Nazna Wooden Synagogue

Еврейская община

Jews are recorded in Nazna from about 1601, making it, after Alba Iulia, the oldest Jewish settlement in historic Transylvania; some early members had ties to the Sephardi community of Alba Iulia. The community grew because Jews were barred from living in nearby Marosvásárhely and settled instead on the Barcsay family's land here. Its known rabbis include Léb ben Mózes and Léb ben Ábrahám, the first recorded, and Benjámin Zeév Wolf, who between 1764 and 1777 called himself rabbi of Náznánfalva; a teacher, Leb Avram, is recorded in 1753. Population counts give 55 to 60 Jews in 1767-1769, 129 in 1776-1778, 80 to 100 in 1781-1782 and 65 in 1785. After the residence restrictions in Marosvásárhely were lifted in 1848, families moved to the town: 54 Jews were counted in 1850 and 23 in 1900. A mohel, Lázár Diamanstein, was active from 1861. By 1918 only eight families were left, and the village came under the Marosvásárhely community.

Архитектура и дизайн

The synagogue was built of timber in 1747 and is described as barn-like from outside and richly decorated within. One source states that its eastern wall was of brick. It stood free on its plot; the men entered at the north-west corner and the women through a door on the south side. In 1785 it was extended and painted decoration was added, and painting continued gradually afterwards. The walls and ceiling were covered with Hebrew texts, including psalms, the selichot penitential prayers and other prayers, in a manner one source compares with the painted interiors of local Unitarian churches. Four panels sat above the Torah ark on either side of a round window, and some boards carried signs of the zodiac with the Hebrew months. Two photographs taken around 1910 by the amateur photographer József Mandl of Marosvásárhely show a plank ceiling, a hanging chandelier, and the ark set within a tall arched frame behind a turned balustrade. The builder, the dimensions and the seating capacity are unknown.

Жизнь в синагоге

The surviving boards show how the congregation used its walls: they carry long passages of prayer, so that worshippers could read biblical verses and prayers directly from the painted timber. One board quotes a supplication from the selichot, the penitential prayers said before the High Holy Days; another praises the name of the King of kings; a third bears the Hebrew month Tevet with its zodiac sign. The rabbis of the eighteenth century, Léb ben Mózes, Léb ben Ábrahám and Benjámin Zeév Wolf, served a congregation drawn from Náznánfalva and neighbouring Szentkirály, and the lay leader Mózes Izsák Frankl paid for the 1785 extension. A teacher is recorded in 1753 and a mohel from 1861. As families moved to Marosvásárhely in the nineteenth century the building lost its congregation; by 1918 eight families could no longer keep it up, and by 1934 it stood abandoned. Whether regular services were still held in the last decades is unknown.

Разрушение

The synagogue was not destroyed by an attack. It decayed after the community that built it dispersed. In 1918 the president of the Marosvásárhely community, Samu Diamantstein, asked the Hungarian heritage authorities to list and fund the building, because the eight remaining families could not maintain it; the request came at the end of the First World War, and the area passed to Romania in 1920. Visitors in 1934 found the synagogue completely abandoned. By the time Northern Transylvania was returned to Hungary under the Second Vienna Award in 1940, the building had collapsed; one reference work says it was demolished in 1940. No source consulted names anyone who ordered or carried out a demolition. In spring 1941 György Balázs, a staff member of the Jewish Museum in Budapest, collected eight painted panels and sent them, 91 kilograms in all, by train from Marosvásárhely on 30 April 1941. Two further boards stayed with the local community and are now lost.

Судьба общины

By the 1940s hardly any Jews lived in Nazna itself; the village's Jewish life had moved to Târgu Mureș. Northern Transylvania, including Nazna, was part of Hungary again from 1940. After the Nazi German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, the Jews of the area were concentrated in May 1944 in the Târgu Mureș ghetto under Hungarian rule. The last two Jewish residents of Nazna were taken there and later killed. Transports left the ghetto for the Nazi German death camp at Auschwitz on 27 May, 30 May and 8 June 1944. György Balázs, who had saved the synagogue's panels, was murdered on a death march in January 1945. The Jewish community of Nazna was not revived after the war, and no Jews live in the village today. Two Jewish cemeteries survive, one on Liliacului Street and one on Principala Street, with gravestones dating from the eighteenth century.

Место сегодня

No source consulted gives the exact plot on which the synagogue stood. It is known only that it stood free on land that had belonged to the Barcsay estate, and the map pin for this entry marks the centre of Nazna, not the building. Nothing of the structure is recorded as standing in the village. Eight painted panels rescued in 1941 are in the Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives in Budapest; they were restored in 2016, and three long boards found in the museum attic in 2024 were shown in the exhibition Writing on the Wall in 2025. Researchers have since produced a theoretical reconstruction of the building. The two Jewish cemeteries of Nazna survive.

Значимые имена