Old Synagogue of Liptovský Mikuláš

Die jüdische Gemeinde

The first Jews came to Liptovský Svätý Mikuláš at the beginning of the eighteenth century, most of them merchants from the Holešov community in Moravia who traded with Count Pongrác and rented houses and shops from him in the town centre. The 1727 census counted 13 families (38 people). At first they belonged to the Holešov kehila and paid their dues there; in 1728 they set up an independent congregation with a prayer room and a mikveh, and the cemetery and burial society may date from the same time. By the end of the 1730s there were 17 families and in the 1740s 29, most of them from Moravia; the town had 131 Jews in 1746 and 801 in 1828, almost half its population. The congregation served as the religious and organisational centre for the Jews of Liptov and Turiec. Its first head was the parnas Moshe David; Rabbi Pinchas Leibel led prayers and taught, and two melamdim taught the children. Its Jewish merchants traded across the kingdom in leather and fine leather goods.

Architektur und Gestaltung

Almost nothing is known about the building's appearance. Pinkas Hakehillot says only that it was built in the style of the old synagogues of Moravia, the region the founders came from. The heritage site pamiatkynaslovensku.sk calls it the first, 'still wooden' synagogue, contrasting it with the masonry building that replaced it. Pinkas Hakehillot records that it was renovated and enlarged during the rabbinate of Yehuda Leib Kunitz (1772-1813), and pamiatkynaslovensku.sk adds that in 1818 it had to be enlarged again, on land that the deputy county governor (podžupan) Okoličáni provided for a fee. That suggests the building grew in stages with the community, which by 1828 numbered about 800 people. Its plan, dimensions, roof form, interior arrangement and seating capacity are unknown, and no plan, drawing or photograph of it has been found. The bimah probably stood in the centre, as was traditional, since the move of the bimah towards the ark in the new synagogue in 1843 caused a famous dispute, but no source describes the old interior.

Leben in der Synagoge

For a little over a century the wooden synagogue was the house of prayer of a congregation that became famous for learning. From the middle of the eighteenth century the community had its own rabbi, Moshe ha-Kohen, who founded a Talmud Torah that drew students from all of northern Slovakia. His successor, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Kunitz (1772-1813), opened a yeshiva in 1776, one of the first in Slovakia, with more than 50 students; in his time the synagogue was renovated and enlarged. The wealthy merchant Mordechai Ber, known as 'Rabbi Mordechai the Prince', headed the community and represented the district's Jews to the authorities. The congregation reached its height in the 1820s under Rabbi Eliezer Loew, author of the responsa Shemen Rokeach, whose yeshiva had more than 100 students; contemporary writing called the town a 'Jewish Athens'. Loew left after a dispute with the lay leaders over opening a Jewish elementary school. From the early 1830s Rabbi Yissachar Ber Mikulas, author of Minchat Ani, held the rabbinate during the last years of the old building.

Zerstörung

The old synagogue was not destroyed by violence. By the 1840s it was too small for a congregation of around 800 people, and in 1842 the community decided to build a new, larger masonry synagogue. The tourist board's historical guide (visitliptov.sk) states that the new classicist building was raised in 1842-46 on the site of the original wooden synagogue, and the Slovak Wikipedia article on the town says the same. That means the wooden building was taken down to clear the plot, presumably in 1842 or 1843, since Pinkas Hakehillot records that construction was under way in 1843. No source records the demolition itself, the exact date, or what became of the timber and fittings; it was presumably carried out by the congregation that commissioned its successor. The new synagogue, built at a cost of 100,000 florins, opened in 1846. One source, pamiatkynaslovensku.sk, phrases the move as building the new synagogue 'already on the site of today's', which could also mean the old one stood elsewhere; if so, its fate is unrecorded.

Das Schicksal der Gemeinde

The community that had prayed in the wooden synagogue grew to more than 1,100 people by 1880 and remained prominent until the Second World War. After the Slovak State was proclaimed in March 1939, Jewish businesses were closed or handed to 'Aryanisers' and men were sent to labour camps. On 4 November 1941 local villagers broke into the synagogue that had replaced the wooden building, smashing furniture and destroying books and holy objects. More than 500 Jews expelled from Bratislava were brought to the town that autumn. At the end of March 1942, 120 young people were rounded up; the women were sent through Poprad to Auschwitz and the men through Žilina to Majdanek. From 2 April 1942, 596 Jews from the town and district were deported to the Lublin area, where the Nazis sent able-bodied men to Majdanek and women, children and the elderly to Sobibor. About half the district's Jews were deported in 1942. Many of those still exempt fled to the forests before the Nazi German occupation in the autumn of 1944. About 350 Jews returned after liberation; most later emigrated.

Der Ort heute

If, as the regional tourist guide and the Slovak Wikipedia say, the first synagogue stood where its successor was built, its site is now occupied by the synagogue of 1842-46 on Hollého Street (no. 4), in the town centre. That building, enlarged after the fire of 1887 and remodelled by Lipót Baumhorn after 1906, served the congregation until 1953, was then used as a warehouse, and after restoration from the 1990s now belongs to the Janko Kráľ Museum as an exhibition and concert hall. Nothing of the wooden synagogue is known to survive above ground. Pinkas Hakehillot's statement that the first synagogue was in the Huštak neighbourhood has not been matched to the Hollého Street plot; Huštak was also the name of areas next to Vrbica, so the old building may have stood elsewhere.

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