Graz Beth HaMidrash - Small Synagogue Graz
The Beth HaMidrash of the Jewish Community of Graz is the second synagogue of the Styrian capital as a teaching house . It is located in the Jewish community hall at David-Herzog -Platz 1 and was completed in its current form in April 2018.
Beth HaMidrash of the Jewish community Graz
history
The Jewish community building opposite the synagogue (Graz) was built, like the old synagogue, destroyed in 1938, from 1891 to 1892 according to the plans of the architect Maximilian Katscher. It originally housed the administrative premises of the Graz Jewish community as well as the Jewish elementary school. In 1913/1914 the parish hall was expanded according to the plans of the Graz city architect Alexander Zerkowitz and a two-storey winter synagogue was built in the new extension, which was cleared out after the Nazis came to power in 1938 and completely destroyed by renovations. The Hitler Youth moved into their premises in the Jewish community hall.
After a Jewish denominational private school could no longer be built after the Second World War due to insufficient student numbers, the premises of the community center were also rented out after its restitution after 1945. In any case, from 1946 a provisional prayer room for the Jews of Graz was housed in the building.
It was not until 1969 that the Graz community began to adapt the vacant rooms on the ground floor of the community center, which housed both the administration and a fixed but modest prayer room. The latter served the Graz Jews from then on as a permanent place of worship. There was no spatial concept that met the requirements of the traditional rite.
After the completion and “inauguration” of the new synagogue in November 2000, this prayer room lost its functions, was cleared out and the premises were initially used for multifunctional purposes in the following years. But gradually these stood empty and were forgotten. After the new President of the Jewish Community of Graz, Kultusrat Elie Rosen , took office in 2016, he began to gradually renovate the presidential and administrative premises after setting up a kosher community kitchen . After his own planning work, Rosen had the premises of the former prayer room completely re-adapted as a Beth HaMidrash and winter synagogue from February to April 2018, including the (only) preserved Torah shrine of the old prayer house in the concept.
Architecture and design
Beth HaMidrash, located on the mezzanine floor of the Jewish community center, is a fully-fledged, small synagogue. Following the traditional rite, it is divided into a men's department and a women's department separated from this by a mechitzah (partition). The Lehrhaus is equipped with fixed and, like the large synagogue, dark blue upholstered seating and has a total of 60 seats.
In the middle of the men's department is other a branch above the room level Bima , brass-bound on the east side of the originating still from the old prayer room and wall built ark with its door components, which closed a menorah represent. A Ner Tamid (eternal light) shines above the Torah shrine .
The Graz Beth HaMidrasch serves the Jewish community of Graz today to hold religious lectures and prayers when the large synagogue cannot be used due to air conditioning reasons.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Wolfgang Sotill, There is only one God and one humanity, Styria Verlag 2000
- ↑ Gerald Lamprecht (Ed.), Jüdisches Leben in der Steiermark, StudienVerlag 2004
- ^ Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Graz (ed.), History of the Jews in Southeast Austria, self-published 1990
- ↑ https://www.juedischegemeinde-graz.at/synagoge/beth-hamidrash