Old Synagogue of Szolnok

PRZEGLĄD

Historia Old Synagogue of Szolnok

Szolnok, the county seat on the Tisza, had few Jews before the 1830s, when pedlars were still allowed into the town only by day. Settlement grew quickly after the 1840s, and around the middle of the century the young community built its first synagogue. The Encyclopaedia Judaica dates it to 1850; the Damjanich János Museum, which now runs the later synagogue as the Szolnok Gallery, and the local newspaper Szolnok Megyei Néplap give 1855; Anikó Gazda's survey of Hungarian synagogues gives about 1850. The museum describes it as simply built and places it in a narrow street of the inner town that was called Zsidótemplom utca, Jewish Temple Street, until 1926 and Csarnok utca afterwards.

For some forty years this modest house of prayer was the community's only synagogue, while the congregation grew to over eight hundred people by 1869. In the early 1890s the majority, which had joined the Neolog movement after the national schism of 1868-69, decided to build a large new synagogue, and Lipót Baumhorn's building on the Tisza bank was consecrated in 1899; it still stands. The old synagogue was left to the small Orthodox congregation, which went on praying there. Gazda found it demolished when she surveyed the town between 1980 and 1987.

LOKALIZACJA

Where it stood for nearly 140 years

Historic: Zsidótemplom utca (from 1926 Csarnok utca), inner town of Szolnok; house number unknown. Today: within the site of the Aba-Novák Agóra Cultural Centre (former Városi Művelődési Központ), Hild János tér 1, 5000 Szolnok (approximate).

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Społeczność żydowska

According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, Jews began to settle in Szolnok around 1830, but for some time pedlars could enter the town only during the day. In 1848 sixty Jews lived there. The Damjanich János Museum dates the formal founding of the Israelite community to 1850, the same period in which the first synagogue was built. Growth was rapid: the community numbered 818 people in 1869 and 2,590 in 1941. Its members worked mainly in trade and the crafts, and some served as state and municipal officials. After the Hungarian Jewish congress of 1868-69 the majority joined the Neolog (Congress) movement, which shaped its decision to build a large modern synagogue in the 1890s. A minority remained Orthodox and kept the old building as their place of worship. The Encyclopaedia Judaica names E. Klein as rabbi from 1854, V. I. Friedlieber from 1887 to 1891 and Kornél Heves from 1898 to 1945. A Talmud Torah was founded in 1925.

Architektura i projekt

Very little is recorded about the building. The Damjanich János Museum calls it a simple structure, and the Szolnok Megyei Néplap describes the community's prayer place of 1855 as modest in appearance, in contrast to the representative domed building by Lipót Baumhorn that replaced it as the main synagogue. It stood on a plot in a narrow street in the inner town, the street that took its name, Zsidótemplom utca, from the synagogue. No photograph, drawing or plan of it was found; the many postcards of Szolnok's synagogue in the Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives all show the Baumhorn building of 1898-99. The architect or builder, the materials, the seating capacity and the arrangement of the interior are unknown. The Encyclopaedia Judaica also mentions a second synagogue built in 1857; whether this was a separate building or the same one under a different date is not clear from the sources read.

Życie w synagodze

For roughly four decades the old synagogue was the centre of religious life for all of Szolnok's Jews. Rabbi E. Klein, appointed in 1854 according to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, served the congregation in its early years there, and V. I. Friedlieber held the post from 1887 to 1891, when the community was already planning a new building. After the schism of 1868-69 the majority followed the Neolog line, and when they moved to the new synagogue on the Tisza bank in 1899, the small Orthodox congregation stayed in the old building and continued to hold its services there, as both the Damjanich János Museum and the Szolnok Megyei Néplap report. Nothing was found about the Orthodox congregation's rabbis, officers, numbers or institutions in the twentieth century, nor about how long services continued in the old synagogue before the Second World War.

Zniszczenie

No source read in this research records when the old synagogue was pulled down or who did it. The last firm evidence of it in use is the report that the Orthodox congregation kept worshipping there after the new synagogue opened in 1899. The renaming of its street from Zsidótemplom utca to Csarnok utca in 1926 is noted by the Damjanich János Museum, but the museum does not link the renaming to the building's fate. Whether it was damaged during the war, stood empty after 1944, or was sold and demolished afterwards is unknown. The museum states that its plot lay within the area of the present cultural centre, the former Városi Művelődési Központ, now the Aba-Novák Cultural Centre, so the building must have disappeared before or during the redevelopment of that block; the date of that redevelopment was not established. Anikó Gazda recorded the synagogue as demolished in her survey of 1980-87.

Los społeczności

After Nazi Germany occupied Hungary on 19 March 1944, the roughly 1,800 Jews still living in Szolnok were confined in a ghetto, according to the Encyclopaedia Judaica. At the end of June 1944 they were deported, most to Auschwitz and some to Austria. A list of the Jews of Szolnok who were murdered is published in the 1994 history of the community edited by Béla Varga and László Tálas, translated on JewishGen. Rabbi Kornél Heves, who had led the Neolog congregation since 1898, died in Budapest in 1945. After the war 609 Jews returned to Szolnok. The community numbered 320 members in 1953 and about 200 in 1970. What became of the Orthodox congregation that had used the old synagogue is not recorded in the sources read. The Encyclopaedia Judaica records that the great synagogue by Baumhorn was converted for municipal use; it still stands.

Miejsce dzisiaj

The old synagogue stood in the narrow inner-town street called Zsidótemplom utca before 1926 and Csarnok utca after. According to the Damjanich János Museum its plot now lies within the site of the city's cultural centre, the former Városi Művelődési Központ, today the Aba-Novák Agóra Cultural Centre at Hild János tér 1 in central Szolnok, a short walk from Baumhorn's synagogue, now the Szolnok Gallery. The Szolnok Megyei Néplap likewise places the earlier prayer house near the Aba-Novák Agóra. No remains of the building and no marker on its site were found. The exact position of the plot within the cultural centre block is unknown, and Csarnok utca no longer appears under that name on the present-day map.

OSOBY

Ważne postacie

E. Klein

UnknownRabbi of Szolnok from 1854

The Encyclopaedia Judaica names E. Klein as rabbi of Szolnok from 1854. At that time the community's only synagogue was the simple building of about 1850-1855 in what became Zsidótemplom utca, so he would have led worship there in the congregation's early decades. His full first name, the length of his tenure and his later life were not found in the sources read.

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V. I. Friedlieber

UnknownRabbi of Szolnok, 1887-1891

Friedlieber is named in the Encyclopaedia Judaica as rabbi of Szolnok from 1887 to 1891. During his tenure the old synagogue was still the community's only house of worship, and the plans for a larger replacement began in the early 1890s, shortly after he left. Nothing more about his life, his full name or his later career was found in the sources consulted.