The Synagogues of Galați: The Craftsmen’s Temple and What Was Lost

Between the wars Galați had more than twenty synagogues, many of them belonging to craft guilds: tailors, blacksmiths, porters, carters. Today only one remains, the Craftsmen’s Temple on Strada Dornei, rededicated in 2014 after five years of restoration.

A Town of Guild Synagogues

According to a heritage study prepared for the Federation of Jewish Communities, the Jews of Galați were already praying in small houses of prayer in 1730–1750. The first synagogue was built, according to Yad Vashem’s Pinkas HaKehillot, in 1780, together with a mikveh. This was the Great Synagogue on Podul de Piatră street, rebuilt in 1813, which also housed the community’s administration.

In the 19th century every association built a synagogue of its own. According to the Pinkas, the tailors’ guild, with 150 members, founded a synagogue in 1826. Chabad Hasidim founded one in 1846, and in 1847–1848 three more followed, among them “Ohel” and “Edelstein.” In 1860 the carters built their own synagogue, and in 1863 a progressive synagogue with a choir and organ was founded. Another list, given on the Jewish Romania website, dates the “Choral Temple” to 1855 and also includes the synagogues of the blacksmiths, the millers and the porters.

Sources differ on how many synagogues there were before the Second World War. The Encyclopaedia Judaica counts 22. A 2014 article counts 23 temples and synagogues between the wars. The Muzeon website counts 28 places of worship in 1938–1940, and the heritage study counts 20 in 1941. Either way, their number came close to that of the town’s Orthodox churches.

How They Were Lost

Some synagogues were damaged in the riots: the 1859 pogrom destroyed the Great Synagogue. But most of the destruction came in the 20th century. According to the Pinkas, in August 1944 the retreating Germans burned the Great Synagogue, the modern prayer house and the Orthodox study house of the craftsmen and tailors. The historian Arthur Viorel Tuluș, writing in the journal Danubius (2016), names four causes of their disappearance: earthquakes, wartime bombing, the urban redevelopment of the communist era, and the emigration of the Jews to Israel.

Among the demolished synagogues, the sources name the Bleizer synagogue on Strada Războieni 1 and Rabbi Senkman’s synagogue on Strada Serii 13. According to Tuluș, the Craftsmen’s Temple is the only Jewish house of worship still standing in Galați.

The Craftsmen’s Temple

The “Society of Jewish Craftsmen,” a mutual-aid society founded in 1875 with 180 members, built its synagogue on Strada Dornei. The sources give the building different dates. The Federation and the community website give 1875, the year the society was founded. The Pinkas gives 1892. The heritage study and the Muzeon website give 1896: according to Muzeon, the building was dedicated on 11 August 1896 on the site of a prayer house of 1806. The society paid for the construction, and community members worked on it as volunteers.

In 1925–1929 the temple was rebuilt and enlarged, and since then it has seated 250. According to the heritage study, it is built of brick on a reinforced-concrete frame, one of the first buildings in town built this way. The hall is very tall, lit by three rows of windows, and the interior is decorated in a Baroque style: a stucco ceiling, chandeliers, inscriptions, and women’s galleries that recall theatre boxes. The original furniture and the round stained-glass window survive.

According to a 2014 article in PresaGalați, during the Second World War the building served as a detention camp for Jews. It was badly damaged in the 1977 earthquake. Consolidation work after 2000 added concrete columns and beams to the façade and spoiled its exterior. In 2009 the Federation of Jewish Communities, led by Aurel Vainer, decided to restore the building, with funding from the Caritatea foundation and the Joint. In May 2014 the temple was rededicated at a ceremony attended by the former Chief Rabbi Menachem Hacohen and Rabbi Rafael Shaffer.

The Cemeteries

Galați had at least three Jewish cemeteries. The first, from around 1590 with stones dated 1595, lay in the town valley. The second was founded in 1629 at Bădălan, on Strada Pescarilor. Nothing remains of either. The cemetery in use today was founded in the 18th century: the Encyclopaedia Judaica gives 1774 and adds that it was recently restored, while the Pinkas gives 1744.

The entrance is at Strada Ștefan cel Mare 34. According to the heritage study it has a tahara house, rabbis’ ohalim, old and newer graves and an old inscription over the gate. It also has three memorials: the “Heroes’ Monument” to 128 Jews who fell in the First World War, a memorial to victims whose bodies, according to its inscription, the Nazis turned into soap, and a memorial to the Torah-scroll parchments destroyed in the war.

Visiting

• Craftsmen’s Temple and community office: Strada Dornei 7–11. Tel. +40 236 413 662, per the Federation’s website.
• Cemetery: entrance at Strada Ștefan cel Mare 34.

No fixed opening hours have been published, so visits to the synagogue and the cemetery should be arranged in advance. On Shabbat and festivals, respect the community’s service schedule.