Funded by the Hungarian government, the restoration of the the former “Small Synagogue” in Senta, in northern Serbia’s Vojvodina region near the border with Hungary, has been completed; the building will house a cultural center.
It was inaugurated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony May 12 that began with the playing of the Hungarian and Serbian national anthems and saw the participation of various civil and religious representatives from both countries.
They included Róbert Szabados, President of the Association of Serbian Jewish Communities, Senta Mayor Rudolf Czegeldi; Árpád Fremond, President of the Hungarian National Council; and János Árpád Potápi, Hungary’s State Secretary for National Policy.
The restoration was funded by a 220-million-forint (around €595,000) grant from the Hungarian government.
Watch a video of the ceremony from Pannon RTV (in Hungarian)
Vojvodina was part of Hungary until after World War I, and the Hungarian state has made considerable investments there and in other areas that were once Hungarian lands. In 2014, the 70th anniversary of the Holocaust in Hungary, the Hungarian government launched a synagogue renovation program, with a budget of around 10 billion forints (€32 million) that included synagogues in areas outside of present-day Hungary
In Vojvodina, in addition to the restoration of the synagogue in Senta (in Hungarian Zenta), Hungary allocated significant funding to the restoration of the magnificent synagogue in nearby Subotica.
Used for decades as a sports center known as “Partizan,” the Small Synagogue is today the property of the Lajos Thurzó Cultural and Educational Center and, according to the 2021 plan made by architect István Vatai, it will be a cultural space that will host an art gallery and also a permanent exhibition of local Jewish history.
As we posted earlier, restoration work started the first week of April 2021. It entailed renovation of the synagogue’s interior, facade, and roof. The exterior of the building was restored to its original state, in cooperation with the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments in Subotica. In addition, the area around the building was landscaped and a new fence was built.
The synagogue, also called the Sephardic synagogue, was built in 1928-29 and served the local Orthodox/Hasidic community (who were not, in fact, Sephardic). The municipality acquired it in 1956. The city also acquired the town’s Great Synagogue, built in 1873 for the Neolog community, but demolished it in 1957 – since 2001, a monument has stood on the spot.
The synagogue’s last rabbi, from 1939 to the deportation of the community to Auschwitz in 1944, was Moshe Teitelbaum, who survived Auschwitz and eventually moved to the United States, where in 1980, he became the Satmar Rebbe, the world leader of Satmar Hasidim. He died in 2006, aged 91.
Click here to read a report from PannonRTV (in Hungarian)
Click here for a report in Serbian, from Radio Television Vojvodina
Read our post from 2021 when work began
See measured drawings of the Senta Small synagogue on the Center for Jewish Art site