Lithuania: The wooden synagogues in Alanta and Kurkliai are under restoration

(JHE) — The small wooden synagogues in Alanta and Kurkliai, Lithuania, are under restoration.

In Kurkliai, according to the news site 15min.lt, maintenance and conservation work has been going on since 2019. The logs of the walls were strengthened and rotten logs were replaced, there was waterproofing of the foundations, ceilings and wooden roof structures were restored, and the roof covering was replaced.

In Alanta, as reported on the web site bernardinai.it, the windows have been replaced in recent weeks, the walls have been reinforced, roof repair has taken place, and work is going on in the interior. 

Used as a warehouse for grain and fertilizer after WW2, when Lithuania formed part of the Soviet Union, the Alanta synagogue was returned to Jewish community ownership after Lithuania became independent following the fall of communism and breakup of the USSR. It  was declared a protected monument in 2015, and, Bernardinai notes, at that time urgent maintenance was carried out to prevent further damage of the structure: “collapsed beams were supported, walls and internal partitions were reinforced, and window openings were sealed with panels.”

Bernardinai.lt posted videos about both restorations — both of which received funding from the Culture Ministry’s Department of  Cultural Heritage. They are narrated — in Lithuanian — by the scholar Ruta Ost, but even if you don’t understand the narration, you can see images of the work in progress.

Alanta synagogue:

Kurkliai synagogue:

The Bernardinai.lt article about Alanta — and its videos about synagogues in Lithuania  — are part of a series called Witnesses to a multicultural past.  Click to see all the videos.

Hundreds of elaborate wooden synagogues once stood in eastern Europe. Only a small number of simple wooden synagogues survive. Around 17 of them are in Lithuania, and the e Alanta and Kurkliai synagogues are the latest of several of these small, simple structures to undergo restoration.

Others include the synagogues in Pakruojis (the oldest wooden synagogue in Lithuania, dating from around 1801) and Žiežmariai.

There are also plans to restore the barnlike  late 19th century wooden synagogue in Tirksliai.  The news site 15min.lt writes that the Department of Cultural Heritage (CRD) has funded renovation work on six wooden synagogues over the past decade, with state budget funds, as part of its Heritage Management Program.

Bernardinai.lt writes:

The fact that the number of projects to restore and preserve endangered wooden synagogues in Lithuania has been increasing for several years shows that more and more people and institutions are aware of the need to preserve and adapt them to the needs of the local community or tourism. Today we can rejoice that not only Alanta, but also the nearby Kurkliai Synagogue, […] is being resurrected to a second life.

The Center for Jewish Art (drawing from the 2-volume catalogue Synagogues in Lithuania, published in 2010-1012) describes in detail the architecture of the Alanta synagogue, a log structure that has a rectangular plan and is built on a rough-stone concrete foundation:

The structure is spanned with a hipped rafter roof covered with tin. On the exterior, the building is protected with horizontal weather-boarding above the windowsills of the prayer hall, and a vertical one below them. A prayer hall of almost square plan is situated on the eastern side. On the western side, the building includes a vestibule and a small room with a stove, which also heated the prayer hall. A staircase in the southwestern corner leads to a women’s section on the first floor, which opens to the prayer hall with two long rectangular windows. […] The main entrance to the building is in the western wall and the women’s entrance is on the southern wall. Ten round-headed windows opened from the prayer hall: three windows on the southern and northern walls and two pairs of windows on the eastern wall (the central windows on the north and south were later converted into doors). The windows of the vestibule and the women’s section are rectangular. The ceilings are joisted flat constructions; that of the prayer hall is supported by two large beams, resting on the western wall of the women’s section and the eastern wall of the prayer hall.

It describes the Kurkaliai synagogue, which was built in 1936 to the design of Povilas Jurėnas, as:

a log structure on a masonry foundation. The log walls are reinforced with vertical posts. The structure is elongated on a southwest–northeast axis, and is 11.85 m long, 7.88 m wide and 6.95 m high above the foundation. The synagogue is topped with a hipped tin roof with triangular dormers on its southern and northern slopes. The tower above the main entrance is topped with a separate tin roof. According to the design, the tower was decorated by two Stars of David. The design shows a prayer hall in the southeast and the two storey part in the northwest, comprising three rooms on the ground floor and a women’s section on the first floor. The prayer hall was a broad house, lit by eight tall windows with triangular heads: three windows each on the southwestern and northeastern walls and two windows on the southeastern wall, flanking the Torah ark. The ark stood on the axis of the southeastern wall, the bimah was situated close to the center of the prayer hall, shifted to the rear. The pews were arranged in three symmetrical blocks: two on the both sides of the bimah, facing northeast, with five rows in each block; one row of pews stood between the bimah and the Torah ark. Two stoves were attached to the northwestern wall. The women’s section was connected to the prayer hall through two wide openings. It held two blocks of pews, three rows in each. On the ground floor was a men’s vestibule in the south, accessed by an entrance in the southwestern façade; a staircase to the women’s section in the north, with a separate entrance from the same side; and a heated room between the staircase and the vestibule, connected by a wide opening to the prayer hall (it may have been a small prayer room). This part of the building was lit by rectangular windows, set in two tiers on its three sides.

See the Alanta synagogue’s documentation by the Center for Jewish Art

See the Kurkliai synagogue’s documentation by the Center for Jewish Art

Read (in Lithuanian) the Bernardinai article about Kurkliai

Read (in Lithuanian) the Bernardinai article about Alanta