The Jews of Sibiu: Outside the Walls of Hermannstadt

Sibiu — Hermannstadt to the Saxons, Nagyszeben to Hungarians — was for centuries the Saxon capital of Transylvania, and for most of that time Jews remained outside its walls. A real community formed only in the second half of the 19th century, yet within two generations it had a school, a Zionist movement and a great synagogue that still stands on Constitution Street, not far from the railway station.

A closed town

The earliest mention of a Jew in Transylvania is tied to the Sibiu area: according to the YIVO Encyclopedia, “Petrus Judaeus” appears in 1357 in the record of a legal dispute in villages near the town. In 1492 King Vladislav II of Hungary ordered the town’s judge to settle disputes between Jews and Christians, and in 1586 a Jewish organist named Pantalone is mentioned. According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, Jews had commercial ties with the town by the end of the 15th century, and attempts to settle there are recorded from the mid-17th century.

But Sibiu was a thoroughly Saxon town, and its government kept it closed. YIVO notes that in the 18th century and the first half of the 19th the town’s magistrates restricted Jewish settlement, and that even after 1850 the authorities, backed by the Saxon press, tried to keep the restrictions in place. It was here, at the Transylvanian Diet of 1837–1838, that a petition for Jewish civil emancipation, drafted by Chief Rabbi Yeḥezkel Paneth, was submitted. The opening came from Vienna: according to YIVO, an imperial resolution of 1851 opened all towns to Jews. The Encyclopaedia Judaica links the beginning of permanent settlement to Hungary’s abolition of residence restrictions in 1848.

An Orthodox community in a Saxon town

A permanent minyan was organised in 1860, and in 1868, after the schism in Hungarian Jewry, the community declared itself Orthodox. The census of 1869–1870 counted only 168 Jews in Sibiu; twenty years later, in 1890, there were 1,307, about 4% of the population. In 1873 the first Hebrew book printed in Transylvania came off a press in Sibiu — Aron Dornzweig’s poetry collection Nevel ve-kinor. According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, the first synagogue was built in 1878, and in 1881 the town saw a blood libel.

From 1890 until his death in 1934 the community was led by Rabbi Ármin Horowitz. Its institutions grew under him: a Jewish school opened in 1919, and the community also supported a Hebrew kindergarten. Zionist activity began right after the First Zionist Congress and expanded greatly between the wars. In 1923 a second congregation was founded — Hasidic according to YIVO, led by Rabbi Tsevi Hirsch Kinstlicher; the Encyclopaedia Judaica calls it “Sephardi”, probably after its prayer rite.

The synagogue on Constitution Street

The great synagogue was built in the late 1890s with funds raised by the community, on what was then Salt Street (Salzgasse) — today Strada Constituției. YIVO associates the plan with Rabbi Horowitz and dates the synagogue to 1899. The synagogue database of ANU – Museum of the Jewish People and an article in the weekly Jüdische Allgemeine attribute the design to the architect Ferenc Szalay (Szalay Ferenc), but the former dates the construction to 1899 and the latter to 1898.

The brick and concrete façade is neoclassical, in a Renaissance spirit, and the faintly pointed mouldings above the windows add a Gothic touch. Inside, as ANU describes it, the hall is laid out as a three-aisled basilica with galleries, Moorish-style arches and a coffered ceiling, with hand-painted and carved decoration. In the front row, metal plaques still bear the names of the pre-war seat holders. In 1986, according to ANU, the synagogue was broken into and its silver candelabra stolen, but the Torah scrolls were spared. The building has been declared a historic monument.

The Second World War

After the partition of Transylvania in August 1940, Sibiu remained on the Romanian side — and so the fate of its Jews differed from that of the Jews of northern Transylvania, who were deported to Auschwitz in 1944. In 1941, 1,361 Jews lived in the town, 1.2% of the population. The Antonescu regime imposed its anti-Jewish laws: community institutions were dissolved, communal property was confiscated, Jews were excluded from public life and the men were drafted into forced labour — according to testimony reported by Jüdische Allgemeine, partly on building a road in the Făgăraș Mountains. YIVO stresses that the planned deportations were not carried out. From 23 August 1944, after Romania changed sides, the town served as a centre for Jewish refugees.

After the war

In 1947 the reorganised community numbered 2,020 — more than before the war. Over the following decades most left, chiefly for Israel; by 1970 about 125 Jews remained in Sibiu, and Friday-night and holiday services were still held in the great synagogue. In 2007, according to Jüdische Allgemeine, the community had 41 members, most of them elderly, and YIVO puts it at fewer than fifty in the early 21st century. According to ANU the main prayer hall has been closed for services since 1999, and the community prays in a small prayer room at the back of the complex. In December 2020 the synagogue’s main gate was restored with support from the German Foreign Office, as part of maintenance work on the building.

The cemetery

The Jewish cemetery, founded in the 19th century, lies on Calea Dumbrăvii, about two kilometres from the community centre and near other cemeteries. According to the survey of the US Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, as reproduced by JewishGen, it measures about 80 by 200 metres, has a tahara house and an ohel, and its inscriptions are in Hebrew, German, Romanian and Hungarian. Buried here, according to Jüdische Allgemeine, are the conductor Henry Selbing, a native of the town and a pupil of Paul Wittgenstein, who went on playing with his left hand after losing his right in an accident and after the war founded and conducted the Sibiu Philharmonic; and the painter Vera Marcu, about a dozen of whose works are held by the Brukenthal Museum.

Visiting

The synagogue stands on Strada Constituției, between the lower town and the railway station. Sources give the house number as 19 or 11, and the website of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania lists the community’s address at number 17. The prayer hall is not open on a regular basis, so arrange your visit in advance with the Jewish Community of Sibiu, on +40 269 216 904, the number listed on the Federation’s website. Visits to the cemetery on Calea Dumbrăvii are also best arranged with the community.

• The synagogue façade and the restored main gate
• The painted prayer hall and the galleries
• The name plaques in the front row of pews
• The Jewish cemetery on Calea Dumbrăvii