Romania: The long-delayed, long-awaited restoration of the ruined Ashkenazic synagogue in Constanța has finally begun

Scaffolding in te synagogue in Constanta. Photo courtesy of FEDROM

At long last, restoration work on the long-ruined Ashkenazic Great Synagogue in the Black Sea port of Constanța has begun.

Scaffolding on the exterior of the Constanta synagogue. Photo courtesy of FEDROM

Preliminary work began in July, with scaffolding erected this past week on both the exterior and interior of the building, which has stood as a roofless shell for many years.

“Efforts to rehabilitate the Synagogue began almost a decade ago, and in the last six years have stagnated due to the cancellation of three tenders,” the news site Info Sud-Est wrote on Wednesday.

In recent years, the news site had run a campaign to try to save the building.

(We posted about the first steps aimed at restoration back in 2014 — click HERE.)

The synagogue was designed in the Moorish style by Adolf Linz and built between 1910 and 1914. It was used as a
German military warehouse during WW2. It is the one surviving synagogue in the city — the grand Sephardic synagogue was demolished in the 1980s.

In a detailed architectural, article, “The Architectural Heritage of the Jews in Constanța,” Nicoleta Doina Teodorescu and Corina Lucescu write that less than 30 years ago, the Ashkenazic synagogue was in decent shape and used by the small local Jewish community.

during 1995-1996, the local residents said that religious services could be held in the synagogue. Once abandoned, without a security guard hired to watch it, the building was ransacked of anything that was not nailed down. The tenants of the neighboring house, who had put a chain to the gate and a few dogs in the yard, were the only ones to make sure and prevent homeless people take shelter inside the building.

In June 2023, Silviu Vexler, an MP and president of the Federation of Jewish Communities (FEDROM) signed a contract with the Conest construction company for “the execution of first emergency works and general rehabilitation” of the synagogue.

Constanţa Ashkenazic synagogue, August 2014. Photo © Dejan Petrovic

The project has a duration of two years and is financed by the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Administration through the National Investment Company, with an estimated cost of approximately €2 million.

“Currently, the building is in an advanced state of collapse: the roof has fallen, the stained-glass windows are broken, the walls are damaged, the entire surface is overrun by vegetation, and the resistance structure must be completely rehabilitated,” the architectural publication Revista Constructiilor wrote last year.

It wrote that the first necessary interventions will be “temporary support, on the exterior of the building and structural elements at risk of collapse.”

These, it wrote, will be followed by — among other things:

strengthening the existing foundations
arranging a drain on the exterior of the building and carrying out further waterproofing;
pouring a 12 cm thick reinforced concrete floor;
strengthening the existing masonry pillars
reinforcing the walls and masonry
restoration – according to the initial architecture – of the vaulted brick floor
replacing the wooden floor with a reinforced concrete floor
restoration of the roof of the building.

It said the interior decorative elements will be restored where possible, and where not, they will be recreated according to the original.

Watch videos of the work — Preliminary work in July: