The monumental twin-towered Great Synagogue in Plzeň (Pilsen) in the Czech Republic reopens Sunday (April 10) following a three-year, €4 million renovation, largely funded by the EU, that also included complete restoration of the nearby rabbi’s house.
Work focused on the grand interior of the synagogue, where much of the lavish painted decoration and the organ were in disrepair, despite partial restoration of the building in the 1990s. Plastering, painting, stone, stucco, and metal elements were refurbished.
In addition, a permanent exhibition dedicated to Jewish monuments in the Plzeň region has been installed in the women’s galleries. Called “Jews Lived Here,” it is based on the work of Radovan Kodera, a Plzeň-based photographer and conservationist, who has documented Jewish heritage in the region for three decades, as well as on archival images.
The Great Synagogue is one of three synagogues in Plzen. The Old Synagogue, built in 1859 and currently used by the tiny Jewish community, was restored as part of the nationwide 10 Stars network and reopened in 2014, housing an exhibit on Jewish customs and traditions. Next to it, the Auxiliary synagogue, built in 1875, serves as a Holocaust memorial — whose creation was spearheaded by Kodera.
On the program of the rededication of the synagogue was a ceremony (planned for Sunday evening) that included a procession bearing a Torah from the Old Synagogue and installing it in the Great Synagogue’s towering ark, followed by a concert of music inspired by Jewish prayers.
The Great Synagogue (located at Sady Petatricatniku 11) was built in Moorish-Romantic style in 1888-92 and ceremonially dedicated at Rosh Hashanah, 1893. One of the largest synagogues in Europe, it is a city landmark.
Its original design was by the noted Jewish Viennese architect Max Fleischer, who had designed many other (now destroyed) synagogues and Jewish community buildings in Vienna and elsewhere in the Hapsburg Empire. But this was scaled down for financial and other reasons, as architectural historian Samuel D. Gruber has written:
[Fleischer] proposed a Gothic design with twin 65-meter towers and large buttresses. The ground plan was established and the cornerstone laid in 1888, but work stopped when city councilors rejected the plan fearing the new large building would compete with the nearby St. Bartholomew Cathedral. In 1891 a revised and smaller design was prepared by Emmanuel Klotz that kept the plan, but lowered the towers and substituted a mix of Romanesque, Moorish and Renaissance forms instead of Gothic. This design introduced the enormous six-pointed star on the facade. Perhaps this was meant as a sign of defiance – announcing the clear Jewish purpose of the building. Or, it can also be seen as a warning of sorts to Christians that this building – despite it location and size – was not a church.
Web site of the Plzen Jewish community
Read an article in local media about the reopening
Read Sam Gruber’s article about the synagogue