Aurel Vainer, the president of the Federation of Romanian Jewish Communities (FEDROM), says FEDROM’s agenda for the coming year includes the hoped-for completion of ongoing restoration projects on several major synagogues around the country.
In a statement released on his Facebook page, Vainer said these include the main Choral Temple in Bucharest; the Great Synagogue in Oradea; the Great Synagogue in Iaşi, and the synagogues in Galati and Tulcea.
He said he also wants to begin other Jewish heritage restoration projects.
The synagogue in Iaşi, dating from the 17th century, is the oldest surviving synagogue in Romania and was recently put on the World Monuments Fund Watch List of endangered heritage sites. Originally built in 1670-1671, and rebuilt successively in 1761, 1822, 1863 because of fire and other devastation, it is listed as a historical monument.
Restoration of the building, funded only by the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, began in 2007 but was halted in 2009, when the construction company that had won the bid to carry out the work went bankrupt, leaving the building in a perilous condition. But work got under way again within the past couple of months, after the Ministry and the National Heritage Institute provided more funding.
Lucia Apostol, of FEDROM’s property management office, provided photographs from mid-December 2013 showing work in progress, including a new roof on the dome.
Apostol described the challenges facing of Jewish heritage preservation in Romania in her presentation at the April conference in Krakow on Managing Jewish Immovable Heritage in Europe.
2 comments on “Plans for synagogue restoration work in Romania in 2014”
I see you are restoring synagogues, we have supplied stones in the past year to several synagogues.
Please visit our website – projects where you can see the synagogues and other projects we have supplied stones to.
For any further information please do not hesitate to contact us.