Endangered Synagogues

Here's an article I wrote recently on endangered synagogue buildings, published in the Jewish Chronicle in London. (There was some trouble with the link, but I think it works now.) It's bit simplified and simplistic, but the point is clear. (And it's a point that anyone following this blog will have been aware of....)




(Ruined synagogue in Nowy Korczyn, Poland. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber)




Historic European shuls ‘falling apart’

Ruth Ellen Gruber

September 26, 2008

Time is running out to save scores of historic former synagogues in Central and Eastern Europe, a heritage foundation has warned.

"If we want to be serious about saving this heritage, we must do it now, as the synagogues are falling apart," said Monika Krawczyk, CEO of the Warsaw-based Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland.

Nearly 20 years after the fall of Communism, a question-mark still looms over the fate of scores, perhaps hundreds, of former synagogues ravaged during the Second World War.

Most were abandoned or transformed for other uses during the Communist era. While restitution returned many to Jewish ownership, others still remain public or private property.

Some have been restored and are used as museums, cultural sites and - in rare cases - as houses of worship.

But a good number still stand abandoned or in poor condition, with either insufficient funds - or interest - to restore them.

"We are doing whatever we can," Ms Krawczyk said. "The more property we get, the more critical mass, and more complaints from visitors that cemeteries are neglected. There are also more problems if we get a summons to carry out emergency repairs in many sites at once. We don't have the resources. Roofs can't be fixed with kind words and good advice."

Ms Krawczyk said gaining restitution of a property could be difficult, time-consuming and complicated.

"We have to prove even the most obvious cases," she said. "The law was enshrined in part in the spirit of helping redress the wrongs that were done. But the authorities are not living up to the spirit."

In addition, she said, the costs of repairing a synagogue, or the complications of preservation norms on historic buildings, often made local authorities reluctant to contribute.

Even synagogues that may seem protected can be at risk. Last year, one of the two historic synagogues in Joniskis, Lithuania, collapsed, even though it was listed as a historic monument.

"Proper care of these properties, often involving substantial costs, difficult planning and use issues, and demanding historical and architectural preservation concerns, have preoccupied many Jewish communities for years," said Samuel Gruber, president of the International Survey of Jewish Monuments.

"In many cases, and especially for smaller communities, the needs of these properties continue to stretch their professional and financial resources."

Protests failed to save a former synagogue in the Bosnian town of Travnik. Built in 1860 on the site of an earlier synagogue, the building was damaged during World War II and has not been used for Jewish worship since 1941.

The Bosnian Jewish community, numbering under 1,000, sold it to the city in the 1950s, and it had served as a metal workshop for decades.

Still, said those campaigning to save it, the synagogue was "one of Travnik's symbols and a testament to the centuries-old religious and ethnic diversity and life in Bosnia".

But their efforts to save it were futile, and the building was torn down a few weeks ago to make way for a new shopping centre.

Pictures from Travnik Jewish Cemetery

As reported in an earlier post, the Travnik synagogue was demolished two weeks ago. Azra Nuhefendic, one of the concerned citizens who raised the alarm and tried to halt the demolition, has sent me photographs of the neglected Jewish cemetery in Travnik.

As Ivan Ceresnjes reported, "The Jewish cemetery in Travnik, founded in 1762, is outside of the town on the slope of one of the surrounding hills, bordering the Catholic cemetery. It is large, quite overgrown with vegetation, but in decent condition. In the center of the plot is a monument to those who perished in WWII. It is a concrete pedestal on which are positioned three tombstones, possibly among the oldest ones from the cemetery."

The photos I am posting here were taken by a local journalist, Stojan Milos. Ms Nuhefendic, his friend, authorized publication of them on this blog.

Yet More on Travnik Synagogue

Jakob Finci, the head of the Jewish community in Bosnia, confirmed that the synagogue in Travnik demolished last week to make way for a shopping center was NOT the 18th century Kalkados synagogue, which already had been destroyed in 1860, but another built in 1860 to replace it. Last used for worship in 1941 and damaged during World War II, it had been sold to the town in the 1950s by the Bosnian Jewish community. Stripped of any indication of its former use, it was used as a metal workshop for decades. In late August, news of the impending demolition sparked an ultimately unsuccessful local campaign to save the building, as a reminder of Bosnia's historic multi-cultural heritage. Many of those who protested the demolition identfied the building as the historic 18th century synagogue.

Here is a piece by Ivan Ceresnjes detailing the history of Travnik Jews and Jewish monuments:

"A Jewish community has existed in Travnik, Muslim Croat Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, since 1768, and the first synagogue was built in 1769. During the period of the Ottoman Empire, Travnik was the seat of the Pasha, making Travnik the most important city in the Ottoman province of Bosnia and its Jewish community the second in importance, after Sarajevo. The number of Jews increased constantly, and reached a peak in 1940 of 375 Jews. After WWII only a few Jewish families resettled in Travnik and the recent war delivered the final deathblow to the Jewish community.

"I was not able to enter the synagogue, built in 1860 on the foundations of the previous synagogue and therefore the building is only partially documented. The communal chronicles say that the synagogue was built entirely by voluntary work of members of the community between Pesach and Rosh Hashana.

"Travnik is in a way strange City when Jews are in question: during the WW II Jews were killed, synagogue was damaged (but not destroyed) and all ritual objects all were taken by the local Croatian and Moslem Nazi-collaborators to the nearby Jesuit monastery. After the war only a handful of survivors returned, and since the synagogue was not suitable for prayers Jesuits returned everything to the Jewish community in Sarajevo.
In the spring of 1941, local fascists partially burned and looted the building, took the ritual objects (Torah scrolls, silver items from synagogue, books, tefillim, tallitot) from the synagogue and gave them to the local Jesuits. After the war, the Jesuits returned the Torah and ritual objects to the Jewish community in Sarajevo which in turn donated part of the collection to the Jewish museum in Belgrade.

"The synagogue was stripped of everything that would indicate its former use. The hall has been divided horizontally on the level of the former women’s gallery, whose entrance was from the outside. Behind the synagogue is a building which housed a Jewish school and the Rabbi’s apartment.

"So, truth is that the building has been sold by the Federation in early '50, (there were good reasons for that and I can elaborate on that), used for some time as a kind of metal workshop and was abandoned before the last war so the Jewish Community had no legal rights on the building but the truth is also that Municipality of Travnik and local City Museum asked more than once if Jews are interested to find together with them some solution for the survival of the only Jewish prayer-house in the city for any kind of cultural use.

"In the City Museum are four recently discovered silver artifacts, thought to be from the house of one of the oldest Jewish families of Travnik. Researchers documented two silver Esther Scroll cases, a silver book cover belonging to the family of Yaacov Yeruham Konforti, and a silver belt. The cache was found while digging the foundations of a new house in 1989. It was presumably hidden and buried at the site of Konforti’s house.

"One of the Esther Scrolls is engraved with Konforti’s name and the date 5650 (1890). There is also an engraved floral decoration and a hallmark indicating that this was made by the same artisan who made the prayer book cover.

"The second Esther Scroll is silver, machine stamped and chased. A cartouche decorating the scroll has a decorative monogram with the letters JK, probably Jacob or Jeruham Konforti.

"The silver book cover is engraved with an open work interlaced foliage motif. On the front cover there is an oval medallion inscribed with the family name and the date 5650. The back cover is identical to the front including the oval, but without the inscription. Both the engraving and the cutting for the open work are done by machine.

"The fourth item that was found in the cache is a silver belt made with a floral motif.

"The Jewish cemetery in Travnik, founded in 1762, is outside of the town on the slope of one of the surrounding hills, bordering the Catholic cemetery. It is large, quite overgrown with vegetation, but in decent condition. In the center of the plot is a monument to those who perished in WWII. It is a concrete pedestal on which are positioned three tombstones, possibly among the oldest ones from the cemetery. "

More on Travnik Synagogue

I have received word that the synagogue I mentioned in Travnik has indeed been demolished. Both my correspondent and local news reports describe it as the old Kalkados synagogue, which was built in 1768 -- but which information supplied to www.jewish-heritage-europe.eu by Ivan Ceresnjes and others says was already demolished in 1860 and replaced by the synagogue that was used as a metal workshop after World War II. The photograph I linked to in an earlier post clearly shows the newer synagogue -- as do photos in local media. I am trying to clarify this.

Former Bosnian Synagogue Threatened?

There's been a bit in the news (in Bosnia) about plans to tear down the former "Kalkados" (or New) synagogue in the town of Travnik and construct there a shopping center. Built in 1860, the synagogue has been used as a metal workshop since after World War II. According to pictures I've seen, doesn't retain the outward (at least) look of a synagogue.

(You can see a photo of it as part of an extensive photo documentation of Jewish sites in the former Yugoslavia, posted on the web site of the Jewish community of Zemun, Serbia.)

There has been a call made to halt the demolition -- I saw a report that a citizens' group called "Front" had called on Bosnian authorities to step in. A brief report by Bosnia's FENA news agency quotes a member of the Sarajevo Jewish community, Eli Tauber, as saying that the Community can do nothing to stop the process as the building had been sold off after World War II.