Carpenters' Temple, Bucharest

PRZEGLĄD

Historia Carpenters' Temple, Bucharest

Bucharest had many small synagogues besides its large temples, and several belonged to associations of Jewish tradesmen: tailors, cobblers and carpenters each had their own house of prayer. The Carpenters' Temple, called Templul Tâmplarilor in Romanian, was one of the oldest of these. According to Steliu Lambru's articles for Radio Romania International (RRI), it was built in 1842 and rebuilt in 1895, which suggests the congregation was large enough at the end of the century to replace its first building.

In January 1941 the Iron Guard, the fascist Legionary movement, rose against Ion Antonescu and attacked the Jewish districts of Bucharest. RRI records that the Legionnaires vandalised the Carpenters' Temple. The building survived the war and was used again, but in 1984 it was demolished, at the same time as the Orthodox Adath Ieșurim synagogue of 1915 that stood immediately next to it. RRI places these demolitions within the reconstruction and systematization of Bucharest begun by Nicolae Ceaușescu after the 1977 earthquake, which hit the Uranus and Jewish quarters hardest.

Very little else is known from the sources read. Its exact street, architect, size and appearance are unknown, and no photograph has been found. A survey by the Ion Mincu University of Architecture names a carpenters' synagogue on Strada Emigrantului, but gives different dates, so the identification is uncertain.

LOKALIZACJA

Where it stood for 142 years

Historic: Bucharest, street unknown; possibly Strada Emigrantului, between Antim and Sfinții Apostoli streets (Ion Mincu University survey, identification uncertain). Today: Civic Centre area, Sector 5, Bucharest; approximate.

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Społeczność żydowska

Besides its large temples, Jewish Bucharest had many small prayer houses founded by trade associations. Anca Tudorancea, writing in Dilema Veche in 2019 about the synagogues lost to Communist-era demolition, names among them the Unirea Fraternă temple of the tailors and the Al Kiduș Hașem synagogue of the cobblers. The Carpenters' Temple belonged to this world of craft congregations: its Romanian name, Templul Tâmplarilor, identifies it with the Jewish joiners and carpenters of the city. No source read gives the names of its founders, presidents, rabbis or cantors, the number of its members, or whether it followed the traditional or the reformed rite. Its neighbour, the Adath Ieșurim synagogue, built in 1915, was explicitly Orthodox. Whether the two congregations were linked, or whether the newer one was founded by members who left the older, is unknown. The two buildings stood side by side for nearly seventy years until both were pulled down in 1984.

Architektura i projekt

No description, plan or photograph of the Carpenters' Temple was found in the sources read, so its architect, style, materials, seating capacity and interior arrangement are all unknown. RRI's articles give two building dates: 1842, when the synagogue was first built, and 1895, when it was reconstructed. The building that was demolished in 1984 was therefore most probably the one of 1895, possibly incorporating parts of the earlier structure. The survey of demolished buildings published by the documentation centre of the Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism describes a carpenters' synagogue called Unirea Sfântă, dated 1908, on Strada Emigrantului between Antim and Sfinții Apostoli streets, devastated by the Legionnaires in 1941 and pulled down in 1987. If this is the same building, the dates disagree with RRI's; if it is a second carpenters' synagogue, the location of the temple described here is unknown. The 2019 exhibition 'Sinagogi și temple din București, în calea Victoriei Socialismului' and the related volume edited by Costin Gheorghe and Anca Tudorancea probably hold archival plans or photographs.

Życie w synagodze

Almost nothing is recorded about the religious life of the Carpenters' Temple in the sources read. As a guild synagogue it would have served carpenters, joiners and their families who lived and worked nearby, but the sources do not name its rabbis, cantors or officers, describe its services, or say whether it ran a school or charitable society. RRI's articles say only that it was built in 1842, rebuilt in 1895, vandalised in 1941 and demolished in 1984. The fact that the congregation rebuilt the synagogue in 1895, more than fifty years after its foundation, shows that it remained active through the nineteenth century. It stood until 1984, but whether services were still held there in the 1970s and early 1980s is unknown. The Orthodox Adath Ieșurim synagogue next door, built in 1915, offered a second place of worship in the same street, so the area must have had a substantial observant Jewish population in the early twentieth century.

Zniszczenie

The Carpenters' Temple was damaged twice. During the Iron Guard rebellion of 21 to 23 January 1941, when the Legionnaires rose against Ion Antonescu and attacked the Jewish quarters of Bucharest, killing about 125 Jews, they vandalised the synagogue; RRI states this directly ('vandalizat de legionari în 1941'). The building was not destroyed then and stood for more than four decades longer. In 1984 it was demolished, together with the Adath Ieșurim synagogue beside it. RRI's Romanian article sets these losses within the reconstruction and systematization of Bucharest begun by Nicolae Ceaușescu after the earthquake of 4 March 1977, a programme that went far beyond repairing earthquake damage and in which the Uranus and Jewish quarters suffered most. The demolition was therefore carried out under the Communist regime as part of its rebuilding of the city centre, but no source read names the authority that ordered it or the contractor who carried it out. The Ion Mincu University survey gives 1987 for the demolition of a carpenters' synagogue on Strada Emigrantului, which may be the same building.

Los społeczności

The sources read say little about what became of the people who prayed in the Carpenters' Temple. The first blow to the congregation came during the Legionary rebellion of 21 to 23 January 1941, when the Iron Guard rose against Ion Antonescu and attacked the Jewish districts of Bucharest; about 125 Jews were killed in the city, many of them in the Văcărești and Dudești neighbourhoods, before Antonescu crushed the uprising on 24 January. The synagogue itself was vandalised in those days. The building remained standing after the war, which suggests a congregation or the Jewish community still held it, but nothing is recorded about services there under Communism. RRI quotes Anca Tudorancea of the Wilhelm Filderman Centre for the Study of the History of the Jews in Romania on the hardships residents faced in connection with emigration in the Communist years. When the old districts were cleared in the 1980s, most of Bucharest's small synagogues were demolished; the Great Synagogue and the Unirea Sfântă temple were saved at the last moment. What became of the carpenters' congregation and its members is unknown.

Miejsce dzisiaj

The exact plot of the Carpenters' Temple has not been identified. If, as the Ion Mincu University survey suggests, it stood on Strada Emigrantului between Antim and Sfinții Apostoli streets, its site lies in the area cleared in the 1980s for the Civic Centre around the present Palace of Parliament, in Sector 5. A search of OpenStreetMap for Strada Emigrantului returned no street of that name today. No surviving fragment of the building and no marker on its site are recorded in the sources read. The map pin is an approximate placement between Strada Mitropolitul Antim Ivireanu and Strada Sfinții Apostoli and should not be read as the exact location.

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