It wasn't as much expulsion as government and church restrictions which prevented Jews from building great houses of worship in most of Europe until the 1800's with a few exceptions like Holland. Church and state, when they allowed a synagogue to be built at all, strictly limited where it would be (e.g. not on a major street where it could be seen) and what it would look like (e.g. must be a non-descript building from the outside, not something that looked like a synagogue). In the Ghetto in Venice, for instance, Jews were no allowed to use marble or gold in construction for fear that the best synagogue would look as good as the worst church. Jews became very good at faux finishes that looked pretty close to the real thing. Christian officials were determined to show that Judaism was in inferior religion and one which would hold no attraction to the Christians. There were a few exceptions like Holland which allowed Jews much greater freedom of religion and where you can see the Portuguese Spanish Synagogue and other impressive ones. With the emancipation of the Jews in the French Revolution, there was a new freedom to build synagogues. The 1800's saw great building designed by the leading architects, Jewish and Christian, selected by the congregations sometimes after competitions. Some incorporated Moorish elements to recall the Golden Age there. Most of the German temples and synagogues were destroyed by the Nazi's (most burned on the Night of Broken Glass before the war), but a number of great ones survived or have been rebuilt like the Dohaney Street Temple in Budapest (build on the dimensions of the ancient temple in the Bible like Emanu El in NY), the Templo Majore across from the Vatican, the Temple in Florence, the Liberal Synagogue in London (which was bomb damaged and rebuilt), and others. There are a number of impressive new synagogues designed and built in recent days to accomodate the hundreds of thousands of new immigrants to Germany.

In the United States, a country founded by Protestants and Jews seeking religious freedom, Jews have been able to build freely in our own style. Neither the Church, the State or Orthodox traditionalist Chief Rabbis could dictate to us. In Charleston, the cradle of Reform, K K Beth Elohim stands with a Greek Revival architecture perfectly suited to the city. Temple Mikveh Israel in historic Savannah (a congregation dating to the founding of the colony) is also a warm and lovely building. Emanu El, across from which was the Reform HQ in NY, is a dramatic building as is Temple Sinai in Chicago and Emanu El in San Francisco (a congregation dating back to the Gold Rush). Baron Hirsch in Memphis, the world's largest Orthodox congregation build a monumental synagogue and now has an impressive modern building in the suburbs. Beth El has a warm, modern design in Fort Worth.

As a progressive Reform Jew, I would be as put off by Kaballistic elements in a temple as I would by a giant cross over the Ark. After all, Kaballah originated in the back waters of Europe in a dark time of oppression, superstition and ignorance. It is the antithesis of Reform's emphasis on a rational interpretation of the Holy Bible based on modern science, archeology, and history. Or should America, NATO and Israel scrap our F-16 fighters and tie red strings on our wrists and build a golem out of clay to ward off the bad guys?