The Jews of Târgoviște: The Hidden Synagogue of Wallachia’s Old Capital

Târgoviște, capital of the principality of Wallachia for almost three centuries, was never a major Jewish centre: at its peak, in 1930, it had 551 Jews. That small community left behind an unusual synagogue — a building in the Romanian national style, hidden in a courtyard among apartment blocks — and a small cemetery on a hillside at the edge of town.

Merchants in the princes’ city

There is no evidence of Jews in medieval Târgoviște, and the community’s origins remain, as the local press puts it, an open research question. According to an overview published by the Târgoviște municipality in 2023, the traveller Paul of Aleppo mentions Jewish merchants trading in the town in the 17th century, and under Prince Matei Basarab a Jewish merchant was baptised here. In 1812–1818, under Prince Caragea, Jewish families from Ploiești fled here from the plague. In 1840 about 40 families lived in the town, and in 1861 a minyan met in a rented house.

A small 19th-century community

By 1881 the community had a school, a synagogue and a cemetery. In 1892 there were 392 Jews out of 8,922 inhabitants, and in 1899, 337 out of 9,398. In 1897, 42 members signed a document setting up a communal body to maintain a school and synagogue and to support the poor, and four wardens (epitropi) were elected for three years: Hersch Goldstein, I. A. Weiss, Isac Haiman and Herman Grunblatt. In 1905 a new Jewish school opened, funded by the community and the Jewish Colonization Association.

The 1930 census counted 551 Jews, 2.2 per cent of the population. According to the municipality’s overview, they included dentists, merchants, cinema owners, lawyers and a bank director.

The synagogue on Strada Grigore Alexandrescu

The synagogue stands at Strada Grigore Alexandrescu 37, within the old town, and is a listed historic monument (DB-II-m-B-17175). According to the municipality, a synagogue is first mentioned here in 1880; a former mayor recalled that the building and its land were sold to the community by the boyar Vergu of Bucharest, and the 1886 town map labels the building “Tunelu” — after the “Tunel” ballroom that operated in it. Rebuilding began in 1905, funded by donations, and was completed in 1912; the dates 1905–1912 also appear on the dedicatory plaques in the vestibule, recorded by the Center for Jewish Art at the Hebrew University. The Federation’s list gives the synagogue the date 1880.

According to the Center for Jewish Art, the brick building is in the Neo-Brâncovenesc style — the Romanian national style of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, drawn from the architecture of Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu’s era — and it cannot be seen from the street, as it stands in the middle of a block of flats. Inside, wall paintings in the same style are partly preserved, including Stars of David, and the eastern wall is dominated by a Torah ark decorated with flower medallions and eagles. The Center’s researchers read the choice of the national style as an expression of the Jews’ wish to present themselves as part of Romanian society. In 1924 the community applied for a permit to build clergy housing in the synagogue courtyard.

After 1940 the synagogue was left without a community to maintain it and decayed, and other institutions moved into the adjacent school and clergy house. According to the municipality, in the first decade of the 21st century the building was renovated in a partnership between Valahia University and representatives of the Ploiești Jewish community, and it now serves as a concert hall. It is not listed as a working synagogue by the Federation.

1940–1944: dispossession, flight and the Teiș camp

Târgoviște, in the heart of the Old Kingdom (the Regat), remained under Romanian rule throughout the war. According to the municipality’s overview, in November 1940, under the Legionary regime, Jewish merchants were ordered to hand over their businesses; their goods were inventoried and a month later offered for sale at 10–20 per cent of their value. According to the Center for Jewish Art, about three quarters of the town’s Jews left in 1940–1941 and did not return; 135 remained in 1941, and 130 in 1947.

At Teiș in Dâmbovița County, near Târgoviște, a detention camp for Jews operated in 1941. According to Pinkas HaKehillot, after the Soviet bombing of Ploiești on 14 July 1941 all the Jewish men of Ploiești were expelled to the Teiș camp — and the town’s rabbi refused the release offered to him and went with his community; the camp was disbanded on 1 January 1942. A prisoner list preserved in the Romanian Ministry of Defence records, and published by JewishGen, names 1,225 Jews in the camp on 1 October 1941, four of whom died there. According to an editorial in the local press, most internees were released at the end of September 1941 on condition that they leave the oil zone, and settled mainly in Buzău and Brăila.

The cemetery

The Jewish cemetery lies on a hillside at the edge of town, in the Romlux district. According to a JewishGen Cemetery Discovery Project survey, its oldest stone dates from 1871, the last burial took place in 1980, and it holds between 20 and 100 stones on about 120 by 60 metres, along with a Holocaust memorial; the community of nearby Pucioasa also buried its dead here. An editorial published in 2022 gives different figures — an oldest stone from 1887, about a hundred graves and a last burial in 1968 — and describes a neglected site visited mainly on Heroes’ Day. The memorial, according to the article, carries a faded inscription asking for prayers for the victims of Nazi barbarity.

According to the same article, buried here is also Solomon Herman Kornhauser, who helped Jews during the German occupation in the First World War, was sentenced to death by the Germans and was hanged in Târgoviște on 6 March 1917; King Ferdinand posthumously awarded him the Military Virtue medal.

Visiting

• Synagogue: Strada Grigore Alexandrescu 37, per the Federation and the municipality. A concert hall; no opening hours published.
• Cemetery: in the Romlux district; locked gate, visits by arrangement.
• Arrangements: Târgoviște has no community registered with the Federation; according to the local press the cemetery is looked after by the Ploiești community — Strada Basarabilor 12, tel. +40 244 511 932, per the Federation’s website.
• Nearby: Ploiești, and from there the Prahova valley and Brașov.