This year marks the 160th birthday of the Hungarian architect Lipot Baumhorn, the most prolific synagogue architect in pre-WW2 Europe. (He died in 1932.)
His life and work this year are a focus of the EU-funded Rediscover Jewish Heritage project, a network of nine small cities in eight countries, cooperating on ways to reveal and promote their often hidden Jewish history.
Earlier this year, representatives of three of the partner cities –Timisoara, Romania; Subotica, Serbia; and Szeged, Hungary – met in Timisoara – a city where Baumhorn was very active.
The first building he designed in Timisoara was the so-called Fabric District Synagogue, built between 1897 and 1899. The Fabric today stands in dangerously dilapidated condition and is closed to the public, but it is still magnificent, and one of the most distinctive and original buildings in town.
The Rediscover group was able to make a rare visit.
In our new Have Your Say essay, Eszter Nagy-Tóth and Gábriel Szekély describe what they saw.
Click here to read the Have Your Say