The Great Synagogue of Botoșani: Beirut on the Western Wall

In the centre of Botoșani, hemmed in by apartment blocks, stands a synagogue its congregants called the “Hoykhe Shul”, the High Synagogue. It was built in 1834 according to the usual sources, and its ceiling is painted with views of the Land of Israel unlike anything else in the synagogues of Moldavia. Of the dozens of prayer houses the town once had, it is the only one still open.

The High Synagogue

In the 19th century Botoșani was home to one of the largest Jewish communities in Moldavia. Yad Vashem’s Pinkas HaKehillot counts two synagogues and sixty prayer houses in the town in that century, and between the world wars two synagogues and some seventy study houses and guild “shuln”. The name “Hoykhe Shul” (in Romanian Sinagoga Înaltă, the High Synagogue, and officially Sinagoga Mare, the Great Synagogue) set it apart from the small prayer rooms around it.

The date 1834 appears in the synagogue list of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania (FCER), on the Memorial Museums portal and in the local press. The Pinkas itself gives no date, and records that the town’s “big synagogue” burned in 1887 together with five religious schools and the Talmud Torah. We found no source that settles whether this was the same building or another synagogue, so the question remains open.

The building

From the outside it is a long, restrained building, its walls divided by pilasters. Twelve windows at upper-floor level light the rectangular prayer hall. The local press describes the style as Romantic with neo-Gothic touches. Inside, the heavy wooden doors survive, and three spaces carry wall and ceiling paintings: the main prayer hall, the women’s gallery and a small heated prayer room used in winter.

Guidebooks also describe ornate chandeliers, a central bimah behind a trellis and a carved, painted Ark crowned by a double-headed eagle, a familiar motif in East European synagogues. Apartment blocks went up around the building in the communist period, and first-time visitors can easily walk past without recognising it.

Views of the Land of Israel on the ceiling

The synagogue’s treasure is its murals. The Jewish art historian Ilia Rodov of Bar-Ilan University studied them in a 2013 article, based on photographs taken by Zussia Efron in 1968. In his view the paintings are later than the building: they were made after 1875, because they copy M. Munk’s “Panorama des heiligen Landes”, published that year. The painter is unknown.

Two rows of painted panels run along the base of the vault: landscapes, signs of the zodiac and allegorical animals. Rodov calls them “the earliest known series of landscape murals” in Moldavian synagogues. Among the landscapes are Bethlehem and Mount Zion, as well as a panel captioned “the village of Biryat”. According to Rodov, the painter misread the name “Birya” on Munk’s map and confused its letters.

The western wall holds another surprise. The city painted there is not Jerusalem but Beirut, copied from the same “Panorama”. Unlike other Moldavian synagogues, the vault shows almost no recognisable holy sites and no tombs of the righteous, only blue sky, green hills and white houses with red roofs. Rodov suggests that the emphasis on Birya and Beirut reflects the spirit of Hibbat Zion and a shift from longing for the Holy Land to practical plans for settlement, and he calls the Botoșani landscapes “a unique local experiment”. This is the scholar’s interpretation, not documented fact. He also notes that the western-wall cityscape was repainted in 1971, “approximately” following the outline and colours of the original.

Restoration and decay

According to the Memorial Museums portal, the neo-Renaissance interior, with its murals, ceiling paintings and chandelier, was restored between 2008 and 2012. We found no further source detailing the scope or funding of the work.

Since then the building has deteriorated again. In October 2024 the community’s president, Fredi Goldenberg, told the local press that the synagogue was in a state of decline: rainwater is getting in and damaging, above all, the painted canvas, and restoring it is very expensive. The community has asked the Ministry of Culture and Botoșani City Hall for help. The City Hall has previously funded major repairs at the Jewish cemetery.

The synagogue today

The Federation lists the synagogue as active, and it is the only working synagogue in the town. Another building, at Strada Vornic Boldur 18 and dating from the 18th or 19th century, appears on the same list as a synagogue no longer in use. According to the community, about thirty Jews live in Botoșani today. On 19 October 2024, during the Night of Open Synagogues, dozens of residents visited, and the community’s guide Mihaela Talpalariu explained that the synagogue opens one day a week, with visiting days announced on the community’s Facebook page.

Visiting

The synagogue is in the town centre. The Federation gives the address as Strada Marchian 1; the local press gives Strada Teatrului 1. We found no fixed opening hours. Arrange your visit in advance with the Jewish Community of Botoșani, Strada 1 Decembrie 54, tel. +40 742 267 384, per the Federation’s website. What to look for:

• The two rows of panels at the base of the vault: landscapes, zodiac signs and animals
• The cityscape on the western wall: Beirut, not Jerusalem
• The carved Ark and the original wooden doors
• The women’s gallery and the small winter prayer room, both painted

For the community’s history, see our story on the Jews of Botoșani.