The Ashkenazic Great Synagogue in the Black Sea port of Constanţa, long an iconic ruin, will be reconsecrated on May 28 after a full reconstruction that has finally been completed after more than a decade of failed efforts and false starts.
In this video — auto-dubbed in English — Sorin Lucian Ionescu, president of the tiny local Jewish community says the reconsecration will take place in the presence of a rabbi, and he provides some background to the bureaucratic challenges that had blocked or complicated the restoration for years. (Read a summary of the interview HERE.)
Designed in the Moorish style by Adolf Linz and built between 1910 and 1914, the synagogue 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.
After more than a decade of bureaucratic delays, a contract to start restoration work was signed in June 2023, and work finally began in 2024. It was financed by the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Administration through the National Investment Company, with an estimated cost of approximately €2 million
In this video Urbex explorers who broke into the ruined synagogue years before the reconstruction began document its ruined state.
Click to read a summary of the interview with Ionescu and see pictures
See our post – with video – about the restoration work being completed
We have posted several times about the synagogue. We posted about the first steps aimed at restoration back in 2014 — click HERE