A Boulevard Over the Quarter: How Jewish Bucharest Was Erased in the 1980s

In the summer of 1986, according to contemporary reports, the bulldozers moved in on “the Spanish synagogue” of Bucharest – most likely Kahal Grande – even though Romania’s ambassador in Washington had assured American Jewish leaders that the building would not be touched. Within a few years most of the streets of the historic Jewish quarter and a string of synagogues had been wiped out to make way for Ceaușescu’s House of the People and the monumental boulevard leading to it. This is the story of the decade in which Jewish Bucharest disappeared from the map.

From the 1977 Earthquake to the “City of the Future”

On 4 March 1977 a severe earthquake struck Bucharest. Nicolae Ceaușescu saw the destruction as an opportunity: most historians agree that it was after the quake that his plan for a Civic Centre (Centrul Civic) took shape – a vast axis of power centred on the House of the People (Casa Poporului), today the Palace of the Parliament. Work on the building began in 1984, to designs by the young architect Anca Petrescu, and with it came the great demolitions.

The destruction did not stop at buildings damaged by the earthquake. The Uranus neighbourhood was almost entirely erased, and whole streets to its east followed. According to estimates published in the Romanian press, around 20 churches and thousands of homes were demolished, and tens of thousands of residents were evicted; estimates of the number displaced vary between sources. From the House of the People, the Boulevard of the Victory of Socialism (Bulevardul Victoria Socialismului), today Bulevardul Unirii, ran east for about three and a half kilometres to Piața Alba Iulia. Its route cut straight through the area where the synagogues and institutions of the Jews of Văcărești and Dudești were concentrated, as we describe in “Between Văcărești and Dudești”.

A Quarter Already Emptied

By the time the bulldozers arrived, the quarter was already a shadow of itself. In 1947 about 150,000 Jews lived in Bucharest, according to the Encyclopaedia Judaica. Between 1944 and 1951 more than 125,000 Jews left Romania for Palestine and then Israel, and the 1956 census counted only 44,202 Jews in the capital. From the late 1960s emigration became a transaction: according to the historian Radu Ioanid, between 1968 and 1989 Ceaușescu “sold” 40,577 Jews to Israel for about $112.5 million, at $2,500 and later $3,300 a head.

The man who stood between the community and the regime was Chief Rabbi Moses Rosen, who served from 1948 until his death in 1994 and also headed the Federation of Jewish Communities from 1964. His critics called him the “Red Rabbi”; after the regime fell he said that “Ceausescu wasn’t my friend, but we had to deal with him”, and argued that this dealing had allowed hundreds of thousands of Jews to leave for Israel. In 1978 there were about 40,000 Jews in all of Romania, most of them elderly. The quarter demolished in the 1980s was therefore above all a quarter of synagogues, institutions and memories, rather than of a living community.

The Synagogues That Were Erased

There is no authoritative count of all the synagogues and prayer houses demolished in Bucharest in the 1980s. Researchers at the Wilhelm Filderman Centre for the Study of the History of the Jews in Romania, led by the historian Anca Tudorancea, are documenting them in a dedicated project, and Radio Romania International published the core of the list in 2020. These are the synagogues whose loss is documented by name:

• The Carpenters’ Synagogue – built in 1842 and rebuilt in 1895, desecrated by the Iron Guard, demolished in 1984.
• Adath Yeshurun – an Orthodox synagogue of 1915 near the Carpenters’ Synagogue, demolished in 1984.
• Fraterna – the tailors’ guild synagogue on Strada Mămulari, from 1863. Damaged in the 1977 earthquake, demolished in 1986.
• The Malbim Synagogue – built in 1864 on the initiative of Rabbi Meir Leibush Wisser, the Malbim, and rebuilt in 1912. It stood on Strada Bravilor, in the path of the boulevard, and was demolished in 1986 according to RRI (other sources give 1985 or 1987). The synagogue and the rabbi have articles of their own.
• Kahal Grande, the Great Spanish Temple – at Strada Negru Vodă 12, built in 1817–1819 (sources differ) and rebuilt in the 19th century. It was burned in the January 1941 pogrom; sources disagree on whether it was restored after the war or left in ruins. US State Department cables and the contemporary press record the demolition of “the Spanish synagogue” in the summer of 1986, most likely this building; RRI gives 1987 and other sources 1985.
• The Gaster Synagogue – on Strada Sticlari, built in 1858 by the Gaster family and rebuilt in 1903. Damaged in the earthquakes of 1940 and 1977, and demolished in 1987 according to RRI.

With the synagogues went the homes, shops and workshops around them, and the course of Calea Văcărești itself was changed beyond recognition. Văcărești Monastery, which gave the road its name, was pulled down at the end of the decade too. The photographer Cristian Popescu recorded the street in 1985–1987, its last years, in an album described as “visual archaeology”.

What Was Saved, and How

Three major Jewish buildings near the boulevard survived. The tailors’ Holy Union Temple on Strada Mămulari, where Rosen had opened the Museum of the History of the Jews in Romania in 1978, stayed where it was – and, according to Filderman Centre researchers, saved half the street with it. The Great (Polish) Synagogue on Strada Vasile Adamache survived, but tall communist blocks were built around it, hiding it from the street. The Choral Temple on Strada Sfânta Vineri remained the community’s main synagogue.

The firmest documentation of the rescue lies in the American diplomatic archive. In June 1987 reports arrived that the Great Synagogue, too, was to be demolished. On 18 June Assistant Secretary of State Rozanne Ridgway raised the matter with Romania’s ambassador in Washington, Nicolae Gavrilescu, noting that the demolition of “the Spanish synagogue” in 1986 had already damaged efforts to renew Romania’s most-favoured-nation trade status with the United States. The next day Deputy Foreign Minister Olimpia Solomonescu told US Ambassador Roger Kirk that no decision had ever been taken to demolish the Choral Temple, the Great Synagogue or the museum. The embassy believed the Bucharest mayor’s office had floated the idea without full authority, and noted that demolition was continuing one block from the Great Synagogue. Washington asked that the assurance be conveyed directly to Rabbi Rosen, who was in Israel at the time.

Community memory credits Rabbi Rosen with saving the synagogues. The documents confirm that his alarm and American pressure led to a formal commitment to leave the three buildings standing; more detailed accounts of his personal dealings with Ceaușescu rest largely on his own testimony.

A Double Map: Reading the Boulevard

Today nothing on Bulevardul Unirii marks the synagogues that stood in its path. Monumental blocks, fountains and broad traffic lanes cover Strada Bravilor, Negru Vodă 12 and the lanes that once led to Calea Văcărești. To see the vanished quarter you have to hold two maps: today’s, and the maps and photographs from before 1984. The survivors – the Holy Union Temple, the Great Synagogue in its courtyard between apartment blocks, and the Choral Temple – all lie a short walk from Union Square, which shows just how close the line of demolition came.

Visiting

There is no single site to visit: the tour is a walk along Bulevardul Unirii east from Union Square, with visits to the survivors north of it. Start at the Museum of the History of the Jews in Romania, Strada Mămulari 3, which according to its website is open Monday to Thursday, 10:00–17:00, and Sunday, 9:00–12:30, and closed on Friday, Saturday and holidays. Access to the Great Synagogue and the Choral Temple depends on restoration work and events, and should be arranged in advance with the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania (FCER) or the Bucharest Jewish community. The historic addresses of the demolished synagogues are not valid navigation addresses. For a full walking route through the historic quarter, see “Between Văcărești and Dudești”.