European sukkah design in the 18th century is really fascinating

I found a 1724 copperplate of sukkot in Amsterdam  titled "Repas des Juifs pendant la fête des Tentes" (Jewish Meal During the Feast of the Tabernacles) by the French engraver Bernard Picart. Both the sukkah on the foreground and to the side are remarkable: the main one has a domed roof, and the one to the right has a conical roof, all seemingly kosher.

And here is a detail of Das Laubhütten Fest (The Feast of Tabernacles / Sukkot) from Johann Christian Georg Bodenschatz's treatise Kirchliche Verfassung der heutigen Juden, published in Erlangen. It shows a remarkably similar domed roof  sukkah in Germany, certainly redrawn based closely on the earlier Picart copperplate,  and next to it an attic sukkah built where the walls leaned in and formed the schach.

I know that German Jews often built sukkot on their attics and built retractable roofs (Klappdach) so they could be protected during storms, but this sukkah does not seem to show the actual house roof so it may have been built on a flat roof.

All three designs - domed, conical and leaning walls as the entire sukkah, plus the retractable roof sukkah, were probably done for practical reasons. The weather in Europe in autumn can be brutal, and all these designs are more resistant to being destroyed by high winds. 

This year, Jews in the northeastern United States are a bit nervous about the path of a nor'easter storm scheduled to hit during the Sukkot festival which starts tonight, endangering the booths we built.

But it is not likely to cause close to the damage of the Great Gale of October 7,  1756, which affected England and much of Europe. Hurricane-force winds battered the region.

As reported in the Derby Mercury on October 15th:

Luckily, the holiday had not started yet: Sukkot in 1756 began the night of October 8 so the local Jews had an opportunity to rebuild quickly to celebrate. 

Have a wonderful and safe Sukkot!

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