the ark (Aron-Hakodesh) is usually suspended a special metal lamp Ner Tomid – "unquenchable candle" (Hebrew).

A special kind is the so–called Hanukkah – nine-barrel lamps used on strictly defined days of one of the most important holidays of the Jewish calendar - Hanukkah. Stylistically, hanukkahs belong to two types: the first – similar to the menorah, but with nine trunks, and the second – with cups-candlesticks arranged in a row on a horizontal bar, which on one side passes at right angles into a vertically fixed decorated wall, usually rounded at the top. On Jewish Hanukkahs of this type, there is often an image of an arch with columns (the symbol of the Temple), lions, unicorns, and other mystical animals. The Crimean people have more ascetic Hanukkah forms and, as a rule, are devoid of images of animals. Hanukkah lamps or hanukkahs were as obligatory an element of Jewish and Crimean everyday life as Sabbath candlesticks. Due to the mass nature of their manufacture, Jewish craftsmen left many varieties of Hanukkah lamps, from candelabra to lamps of various shapes and ornaments, originally intended for oil, and only then adapted for candles.

The items of primary importance in Jewish liturgical practice include such elements of male ritual costume as:

- talit (Hebrew) or tales (Yiddish) is a white rectangular prayer shoulder covering with several woven black or black-and-blue stripes. In the middle of the longitudinal part of the talit, an atara is most often sewn – "crown, crown" (Hebrew) – a rectangular piece of fabric to distinguish the upper outer and lower inner parts. Sometimes benedictions are embroidered on the athar, which must be pronounced while wearing a tallit. Fringe is often sewn along the transverse sides of the talit. The talit is put on during the recitation of a certain Shaharit prayer on the head, throwing all four ends of it over the left shoulder, forming an Ismail wrap, after which it falls on the shoulders. The traditions associated with talit differ in different communities. So, among the Ashkenazim, children dress in a small, childish talit, and unmarried men pray without talit; among the Sephardim, all men pray in talit;

- tsitsit (the Crimeans chichit, the Karaites chichit or arba kenafot – "four corners" (Hebrew)) – brushes or a bundle of threads sewn to the four ends of men's clothing, according to the prescription contained in the Torah [Numbers (Bemidbar) 15:38-41]. In each bundle there should be a dyed blue thread, when looking at which everyone should remember the commandments. The tzitzit should be visible from under the clothes. In some Hasidic communities, a talit katan, worn under clothing, is practiced – a small talit (Hebrew) (in comparison with talit gadol – a large talit (Hebrew)), on which there is necessarily a tzitzit. Among Karaites, a chichit (arba kenafot) is a scarf with embroidered patterned ends, with white, blue and green tassels along its edges. Karaite chichit was not only worn on the shoulders, but also hung on the walls of kenas, understanding the commandment to "look at chichit" literally;

- kippah (yarmulke) – literally "covering, dome" – a round knitted or sewn with wedges cap, worn by Jews and Crimeans on the crown, under the main headdress (for example, a Hasidic hat). Crimean Karaites wore a pointed kalpak hat instead of a kippah during prayer (the daily headdress of both Karaites and Krymchaks was a black lamb cap of the Crimean); Karaites also did not wear long curls at the temples, the commandment of which is contained in the Tadmud.

- tfilin (Hebrew)or phylacteries (Greek) – two wooden or leather boxes with leather laces, with fragments of texts from the Torah inside, worn by a man during certain prayers on his forehead and on his hand, respectively, in fulfillment of a biblical prescription: "Let these words, which I command you today, be in your heart... and bind them as a sign on your hand, and let them be a bandage over your eyes" [Deuteronomy (Dvarim) 6:6-8; cf. Exodus (Shmot) 13:9, 16; Deuteronomy (Dvarim) 11:18]. Karaites, unlike Jews and Crimeans, do not wear tefillin.

One of the obligatory items used in the synagogue ceremony of separating the Sabbath from the rest of the week is bsamim, or godes (hadas) – "myrtle" (Hebrew) – a special vessel for incense, which is used as cloves, saffron, spices, and in Sephardic communities – rosemary. Incense burning has been known since ancient times. In the Torah, it is prescribed to bring perfumes for incense to God, among other gifts, and to make a special altar for offering incense. A later interpretation of the meaning of the custom of burning incense in Judaism consists in the symbolic consolation of a person, since there is a loss of an additional soul that inhabits a person on the Sabbath and leaves him at the end of the Sabbath. Bsamim, as a rule, are metal vessels of various shapes, with holes for burning incense. The original forms of bsamim, which developed in the early Middle Ages, go back to the form of Christian tabernacles – boxes for "Holy Gifts" for the rite of Communion, later samples, in particular, on the territory of Eastern Europe, are often a repetition of the form of Orthodox ritual cups for Communion – chalices, supplemented with a corresponding lid. This similarity is a typical example of the relationship between two cultures – Jewish and Orthodox ^[8].

Special ritual objects also include:  

- special decorated circumcision knife;

- Elijah's chair – carved wooden chair for moel – performing the rite of circumcision;

- a bowl with inscriptions for the circumcision ceremony;

- Chupa – decorated wedding canopy for the wedding ceremony;

- ktubba (shetar Karaites) – richly decorated marriage contract;

- a silver ring-a ring worn by the groom on the bride's index finger with the inscription Mazal Tov – wish for happiness (Hebrew) and an image of a house simultaneously symbolizing the Temple and the hearth (such a ring was previously one for the entire community and was kept in the synagogue for wedding ceremonies);

Special purpose among the attributes of prayer houses are vessels – tzedakah – mugs for donations, as well as jugs for ritual washing of hands.

Green circle – code Rimon – "garnet" (Hebrew);

The name Rimon (as one of the Jewish symbols of unity in faith) was chosen for the code combining phytomorphic images. It is worth noting that the image of the pomegranate as a symbol of unity is also used in other cultures and ethnic groups, however, it has a different meaning, for example, among the Turks – the unity and multiplicity of family, clan. In the Torah there are descriptions and mentions of various plants: pomegranate, grape, fig, palm, cedar, aloe, almond, olive, thorn, oak, wheat, etc. The key phytomorphic symbol is two Paradise trees: the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The oft–mentioned image of an oak - a large and powerful tree (Moray oak [Genesis (Breishit) 12:6]; Mamre oak [Genesis (Breishit) 13:18]; Shechem oak [Genesis (Breishit) 35:4], etc.), is traditional for Eastern mythology, in polytheism personified the receptacle of spirits, and in Judaism acted as the personification of a powerful force. In Karaite mythology, there was an authentic legend about sacred oaks in the Balta-Tiimez cemetery – "the axe will not touch" (Karaite), near the medieval Karaite town of Chufut-Kale near Bakhchisarai. Being buried in this cemetery was considered honorable and righteous, so there are not only tombstones over graves, but also cenotaphs for those who died in a foreign land. In all likelihood, this legend about oaks is a synthesis of ancient Turkic beliefs and the Jewish interpretation of the oak symbol, however, references to this tradition in connection with the Karaites date only to the second half of the XIX century, and the name Balta Tiimez – to the 20-30s of the twentieth century and belongs to the authorship of Seraya Shapshala. The absence of earlier references to such an important tradition (from the point of view of modern Karaite ethnographers), given the centuries-old widespread literacy of the Karaites, does not give grounds for its scientific confirmation ^[5].

In general, plant symbolism, represented in the form of images of flowering trees with fruits and birds sitting on them, or their individual branches, or vases with flowers and fruits, personifies the Garden of Eden, crying for paradise lost and hope for the coming of the Messiah and return to paradise. Plants also serve as a symbol of the fertility of the promised land (the ambassadors who returned from the land of Canaan with grapes, figs and pomegranates [Numbers (Bemidbar) 13:17-24], the dove who returned to Noah in the ark with an olive branch [Genesis (Breishit) 8:8-11])

Red Circle – Number Code;

The Number code combines numerical symbols, and is also named identically to one of the books of the Torah.

According to the Jewish worldview, there are no insignificant or insignificant details in the Torah, moreover, each aspect carries not only a direct, but also an allegorical meaning. The main method of Jewish dialectics, pilpul, is based on the search for hidden meanings and the explanation of contradictions in Scripture. One of the aspects of Kabbalah is the translation of texts (words) The Torah into numerical values (due to the literal spelling of numbers in Hebrew), and the subsequent decoding of the values of these numbers. Symbolic numbers in Judaism are, for example: 1 – the unity of God; 2 – two guardians of the Gates of Paradise and the gates of the Temple; 7 – the number of days of creation, days of the week, branches of the Menorah, 12 – the number of tribes of Israel (descendants of Jacob (Israel), each of which inherits a certain land [Genesis (Breishit) 49:1 – 27]); the number of stones of the altar of Moses [Genesis (Breishit) 24:4]; 40 days and nights of Moses' stay on Mount Sinai with God [Exodus (Shmot) 24:16-18]; 40 years of wandering in the desert [Numbers (Bemidbar) 33:38-39]; 613 – the total number the commandments given to Moses by God, etc.

Purple Circle – code Bestiary;

The Bestiary code combines zoomorphic, as well as zooanthropomorphic images: animals, as well as birds, fish (including mythological, chimerical). The Jewish bestiary, due to the prohibition on the image of a person in Judaism, often carries an allegorical meaning and is the personification of God, man or his individual qualities. Thus, the symbols of God are the wild bull Shor and the eagle [Numbers (Bemidbar) 23:22; 28:49]. Each of the twelve tribes of Israel has its own symbol, so the Lion symbolizes the royal tribe of Judah [Numbers (Bemidbar) 28:49]. The symbolism of animal images on tombstones is also connected with this. For example, the bear Ber indicates the bearer of the male name Ber, and is also a symbol of people who brought the fruits of grapes from the land of Canaan [Numbers (Bemidbar) 13:17-24]. Also, animals, for example, an eagle, a lion, a griffin, a Leviathan are symbols of Messianic expectations (the myth of animals that will be served at a feast upon the arrival of the Messiah). Scorpions, toads, poisonous snakes, bats, locusts are mentioned (and depicted) as negative symbols [Deuteronomy (Dvarim) 9:15-16; Prophets (Nevi) 2:20]. In some cases, the mentioned animals have a direct meaning (herds of goats, sheep, sacrificial lamb/kid). Zooanthropomorphic images can also include images of individual parts of the human body as an image of the whole, for example, the blessing hands of the high priest – Aaronides. Similarly, the signs of the Zodiac are depicted, which belong to a separate group of bestial symbols and mean in the Jewish reading the circle of the twelve main holidays. Thus, the Virgin is depicted as a hand with a jug, Twins in the form of two hands, etc.

Conjugations (unions) of nearby codes complicate the final meanings, giving them expanded versions of the values.

Combining three of the four codes from each of the four sides (shown in bright yellow in the diagram) reveals through the synthesis of symbols four key meanings of Jewish culture: Creation, Paradise, Torah personas and the expectation of the Messiah.

The central conjugation of all five codes is an Eye (in semantic meaning, and also the visual similarity with the eye is read on the diagram), or the Heart of Judaism, its central meaning accumulating all ideological ideas, the visual (pictorial) embodiment of which, invariant for all Jewish peoples of Crimea, is the synagogue Aron Hakodesh – a cabinet for storing a scroll Torahs (Fig. 3, 4).

 The traditional composition of Aron Hakodesh embodies the Ark (Tabernacle) of the Covenant, as well as the Holy of Holies of the First and Second Temples – the storage place of the tablets, and later the written Torah. The place for storing the Torah in the synagogue (kenase, kaale) is decorated in the form of a portal – the entrance to Paradise, framed by two columns (images of the temple columns Yahin and Boaz) – the Number code, Menorah. On the sides of the portal are often placed the symbols of the guardians – lions, or a lion and a unicorn – the code Bestiary. Plants, flowers and fruits in the upper part of the Aron Hakodesh represent the Garden of Eden – the code Rimon. In the upper part of the portal, the symbol of God as the royal authority is depicted – a lion, an eagle – the Bestiary code, or a crown – the Menorah code. Images of Torah tablets are placed above the portal – Sefer codes (Book), Menorah, Numbers. Such a composition with small variations is also often found in the design of marriage ktubbots or shetars – marriage contracts, pinkas – charters of various organizations, makhzors – festive prayer books, as well as in the decoration of ceremonial objects – embroidered curtains-parochets, dishes, shields for separating the heads of the Torah – tass, tombstones – mats.Thus, the codes of the Jewish visual semiosis highlighted by us are invariant, their source is the Book of Torah, as the basis of the entire religious Jewish doctrine.

Each of the codes is a group of characters combined by the Book code. The conjugations of codes and their combinations show a cycle from the common primary source – the Torah, to the same – the Torah as a shrine, both in eschatological and material incarnation. A stable composition passing from one artifact to another indicates Judaic affiliation, and the interpretation of individual symbols allows you to decipher the cultural text. A number of connotations in the pictorial semiosis of the three Jewish ethnic groups of Crimea are insignificant, and relate more to folk mythology, whereas in the religious tradition the totality of visual codes is practically invariant and corresponds to their single primary source.

Fig. 3

Fig. 4