The Status Quo Ante Synagogue of Târgu Mureș

In the centre of Târgu Mureș, on what was once School Street, stands one of the largest synagogues in Transylvania: an eclectic building with an octagonal dome and two towers crowned with Stars of David. It was built in 1899–1900 to designs by the Viennese architect Jakob Gartner, survived the Holocaust in which most of the community that built it was murdered, and still serves the small community that remains in the city.

A community that came late to the town

Târgu Mureș — Marosvásárhely to its Hungarian-speaking inhabitants — was a principal town of the Székely Land in Transylvania. According to the website of the local Jewish community, Jews are mentioned in the area as early as 1638 and settled along the Mureș river in the 17th century. In the town itself, however, they were permitted to settle only late: according to the YIVO Encyclopedia, the first to receive the right of residence was the goldsmith Iosif Vojtitz in 1828, and in 1838 only five Jewish families were counted there. The community’s website states that free settlement in the town became possible only after 1850.

From then on growth was rapid. In 1850 the community numbered 202 souls and elected its first rabbi, Moses Fürst. According to YIVO a synagogue was founded in 1860 and destroyed in 1862 in violence that spread through the town and the surrounding villages; Explore Carpathia dates the town’s first synagogue to 1857. By 1890 more than a thousand Jews lived in the town, and by 1910, 2,755.

“Status Quo Ante”

After the General Jewish Congress in Hungary in 1868–1869, Hungarian Jewry split into three streams: Orthodox, Neolog and “Status Quo Ante” — congregations that refused to join either camp and remained “as things were before”. Where the Marosvásárhely community stood on this map is not clear-cut: YIVO writes that it declared itself Neolog, while the community’s website describes it as a Status Quo Ante congregation that separated from the Orthodox community, and that is the name the synagogue bears to this day. A separate Orthodox community operated alongside it after 1871. A survivor from the town told the Centropa archive that it had only two synagogues, Orthodox and Status Quo, and no Neolog one.

The architect from Vienna

By the end of the 19th century the small prayer house no longer sufficed for the growing community. According to Explore Carpathia the design was commissioned in 1898 from Jakob Gartner, a Viennese Jewish architect of Moravian origin and one of the most sought-after synagogue builders in the Habsburg Empire before the First World War. The community’s website notes that this is the only synagogue he designed in Transylvania, and the only one of his synagogues on the territory of historic Hungary still used for worship. The building was carried out by the mason and contractor Pál Soós, whose name is carved together with those of the donors on the marble plaques in the entrance hall.

Construction began in 1899, and according to the community’s website the synagogue was inaugurated on 16 September 1900 by Rabbi Dr Joachim Willheim, the community’s rabbi from 1889 to 1903, in the presence of the county leadership, the mayor and representatives of the other faiths.

The building

The style is eclectic, combining Moorish, Romanesque and Gothic elements. Above the prayer hall rises an octagonal central tower decorated with rose windows, and on either side of the façade stand two smaller octagonal towers with onion domes topped by Stars of David. The entrance is a Romanesque portico of three arches, and above it a Gothic-inspired rose window carries the verse from Isaiah 56:7: “For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

Inside, as the community describes it, the bimah stands in the centre of the hall and the Torah ark on the east wall, crowned by a small onion dome. The ceilings are painted with stars and a central Star of David, the main door is set with Art Nouveau stained glass, and the pews still keep their white ceramic tiles bearing the names of the seat-holders from before the war. The synagogue has 552 seats: 314 for men in the hall and 238 for women and children in the gallery.

After 1944

In 1941, 5,693 Jews lived in the town. In May–June 1944, under Hungarian rule, the Jews of the town and its surroundings were concentrated in a ghetto at the brickyard and deported to Auschwitz (see the story on the Jews of Târgu Mureș). Beside the Torah ark is a white marble memorial giving the number of the community’s martyrs — 5,943, according to the community’s website.

The survivors returned to the building, but their numbers dwindled and the building deteriorated. According to the reports, consolidation and restoration — of the walls, foundations, interior and façade — were carried out around 2000 with funding from the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania and donors abroad, and the façade was repainted apricot with white ornament. The building is on the list of historic monuments of Mureș County. In 2018 a small Jewish museum of the community opened next to it.

Visiting

The entrance to the synagogue is at Strada Aurel Filimon 23, in the city centre. According to the community’s website, the synagogue is open to visitors Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 12:30, and groups are asked to give their arrival time and size at least one day in advance. The synagogue hosts holiday services, concerts and lectures, and an audio guide in four languages is available by QR code. The Federation’s website lists the number +40 265 261 810, which the community’s website also gives for arranging visits.

• The rose window with the verse from Isaiah above the entrance
• The donors’ marble plaques in the entrance hall
• The marble memorial to the victims beside the Torah ark
• The name tiles on the pews
• The community’s small museum, by arrangement