THE SYNAGOGUE PROJECT
JEZIORY (AZIORY / OZËRY), GRODNO DISTRICT, BELARUS

Wooden Synagogue of Jeziory

The wooden synagogue of Jeziory, a lakeside town east of Grodno, was built in the mid-eighteenth century with a tall tiered roof, carved friezes and a richly carved interior. Photographed by German soldiers in the First World War and by scholars in the 1930s, it was lost during the Nazi German occupation of 1941–1944.

הושלם
Mid-18th century
נהרס
1941–1944 בידי Nazis
אדריכל / סגנון
Unknown · Wooden synagogue, tiered roof with carved frieze
קיבולת
Unknown
בית כנסת אקראי

הקדישו רגע להרהור, ושמרו במחשבותיכם את זכרו של בית הכנסת הזה ושל הקהילה שלו. הדליקו להם נר.

Photograph of the tall timber synagogue with men sitting and standing in front.
ארכיון תצלומים

תמונות בית הכנסת

Photograph of the tall timber synagogue with men sitting and standing in front.
01The synagogue in 1917, with men seated in front.Unknown photographer, 1917; published in M. Friederichsen, Landschaften und Städte Polens und Litauens; private collection of Uladzimir Likhadzedau; via Wikimedia Commons.
Photograph of a tall tiered timber synagogue with a group of men standing in front.
02The synagogue with a group of men in front, photographed during the German occupation of 1915–1918 and published in Paul Clemen's Kunstschutz im Kriege (1919).Unknown photographer, 1915–1918; published in P. Clemen, Kunstschutz im Kriege (Leipzig, 1919), p. 113; via Wikimedia Commons.
Small sepia snapshot of the synagogue with a handwritten caption below.
03Soldier's snapshot labelled 'Russland. Oziory Synagoge', 1915–1918.Unknown photographer, 1915–1918 (via eBay), via Wikimedia Commons.
Photograph of the tiered timber synagogue with steps and a boy in the foreground.
04The synagogue with a boy standing in front, before 1939.Unknown photographer, before 1939; published by Ihar Ivanou in Novy Chas; via Wikimedia Commons.
Sepia photograph of the synagogue across an open square.
05The synagogue in 1916.Unknown photographer, 1916 (via eBay), via Wikimedia Commons.
Postcard of the timber synagogue with people in front and a printed German caption.
06German postcard 'Uralte hölzerne Synagoge in Jeziory bei Grodno', before 1917.Unknown photographer, before 1917, via Wikimedia Commons.
Sepia photograph of the timber synagogue beside a two-storey wooden house.
07The synagogue and the Jewish school on today's School Street, published by Gloger in 1907.Unknown photographer; published in Z. Gloger, Budownictwo drzewne i wyroby z drzewa w dawnej Polsce (Warsaw, 1907); via Wikimedia Commons.
Photograph of the synagogue from a corner, showing its tiered roofs and stone base.
08The synagogue from the corner, 1930s.Unknown photographer, 1930s; archive of the Belarusian State Museum of Architecture and Everyday Life (via Anton Astapovich); via Wikimedia Commons.
Photograph of the synagogue's front with steps and a tall gable.
09Main front, 1930s.Unknown photographer, 1930s; The Center for Jewish Art, via Wikimedia Commons.
Photograph of the side of the synagogue with bright windows and the carved frieze.
10Side view with lit windows, 1930s.Unknown photographer, 1930s; The Center for Jewish Art, via Wikimedia Commons.
Interior photograph of a bimah with twisted columns, railings and benches.
11Interior with the bimah on twisted columns, 1930s.Unknown photographer, 1930s; The Center for Jewish Art, via Wikimedia Commons.
Interior photograph of benches and carved woodwork.
12Interior with benches and the Torah ark, 1930s.Unknown photographer, 1930s; The Center for Jewish Art, via Wikimedia Commons.
Photograph of a Torah ark covered in pierced carving.
13The carved Torah ark, 1930s.Unknown photographer, 1930s; The Center for Jewish Art, via Wikimedia Commons.
Photograph of carved panelled doors between carved columns.
14Carved doors and columns of the Torah ark, 1930s.Unknown photographer, 1930s; The Center for Jewish Art, via Wikimedia Commons.
Photograph of a wooden bench with a carved back.
15Carved wooden bench, 1930s.Unknown photographer, 1930s; The Center for Jewish Art, via Wikimedia Commons.
Photograph of an arched door covered in a zigzag pattern of stars.
16Door decorated with a pattern of stars, 1930s.Unknown photographer, 1930s; The Center for Jewish Art, via Wikimedia Commons.
Photograph looking up into an octagonal timber vault.
17The octagonal wooden vault inside the synagogue, before 1917.Unknown photographer, before 1917, via Wikimedia Commons.
סקירה

הסיפור של Wooden Synagogue of Jeziory

Jeziory, today the village of Aziory in Grodno District, western Belarus, lies among lakes about 30 kilometres east of Grodno. Jews settled there in the late seventeenth century, and a synagogue is mentioned in the eighteenth. The great wooden synagogue was built around the middle of the century, when the town was known as a place of Torah study. It was a massive log building under a steep tiered roof, with a band of carved boards running beneath the eaves and lower annexes with their own roofs around the base. Inside stood a carved bimah with twisted columns, a Torah ark covered in pierced carving, painted and carved doors and furniture, and an octagonal wooden vault. German soldiers photographed the building during the First World War, when it was published as an 'ancient wooden synagogue', and the Center for Jewish Art holds a set of 1930s photographs of its exterior and interior. Nazi Germany occupied Jeziory in July 1941 and murdered its Jews in 1942–1943. The synagogue did not survive the war, but the sources consulted do not say exactly when or how it was destroyed.

מיקום

Where it stood

Historic: Jeziory, near the Jewish school (Školnaja / School Street), Grodno district. Present day: Aziory, Grodno District, Grodno Region, Belarus. Approximate.

פתיחת מפה גדולה ←

הקהילה היהודית

Jewish settlement in Jeziory began in the late seventeenth century. The community had 522 Jews in 1847 and 508 in 1878, when they made up about half of the town's 1,013 inhabitants. By 1897 it had grown to 1,392. Jews worked in the sawmills, fished the lakes, tanned hides and practised other crafts, and the town drew young men from the district to study Torah. A Jewish prayer school was added in the early nineteenth century. After the First World War the population fell to 867, and the local economy declined, especially after the sawmill was nationalised in 1929. Interwar Jeziory had an active political and cultural life, with Hechalutz, Hashomer Hatzair and Poalei Zion, a Hebrew Tarbut school and a Yiddish school. Its rabbi was David Szwarc.

אדריכלות ועיצוב

The synagogue was a large log building on a stone base. Its prayer hall rose under a steep, tall roof in several tiers, and beneath the upper roof ran a deep band of decorative carved boarding. Lower annexes on the sides and front, housing the vestibule and women's sections, had their own hipped roofs, and steps led up to the entrances. The walls were of horizontal logs with small windows. Photographs from the 1930s show a rich interior: a bimah raised on twisted columns with carved railings, a Torah ark covered in pierced floral carving flanked by carved columns, a carved wooden bench, a door studded with a pattern of stars, and an octagonal timber vault over the hall.

החיים בבית הכנסת

The synagogue was the religious centre of a town whose Jews made up a large part of the population, and of a community known for Torah study. Its carved bimah and ark, benches and painted and carved doors show the care the congregation gave it over nearly two centuries. In the interwar years it served the community led by Rabbi David Szwarc, alongside the Tarbut and Yiddish schools and the Zionist youth movements. The building's age and beauty attracted attention from outsiders too: German soldiers photographed it during the First World War, and in the 1930s researchers photographed its interior in detail. The names of its builders and of most of its rabbis are not recorded in the sources consulted.

הרס

Nazi Germany occupied Jeziory in July 1941 and held it until July 1944. The Russian Wikipedia article on the village states that its two main wooden landmarks, the Catholic church of 1679 and the eighteenth-century synagogue, were lost during the Second World War. The Belarusian heritage database Radzima lists the synagogue as lost, with only a vague date. No source consulted for this entry says when, how or by whom it was destroyed. Photographs show it still standing in the 1930s. The Jews who had prayed in it were murdered by the Nazis in 1942–1943, so no one from the community remained to record its end. It was not rebuilt, and nothing of it survives.

גורל הקהילה

In August–September 1941 the Germans forced the Jews of Jeziory and nearby villages into a ghetto, about 1,370 people in all. Prisoners were used for forced labour. In 1942 a partisan unit briefly opened the ghetto gates, but only 17 people left with them. In November 1942 the Jews were deported to the Kiełbasin transit camp near Grodno, and from there to Treblinka and Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they were murdered. Other accounts say the last prisoners were killed in an 'action' no later than 5 March 1943. In December 2025 a memorial to the Jewish victims was unveiled in the centre of the village.

האתר כיום

Nothing of the synagogue survives. It stood in the centre of Jeziory, today the village of Aziory in Grodno District, Belarus. Early photographs show it near the Jewish school on today's Školnaja (School) Street, and the Radzima heritage database marks the site at 53.7233°N, 24.1780°E. In December 2025 a symbolic memorial to the Jews murdered in the Holocaust was placed in the centre of the village. Its appearance is known from photographs taken between 1907 and the 1930s, including a detailed interior series held by the Center for Jewish Art.

עזרו לשמור על הזיכרון

יש לכם משהו לתרום?

תמונות, מסמכים, סיפורי משפחה וזיכרונות מבית הכנסת ומהקהילה שלו עוזרים לשמור על ההיסטוריה שלו בחיים.

שתפו את מה שיש לכם
מקורות וקריאה נוספת
COMMENTS

Share a memory or thought

No comments yet. Be the first to add one.

Please keep it kind and respectful. No links.