Synagogue (Sofia)
The Synagogue in Sofia ( Bulgarian Софийска синагога / Sofijska Sinagoga) is a synagogue that was built from 1905 to 1909.
The synagogue is located in the very center of the Bulgarian capital, on Exarch Josif Street No. 16, corner of George Washington Street , directly on the back of the Central Market Hall in Sofia , only 120 m northwest of the Banya Bashi Mosque . The very lively Schenski pasar (Bulgarian Женски пазар ; women's market) is also nearby .
Because of its unique architectural and cultural value, the synagogue has been included in the list of Bulgarian cultural monuments of national importance since 1955 .
history
The Sofia Synagogue is one of the two operating synagogues in Bulgaria - next to the Plovdiv Synagogue , it is the second largest on the Balkan Peninsula and the fourth largest in Europe after the Great Synagogue in Budapest , the Great Synagogue in Pilsen and the Great Synagogue in Edirne . This makes it the second largest Sephardic synagogue in Europe.
The Jewish community ( Kehillah ) of Sofia consists mainly of descendants of Sephardic Jews who fled Spain after the Alhambra Edict of 1492 and were accepted into the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Bayezid II .
The first Jews came from Greece to what is now Bulgaria in the 4th and 5th centuries.
In the 10th century Jews moved from Byzantium to Bulgaria, in the 14th century from Germany, in the 15th century from the Kingdom of Castile and the Kingdom of Aragon . From the 14th to the 16th centuries, large numbers of Jews came from Spain, Germany, Hungary and France. In the 18th century, more Jews came as part of the increasing trade. There were several synagogues for the various Jewish communities in Sofia. By 1900 the approximately 8,000 Jews were predominantly Sephardic. The first Bulgarian constitution, the Tarnowo Constitution (1879) guaranteed them freedom and legal equality. In addition to a few wealthy Jews, there were many poor Jews who suffered from discrimination, for example in education or land ownership.
In contrast to the Sephardic Jews, the Ashkenazi Jews were usually worse off. At the turn of the century , the old district in the center of Sofia, which was mainly inhabited by Jews, Gypsies and Turks, was demolished. The different ethnic groups were each assigned their own residential areas. After a decade without a Grand Rabbi, the Sofia Jewish Community got a Grand Rabbi again in 1901, who began planning the synagogue two years later.
The construction of the large new synagogue was part of the efforts of the Lviv- born Grand Rabbi Marcus Ehrenpreis , as well as the local community leaders Ezra Tadjer and Abraham Davichon Levy, to reorganize the Jewish community in Bulgaria. They were among the few wealthy Jews who maintained good relations with the Bulgarian royal court, through the mediation of the Jewish sculptor Boris Schatz , who worked for Prince Ferdinand at the court . The Austrian architect Friedrich Grünanger (1856–1929), who was involved in the design of the synagogue and stayed in Bulgaria from 1878 to 1905, was the royal court architect; he had already designed the royal residences in Sofia, Rasgrad and Shumen . At that time he was the most famous architect in Bulgaria.
During the Ottoman rule, before the construction of the new synagogue, the old synagogue Ahava and Chesed - Hebrew for "love and goodness" (אהבה וחסד) stood on the site of the present synagogue . This old synagogue was built around 1826 after Sultan Mahmud II had allowed the non-Muslim communities to build their own places of worship, but on the condition that they had to be of modest construction and not be allowed to compete architecturally with the mosques. Synagogues have been built in the center of compact Jewish residential areas since time immemorial, since no work is allowed to be done on the Sabbath , the day of rest, numerous strict activity bans must be observed and Jews are allowed to walk a maximum of 800 paces.
When the period of the Bulgarian Revival ended with the independence of modern Bulgaria in 1878 after the Russo-Ottoman War , there were four synagogues in Sofia. At that time, a third of Sofia residents were of Jewish faith. A total of three of the Sofia synagogues fell victim to the ambitious plans of Mayor Dimitar Petkow (term of office: 1888 to 1893) to redesign the city of Sofia. One of these synagogues no longer preserved today was the Cahal de Francos Synagogue (on the corner of the Boulevard Knjaginaja Maria Luisa and ul. Trapesiza ), which was demolished in 1890 because it stood in the way of widening the street ; this synagogue had four load-bearing structures set up in a rectangle Columns in the middle of the great room. A shopping mall was built on the site of the fourth synagogue in Sofia , the income from which went to the Jewish community. This income and the compensation payments made by the Sofia community for the demolished synagogues enabled the Jewish community to finance the construction of a new representative synagogue.
The last Greek synagogue in Sofia was closed in 1881.
The architect of today's Sofia synagogue, Friedrich Grünanger, took the Leopoldstädter Tempel synagogue in Vienna as a model for its construction (according to other sources, the Turkish Temple - a Sephardic synagogue, also in Vienna-Leopoldstadt, served as a model). This old Sephardic synagogue in Vienna was later destroyed during the November pogroms in 1938 .
The first preparations for the construction of the synagogue began in 1903 after the Jewish community in Sofia was reorganized according to the French model of the Consistoire central israélite by the new, very active Grand Rabbi Marcus Ehrenpreis . In 1903 the Jewish community in Sofia comprised 10,000 people. However, the actual construction work did not begin until November 13th, 1905. The Sofia Synagogue was inaugurated on September 9th (old ??? new calendar: September 23rd) 1909. Guests of the inauguration ceremony were the Bulgarian King Ferdinand I and his second wife Eleonore Reuss zu Köstritz , Prime Minister Aleksandar Malinow as well as ministers, senior officers and high clergy of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church .
The cost of building the synagogue was 438,000 gold leva .
Since the synagogue was opened, it has also been the seat of the Chief Rabbi of Sofia and the Chief Rabbi of Bulgaria. The Rabinatsgericht ( Beth Din ) also has its seat in the synagogue. The synagogue has been in operation since its inauguration in 1909. Only in 1943 and 1944, when most of the Jews in Sofia were sent to the countryside, were there no services. The synagogue did not suffer any particular damage from the Nazis. However, it was hit and damaged several times in the bombing of Sofia (1944), with the gallery, some columns and the dome being partially destroyed. A large part of the valuable holdings in the Jewish library was also burned.
After the war, most of the Bulgarian Jews emigrated to Israel.
The officially atheist government of the People's Republic of Bulgaria left the synagogues in Sofia and Samokov as national cultural monuments.
The remaining Jewish community could not afford a repair and complete restoration of the synagogue, so that only minor repairs were carried out after 1945 until the political change in Bulgaria in 1989. The repair of the damage to the synagogue caused by the 1977 earthquake was paid for by the Bulgarian state. It was not until 1989 that the revitalized Jewish community began, although still very small, with a major restoration of the synagogue, which, due to its structural condition, was practically no longer usable as a synagogue. The restoration was financed by donations, including international help from Bulgarian Jewish emigrants from Haifa . According to the plans of the Bulgarian government, the great hall of the synagogue was to be converted into a concert hall. The construction work began in 1970 and dragged on without being finished until 1989, which is how long scaffolding was in the great hall. On the one hand, the synagogue was not officially closed by the Bulgarian communists, but it was also not in operation. In 1980 the synagogue was officially closed. A second stage of the restoration of the synagogue in 2008, after the 100th anniversary of its existence in 2005, was paid for by the Bulgarian state - a little over 700,000 leva.
The synagogue was officially re-inaugurated in 1996, in the presence of an Israeli delegation led by the chairman of the Knesset ("Knesset spokesman") Dan Tichon . However, the restoration work continued for another decade. Since 1992 the synagogue has housed the Jewish Historical Museum of the Organization of Jews in Bulgaria "Shalom" , which deals with the Jewish community in Bulgaria, the history of their settlement, everyday Jewish life, the Holocaust and the rescue of Bulgarian Jews . The museum has existed since 1992 and is to a certain extent a continuation of the permanent exhibition on "Saving the Bulgarian Jews" (1941–1942).
In the (Christian) Orthodox Church the houses of God are called temples (Greek naos). However, a synagogue is not a temple for the Jews, as Judaism only knew one temple until 70 AD, the Jerusalem Temple (Solomon's Temple), of which only the Western Wall has survived today, and the synagogue since the Hellenistic period . The synagogue is the place where the believing Jews gather on every holy day, the Sabbath ; they do not conduct a worship service in the strict sense, this can only be carried out in Solomon's temple. The assembled Jews perform their rituals, pray and listen to the sermon.
It was only after the reform movement ( Reform Judaism ) of the 19th century that the synagogue was called a "temple" again.
The number of Jews in Sofia:
- 1887 - at the end of the Ottoman rule over Sofia, Jews made up 20% of the population of Sofia.
- 1880-4.146
- 1884/85 - 6,000
- 1903 - 10,000
- 1920 - 16,196
- During the Second World War , the then approximately 25,000 Jews were expelled from Sofia by law.
- After the mass emigration of Bulgarian Jews to Israel by 1949, 5,000 Jews remained in Sofia.
- About 90% of Bulgarian Jews emigrated to Israel between 1948 and 1951, which was founded in 1948.
- 1951 - 5,259
- 1964 - 4,000
- 2004 - 3,000
architecture
The synagogue's architectural style is a mixture of different styles, which was often seen in the early 20th century. It is essentially a mixture of orientalizing architecture ("Mautian or Neo-Moorish style") with elements of the Vienna Secession and, on the facade, a Venetian style. In Bulgaria there is also talk of "Bulgarian national romanticism".
The outer walls of the synagogue are decorated with floral and geometric motifs. The octagonal main hall, with four cones , has a diameter of 20 m and is 31 m high. It is closed at the top by a dome. The large central dome on the roof of the synagogue is 33 m high. In addition to the main dome, it consists of four smaller domes located at the corners of the square building. Furthermore, three of the four outer sides are decorated by two turrets each. The outside facing west with the entrance is decorated by another small dome. A Star of David is placed on the tips of the domes and turrets (12 in total) . All Stars of David are oriented with their face to the east, to Jerusalem .
The interior of the synagogue is richly decorated, with Carrara marble columns , polychrome Venetian mosaics and decorative wood carvings. The brass chandelier in the prayer hall is the largest in Bulgaria, it weighs 1700 kg (according to other sources 2200 kg) and hangs at a height of 19 m, it was made in Vienna , like many other furnishings in the synagogue. The chandelier has 65 lamps, 440 pieces of colored glass and 500 stars of David.
The ceiling is decorated with a representation of the sky - many stars on a blue background. The total area of the building is 659 m². The building has two floors and a crypt . The large and small prayer rooms and offices are on the first floor. The meeting room, museum and library are on the second floor. The library houses a valuable collection of medieval Jewish books. A new museum is currently being built in the crypt. There are washing facilities and a small bathroom for ritual baths in the courtyard. The altar is made of white marble by Italian masters.
The synagogue can accommodate over 1,300 people in its large prayer room, which is reserved for men, and on the balconies where women pray. According to other sources, the synagogue can accommodate 1,000 visitors. And again, according to other information, she has a total of 1170 seats in the large prayer hall and on the balconies. Despite the size of the building, the service is usually only attended by 50 to 60 men, as there are fewer and fewer believing Jews in Bulgaria due to the "return migration" ( Alija ) of most Bulgarian Jews to Israel and the secularization of the Jews in Bulgaria. However, on holidays, the synagogue is visited by hundreds of people, including senior official non-Jewish visitors.
When it was completed in 1909, the synagogue already had its own heating system and an underground channel to the Vladaja River (Bulgarian Владайска река), a tributary of the Iskar River.
Because of the small congregation, the service on normal Fridays ( Sabbath ) is not held in the large hall, but in a smaller adjoining room. Except on the Jewish Sabbath, visitors are admitted and have to ring the doorbell.
The synagogue in Burgas was also designed by the architect Grünanger; it is a scaled-down image of the Sofia synagogue. This synagogue has not been in operation since 1947, but houses the municipal art gallery at the Burgas train station. The building is owned by Jews and was rented to the city of Burgas. Today there is no longer a functioning synagogue in Burgas. In addition to the former synagogue in Burgas, the synagogue in Vidin , which is now in ruins, and the synagogue Samokow (completed 1858–1860) are owned by Jews, but not in operation.
literature
- Carol Herselle Krinksy and Carol Herselle Krinsky: Synagogues of Europe: Architecture, History, Meaning. Dover Books on Architecture, Dover Publishing 1996, pp. 183-186, ISBN 0-486-29078-6 .
Web links
- Official website of the synagogue (English)
- Historical postcards from the synagogue (from the 16th picture)
- Pictures from outside and inside
Coordinates: 42 ° 42 ′ 1 ″ N , 23 ° 19 ′ 15.6 ″ E