The Tailors’ Synagogue: The Museum That Keeps the Story of Romanian Jewry

The synagogue on Strada Mămulari was built by tailors, and by the time its last prayers were said, in the mid-1960s, there was no one left to pray there. In 1978 it became home to the Museum of the History of the Jews in Romania, the first of its kind in the country, and the rooms where craftsmen once prayed now tell the story of Romanian Jewry as a whole.

The Tailors’ Guild Synagogue

In nineteenth-century Bucharest, as in Iași and other towns of Moldavia and Wallachia, Jewish craft guilds had their own houses of prayer. The synagogue at Strada Mămulari 3 was built by the tailors’ guild, and its formal name was “Holy Union,” in Romanian Templul Unirea Sfântă (in Hebrew, Ahdut Kodesh). According to the Romanian text of the museum’s website, it was originally called the Great Tailors’ Synagogue.

There is no agreement on the year it was built, and even the museum’s own website gives two dates. The English version of the site, the FCER synagogue list, Jewish Heritage Europe and a report by the Agerpres news agency give 1836. The Romanian version of the same site dates construction to 1850–1852.

The 1910 Façade and the Hard Years

The building you see today is largely the result of rebuilding. According to the Romanian text of the museum’s website, it was rebuilt in 1910–1934 to plans by the architect Iulius Grunfeld; the English text says only that it was “restored and substantially modified in 1910.” The façade is marked by a large round window above a row of arches, along with Hebrew inscriptions. The synagogue was fitted into a dense residential street rather than standing on an open square.

Rabbi Meyer Abraham Halevy led the congregation in 1935–1940 and 1946–1963. In the pogrom of January 1941 the synagogue was devastated by the Legionnaires, and it was later restored. In the postwar decades it lost its worshippers, like most of the city’s synagogues, as Jews emigrated to Israel. According to the Romanian text, the last service was held in 1966; the English text says it “lost its original function in 1968.”

A Museum in Ceaușescu’s Romania

In 1978 the museum was founded in the building on the initiative of Chief Rabbi Dr. Moses Rosen, whose story is told in our article on the Choral Temple. According to the museum’s website, it was the first institution of its kind in Romania. It was first called the Museum of the Jewish Communities and was headed by the writer Marius Mircu. A Jewish museum opening in Ceaușescu’s Romania was not a matter of course: the regime permitted it, and Rosen used it to preserve the memory of a community that was steadily shrinking.

In the 1980s the regime demolished large parts of the old Jewish quarter around it, but the building survived. In 2004 it was declared a historic monument. In 2015, on the initiative of FCER president Dr. Aurel Vainer, it closed for restoration, and in June 2019 it reopened as the Dr. Nicolae Cajal Museum of Jewish History and Culture in Romania (Agerpres; Romania Insider). The headline Radio Free Europe chose for its report on the reopening sums up the spirit: “We too built Romania.”

From Shtetl to City: What the Collection Tells

According to the museum’s website, the collection includes documents, photographs, works of art, ritual objects and publications. The display is built as a journey: from the life of the Jewish small town to the city, from family and schooling to participation in the life of the country. It is neither purely an art museum nor a collection of ritual objects; it sets out to draw a portrait of whole Jewish lives in Romania.

• Ground floor: the exhibition “From Shtetl to the City,” a Jewish home and kitchen, the Jewish holidays, the “Heder Alef-Beys” schoolroom where children learn their first letters and prayers, and the “Millennial Travelers” section. Decorations awarded to Jewish soldiers in the First World War are also on display.
• First floor: the FCER Pinacotheca, with paintings by Victor Brauner, M. H. Maxy and Iosif Iser alongside works by Ștefan Luchian and Octav Băncilă, and avant-garde and contemporary art.
• Second floor: a restored Torah ark and ritual objects. The ark’s origin is disputed even on the museum’s website: the English text says it came from the synagogue in Hârlău, the Romanian text from the synagogue of the Ștefănești Rebbe in Iași.

Visiting

The museum is at Strada Mămulari 3, near Piața Unirii. It is a good starting point for a walk through the Jewish quarter: the Choral Temple and the Great Synagogue are within walking distance. According to the official website, it is open Monday to Thursday 10:00–17:00 (last entry 16:30) and Sunday 9:00–12:30. It is closed on Friday and Saturday, on Romanian national holidays and on Jewish holidays. Phone: 021 311 0870. The website does not list an admission price. Check the hours on the website shortly before your visit, and allow time to read the explanations rather than just photographing the façade.