A Jewish Day in Iași: From the Great Synagogue to the Păcurari Cemetery

In 1939 Iași had 112 synagogues. Today what remains can be seen in a single day: two museums, four synagogues, the community office and one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Romania.

Before You Set Out

Arrange in advance with the Jewish Community of Iași, Strada Elena Doamna 15 (tel. +40 232 313 711). The synagogues and the cemetery have no fixed opening hours. Distances and walking times in this article are estimates; check them on a map. We found no verified source for an active kosher restaurant in Iași, so ask the community or plan ahead.

1. The House of Museums

Start at Piața Unirii and walk about 300 metres to the House of Museums (Casa Muzeelor), Strada Vasile Alecsandri 6. The former police headquarters houses two museums. The Museum of the Iași Pogrom tells the story of June 1941 through photographs, testimonies and documents. The Museum of the Jewish Theatre in Romania tells the story of Goldfaden and Yiddish theatre, in eleven rooms. Open Tuesday–Sunday 10:00–17:00.

2. Târgu Cucului and the Great Synagogue

From there, walk about a kilometre, 15–20 minutes, to the old Jewish quarter of Târgu Cucului. The Great Synagogue on Strada Sinagogilor was built around 1657–1671 and is regarded as the oldest surviving synagogue in Romania. Facing it, on Romanian-Israeli Friendship Square, stands the obelisk to the victims of the pogrom.

3. Strada Elena Doamna: the Merarilor Synagogue and the Community Office

A few minutes’ walk away, on Strada Elena Doamna, stands the Merarilor Synagogue — the apple sellers’ synagogue, built in 1865 according to BZI. While the Great Synagogue was closed for restoration, services moved here. Next door, at number 15, is the community office with a small community museum, entered from Strada Benjamin Fondane. The museum’s hours are irregular.

4. Two More Synagogues

The shoemakers’ synagogue (Cismarilor) stands on Strada Ghica Vodă. The Schor Synagogue at Strada Sfântul Constantin 5 is listed as functioning by KehilaLinks, as of a 2015 update. Which two synagogues are active today should be confirmed with the community.

5. The Păcurari Cemetery

The Jewish cemetery in the Păcurari district, in the west of the city, is reached by car or taxi, from Strada Păcurari along the Jewish Cemetery Alley. According to Agerpres it opened in 1881, covers about 26 hectares and holds about 150,000 graves; a JewishGen survey of 2000 estimated about 50,000 visible stones. The land was bought by printer Hersh Goldner and Wolf Wasserman in the name of the Jewish hospital, because Jews could not then own land in the Copou district.

The cemetery holds the mass graves of the 1941 pogrom victims, a monument shaped like railway wagons in memory of the “death trains”, a plot of Jewish soldiers of the First World War, and ohalim of rabbis. The grounds are large and hilly; allow one to two hours.

The Cemetery That Vanished

The old Jewish cemetery of Iași, on Strada Ciurchi in the Tătărași district, held more than 20,000 graves according to historian Adrian Cioflâncă. It was destroyed in 1943 on the orders of the Antonescu regime, and the mayor used the gravestones as building material. In October 2020 heavy rain in Tătărași Park exposed a chamber full of headstone fragments.