Great Synagogue of Brăila

PRZEGLĄD

Historia Great Synagogue of Brăila

Brăila, the Wallachian grain port on the Danube, had a small Jewish community under Ottoman rule; its first synagogue, recorded as destroyed in 1819, is described in a separate entry. After 1829 the town grew quickly and the community with it. Pinkas Hakehillot Romania records that a large synagogue was built in 1832, which kept a Torah scroll and a Hebrew library. A local witness interviewed by Centropa, Silo Oberman, dates the Main Synagogue to 1833 and places it at 25 Coroanei Street, now Mihail Sebastian Street, describing it as one of the city's two representative synagogues; the other was the Frankishe Schul of 1837, rebuilt in 1862, which survives as the Choral Temple. A Romanian digest of synagogue history notes that two Scottish travellers described the Great Synagogue in 1839 and that its centenary was marked in 1936. English Wikipedia's list of Romanian synagogues gives 1865 for a Brăila Great Synagogue, without a source. The building was later dismantled and the land sold; the Hotel Corona (Korona) stands at 25 Mihail Sebastian Street today. When this happened, and who carried it out, is not stated in any source read.

LOKALIZACJA

Where it stood

Historic: Strada Coroanei nr. 25, Brăila. Today: Strada Mihail Sebastian nr. 25, Brăila 810083 (site of Hotel Corona/Korona); exact address, building footprint not documented.

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Społeczność żydowska

Pinkas Hakehillot Romania says that Jews first settled in Brăila in the fifteenth century and that the early community was largely Sephardi. When the Church of Scotland's mission passed through in September 1839, a Jewish watchmaker told them there were about thirty Jewish families in the town, with an old and very small synagogue, while eight German families from Vienna were building a new one of their own; they had no rabbi. Growth after that was rapid: from 21 Jewish taxpayers in 1828 the community rose to 9,830 people in 1899, 17.5 per cent of the town, and about 10,900 in 1904, before falling to 7,246 in 1930. Rabbis named in Pinkas include Yaakov Margulies from Hotin (1849-1871), Avner Casvan (1862-1873) and Shlomo Meer (from 1874). The first Reform synagogue in the Old Kingdom opened in Brăila in 1863, and the community stayed divided until a unified administration was restored in 1905. Before the First World War the town had eight synagogues and six study houses; the Centropa witness counts fourteen houses of prayer in 1940.

Architektura i projekt

No photograph, drawing, plan or written description of the building's appearance was found. Its form, materials, size, seating capacity and architect are all unknown. Pinkas Hakehillot Romania records only that the large synagogue of 1832 housed a Torah scroll and a Hebrew library. It also places the Synagogue of the Tailors in the courtyard of the Great Synagogue, which shows that the building stood within an enclosed yard shared with at least one smaller prayer house. The plot was on Coroanei Street, now Mihail Sebastian Street, in the old centre of Brăila a short distance from the Danube, and is large enough to have taken a hotel building after the synagogue was removed. The 1839 account of the Scottish mission does not describe the building beyond calling the existing synagogue old and very small, and it is not certain that it refers to this building rather than an earlier one.

Życie w synagodze

Little is recorded about worship in the Great Synagogue itself. Pinkas Hakehillot Romania notes that it kept a Torah scroll noted in the community's history and housed a Hebrew library, which suggests it served as a place of study as well as prayer. The courtyard was shared with the Synagogue of the Tailors, one of several trade congregations in the town alongside those of the carpenters and other craftsmen. A Romanian digest of synagogue history records that the Great Synagogue's centenary was celebrated in 1936. Centropa's Brăila testimony names Mayer Thenen as the community's penultimate rabbi, serving until 1940, and Michel Dobruschim as the last rabbi, who left for Israel in 1954, but does not say at which synagogue either officiated. During the refugee influx of 1940 the town's synagogues were used to shelter refugees, according to Pinkas Hakehillot Romania.

Zniszczenie

No source found records damage to the Great Synagogue during the Second World War, and none gives the date on which it was taken down. The only account is that of Silo Oberman, a Brăila Jew interviewed by Centropa. He says that the synagogue 'has now been dismantled' and that 'they sold the plot of land and the hotel was built where the synagogue was located', naming the buyer only as 'Mr. P.' He explains that this was done because 'they couldn't afford the maintenance costs', and judges it 'something that wasn't totally legitimate' and 'a profanation'. He does not say who 'they' were. Whether the sale took place under Communist rule or after 1989, and who physically demolished the building, is not recorded.

Los społeczności

In the late 1930s antisemitic parties gained ground in Brăila, and in February 1938 the Jewish members were removed from the town council. Under the National Legionary regime of the Iron Guard, from autumn 1940, Legionnaires seized the community bathhouse equipment at gunpoint, forced commissars on Jewish shops and drove Jewish grain merchants out of the port, which Jews were forbidden to enter from 30 September 1940. Forced labour was imposed under the Legionnaires and organised from August 1941 for men aged 18 to 50 by the Antonescu regime; fourteen Brăila Jews died in the labour camp at Turcoaia, and a levy of 60 million lei was imposed in June 1943. Dr Isac Leon was deported to Auschwitz and killed there. The community was not deported as a whole and numbered 5,950 in 1947, swelled by returning deportees from Transnistria. Emigration to Israel then reduced it to 3,500 by 1950, about 1,000 by 1969 and 141 by 2004.

Miejsce dzisiaj

The site is 25 Mihail Sebastian Street, formerly Coroanei Street, in central Brăila, where the Centropa witness places the synagogue and where OpenStreetMap records the Hotel Korona (Hotel Corona) at the same house number. The hotel occupies the plot, and no fragment of the synagogue or of the Tailors' prayer house in its courtyard is known to survive. No marker on the site was found. Brăila's Choral Temple, the former Frankishe Schul of 1837, which was rebuilt in 1862, still stands and serves the small remaining community.

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