The Great Synagogue of Satu Mare: A Thousand Seats on Strada Decebal

Of all the synagogues and prayer houses of Satmar, one great synagogue survives. It was built in 1889–1892 for the Orthodox community and seated about a thousand worshippers, and its courtyard holds the memorial to more than 18,000 Jews from the town and its district who were deported in the spring of 1944.

A Town of Dozens of Prayer Houses

At the start of the twentieth century Satu Mare (Hungarian: Szatmárnémeti; Yiddish: Satmar) had three synagogues and 25 prayer houses, according to the survey of the town’s religious architecture published by the county museum in 2008. The Encyclopaedia Judaica counts five large synagogues and about twenty smaller ones around 1930. The numbers reflected a divided community: a large Orthodox congregation, itself the scene of a long struggle between Hasidim and their opponents, and a Status Quo community that broke away in 1898 and built its own synagogue in 1904. Of all these, the great synagogue of the Orthodox community on Strada Decebal (Hungarian: Várdomb) survives, together with a smaller prayer house beside it.

The town’s first synagogue stood earlier on the same plot. Sources differ on its date — 1856, 1857 or 1858 — but all place it a few years after the community was formally organised in 1849.

The Architect from Oradea and the “Romantic” Style

The present building went up in 1889–1892. According to the county museum’s survey it was designed by Nándor Bach (Bach Nándor) of Oradea, which explains its resemblance to the synagogue there; another Hungarian guide says that Bach came from Vác. The survey calls the style “Romantic”, and journalists describe it as “Moorish”. Both labels reflect the eclectic style of Hungarian synagogues of the late nineteenth century.

As the county museum describes it, the centre of the façade is a projecting bay of three axes, its gable crowned by carved Tablets of the Law and pierced by two round windows. Two corner towers carry Stars of David, and rows of arched windows and a double cornice mark the level of the women’s gallery. The ground floor is finished in rough rusticated render. Inside, the Torah ark stands at the end of the main hall, the women’s gallery rests on iron columns and the walls are painted with decorative motifs. The hall held about a thousand worshippers, according to JTA and AGERPRES.

On the south side of the plot stands the Talmud Torah prayer house. A Hungarian guide dates its completion to 1927, JTA to 1921. This smaller building, easier to heat, is where the community prays today.

Rabbi Joel’s “Reserved Seat”

The great synagogue was the centre of the town’s Orthodox Jewry in the years when its name, Satmar, became famous throughout the Hasidic world. Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, elected rabbi of the town in 1928 and finally installed in 1934, prayed here before the Holocaust, according to JTA. The community’s president, Adrian Beșa, told the Romanian news agency AGERPRES in 2020 that the rabbi “had his reserved seat at the synagogue in Satu Mare”. For Rabbi Joel’s story and the movement named after the town, see our article on the origins of Satmar Hasidism.

The Memorial in the Courtyard

In 2004 a memorial to the Jews of the town and its district who perished in the Holocaust was dedicated in the synagogue courtyard. According to the memorial portal of the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, it stands between the great synagogue and the older Orthodox prayer house, and its inscription is in Romanian, Hungarian, English and Hebrew. The English text commemorates “more than 18.000 Jews from Satu Mare and surroundings”, deported in May–June 1944 on the orders of the Hungarian fascist government to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where most of them were murdered.

The Wiesel Commission report lists six trains that left the Satu Mare ghetto between 19 May and 1 June 1944. For the ghetto and the deportations, see our article on the history of the Jews of Satu Mare.

A Large Building for a Small Community

Several thousand Jews returned to the town after the war, but emigration, mostly to Israel, soon shrank the community, and the synagogue became far too large for its congregation. In 2004 a JTA correspondent described the two adjacent synagogues as empty and decaying, though traces of their original decoration were still visible. In 2017 JTA reported that the great synagogue was no longer used for worship. The community, then about 110 members, could not afford to heat or renovate it; the interior walls still showed damage from the 1970 flood, and the hall occasionally hosted concerts. The community, which today belongs to the Neolog stream, prays in the prayer house next door.

The building has not been forgotten. AGERPRES reported in 2020 that groups of Satmar Hasidim from the United States and Israel come to the town, pray in the synagogue for about half an hour and then go on to the cemetery. We found no current source on a restoration of the building.

Visiting

• The Great Synagogue — Strada Decebal 4, in the town centre.
• The Talmud Torah prayer house — on the south side of the same plot; the community’s place of worship today.
• The Holocaust memorial — in the courtyard, between the synagogue and the prayer house.

The office of the Jewish Community of Satu Mare is in the same compound, at Strada Decebal 4A, tel. +40 261 713 703 (according to the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania, FCER). The synagogue has no published opening hours; arrange access to the hall in advance with the community. According to the memorial portal, the memorial in the courtyard is accessible at all times.