Sukkah

For a ritual structure intended to evoke fragility and transience, the sukkah enjoys an oddly long life as an object of contemplation and representation.

Two years ago, it was Sukkah City, an architecture competition and public art project in Union Square. It drew an estimated 200,000 viewers to the dozen winning, legally valid but visually untraditional temporary booths built to celebrate the holiday of Sukkot, which ended earlier this week.

Like any sukkah, the 10-by-10-foot tarpaulin hut put up by the Academy for Jewish Religion in Riverdale last week attracted people committed to religious tradition.

In the case of some who ate and studied in the AJR sukkah, it’s the Catholic tradition.

The nondenominational rabbinical school is located on the campus of the College of Mount Saint Vincent, a Catholic institution that is also the home of nuns affiliated with the Sisters of Charity.