Synagogue

In the early 1900s, Isaac Presenti, was considered one of the richest Jews in Bulgaria at the turn of the 19th century, donated a plot of land in the centre of Burgas for the construction of a synagogue, which was promptly erected in 1905 or 1909 (accounts vary). It was exquisitely bedecked with a Moorish façade and two internal balconies in its prayer hall. After a few years the Jewish school was built next to the synagogue. 

The original plans for the synagogue have not been preserved, prompting local historians to contest its origins. Many believe that the synagogue was designed and constructed by Ricardo Toscani, an Italian architect who came to Burgas, married there, and built most of the old city. But others claim the Burgas synagogue was the work of Austrian Friedrich Grünanger, who is credited with the Sofia Synagogue. 

Like most other synagogues in Bulgaria, the Burgas synagogue closed in the late 1940s as, one after another, the Jews left. It did, however, have more luck than its counterparts elsewhere as, after being used as a warehouse and a non-Jewish community hall, it was converted into an art gallery in the 1960s. It remains so to this day (24 Mitropolit Simeon Street) and the local Shalom organisation is next door, in the building of the former Jewish school. 

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One result of its preservation, ironically, was its destruction as a synagogue. The tall prayer hall was divided into three floors and its intricate ornaments and paintings were whitewashed. 

Events took another ironic turn in the 2000s, at the time of a further renovation. As the roof needed repair, contractors started scraping off the whitewash. Old Hebrew letters and Stars 

of David were quick to reappear from under the layers of paint and mould, a selfstyled palimpsest standing evidence to the building's turbulent past. 

Fortunately, they are still there, and can be seen watching over the collection of Christian Orthodox artwork on display in the art gallery. The combination of the two evokes the days when Burgas was a truly cosmopolitan city. 

Services in Silistra's synagogue have not been held there since the Jews left in the late 1940s. Following failed plans to convert it into a cinema, the building was used as a sports hall. It is now rented out to a Christian evangelical church. Like other Jewish properties in Bulgaria, it has been vandalised with spray-painted swastikas.

The largest Sephardi temple in Europe is situated in a central Sofia Street, in an area where a mosque and several churches of various denominations "rub shoulders" with each other. It is not far from Sofia's famous Women's Market. Its main prayer hall can accommodate up to 1,170 people, and its 31-metre high dome has a span of 20 metres. A 1,700-kilogram Vienna-manufactured brass chandelier, the largest in Bulgaria, hangs from it. 

The building, an amalgamation of Moorish and Viennese Secession styles, welcomed its first congregation on 9 September 1909. Bulgarian King Ferdinand (1887-1918), his wife Queen Eleonora, Prime Minister Aleksandar Malinov, as well as a number of government ministers, MPs and the heads of both the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches were all in attendance. 

At the beginning of the 20th century Sofia had eight synagogues but the Jewish community needed a large and really representative temple. 

To build such a temple, however, the Jews had to broker an agreement among themselves. Many of them refused to donate money for the construction works as they were ardent supporters of Theodor Herzl's Zionist ideas and considered it wasteful to spend money on buildings when the main purpose of all Jews was to return to the Holy Land. 

The Jewish Consistory did manage to collect the money, and the names of the main benefactors can still be seen on a plaque on one of its walls. Friedrich Grünanger, a reputable Viennese architect of the time, was contracted to go ahead with the project. 

Grünanger was instructed to erect a building similar to the great Sephardi synagogue in Vienna (now demolished). 

The project did not go very smoothly. 

The Consistory sent the initial project back to the drawing board. Then it decided it wanted a synagogue for 1,100 rather than the originally planned 700 people. Work on the building began as late as 1905. 

The synagogue was shut down in 1943-1944, in keeping with the wartime Defence of the Na- tion Act, as most Sofia Jews were deported to the hinterland. During the Allied bombings of Sofia a bomb fell on the roof. It failed to explode, but the walls of the synagogue collapsed under its weight. The library as well as some of the community's archives were destroyed for good. 

However, the most serious changes to the synagogue were yet to come. The new regime of the Soviet-backed Communists declared itself officially atheist and started to actively discourage religious practices. In the 1950s then Chief Rabbi Asher Hananel was tried for "malfeasance in office" and sent to prison. The synagogue was thus rendered rabbi-less, a situation that would continue up until 1994. 

Yet the regime had no intention of leaving the synagogue empty. The building had excellent acoustics, and the government decided, in the 1960s, to convert it into a concert hall. Construction work on the building's interior started in the 1980s, but was never completed. For much of that period the synagogue's interior was enmeshed in scaffolding and ladders. 

The synagogue was given back to the Jewish community after the fall of Communism. In 2008, major renovations began. They were paid for by the Bulgarian Culture Ministry, as well as by private donors in Israel and the United States. The works ended in time for the 9 September 2009 Centennial Anniversary of the Sofia Central Synagogue. 

Nowadays Sabbath and other prayers are usually held in the small hall of the synagogue. The great hall is used for major holidays, state visits and occasionally concerts. 

Sofia's Ashkenazi synagogue was demolished in the 1990s to open space for a business centre. What remains of it, ironically, is the rabbi's house.

The grand Vidin synagogue was constructed in 1894. Located at the intersection of today's Baba Vida and Jules Pascin streets, the Vidin Synagogue outshone all other synagogues in Bulgaria. Its architecture was inspired by the Great Synagogue of Budapest. Its ornaments were crafted out of wood from Transylvania and Hungary, and its chandeliers were imported from Vienna. 

The synagogue fell into disrepair after almost all of Vidin's Jews left for Israel in the late 1940s. In 1950 the Communist authorities turned it into a warehouse. In 1964 it was declared a monument of culture but plans to convert it into a concert hall never materialised. 

Today the Vidin Synagogue is a sorry sight. It still stands there with its domes and turrets on the bank of the Danube, but it is nothing but a skeleton. Its roof has caved in, its windows have been broken, its paint has peeled off, and its prayer hall has been overwhelmed by weeds and even trees. The only remains of its former grandeur are some intricately crafted wrought-iron ornaments and a few wooden Stars of David in the windows. The building is sometimes ringed with a wire fence, but the fence door is usually unlocked and unprotected. Enter at your own peril because the structure may collapse at anytime. 

In the late 2010s, the Shalom Organisation of Bulgarian Jews donated the synagogue and its plot of land to the Vidin City Council. The intention is to use EU funds to reconstruct it as a tourist information and cultural centre. 

In the 15th-16th centuries Edirne was a pivotal location for Sephardis and later for Ashkenazis fleeing Western Europe. In the 19th century Edirne was also a landing spot for Jews leaving the then newly-founded Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia. In 1906 there were some 24,000 Jews in town, twice as many as in 1873. The community was so large that it spread out to several rather than a single neighbourhood. Each of them had its own synagogue. 

Jewish life in Edirne suffered a serious setback in 1905 when a fire gutted hundreds of townhouses as well as all 13 synagogues. Then the Jews decided to construct a new, modern grand synagogue. It took them just four years to accomplish it. It was designed by a French architect, France Depré, modelled on the Sephardi Leopoldstädter Temple in Vienna, and could accommodate up to 900 men and 300 women. 

The Balkan Wars and the First World War changed Jewish life in Edirne forever. Edirne was the site of significant battles and a port-of-call for large numbers of refugees fleeing Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria. Jews started to leave, initially for Thessaloniki in Greece, or Istanbul – or France, Britain and the United States. A pogrom in 1934 decimated the community. In 1940, just 2,000 Jews lived in town. 

At the end of the 1990s there were only two Jewish families in Edirne. The grand synagogue, a masterpiece of architecture and construction by any measure, was abandoned and started to run to seed. For much of the 1990s and 2000s it was reduced to a ghostly ruin. 

Things changed significantly when the Turkish Foundations Institution spent $2.5 million to renovate the synagogue of Edirne, in 2015. The synagogue now stands in full splendour, a fantastic example of how goodwill, cooperation and appropriate funding can resurrect cultural heritage. In 2016 the first Jewish wedding since 1976 took place in it. 

Prior to the Second World War there were about 98,000 Jews in Bucharest. They prayed in as many as 40 synagogues, studied in 20 schools, got buried in two cemeteries and had various social and cultural agencies. During the war, the Jews of Bucharest were exposed to atrocities such as the infamous Abattoir Pogrom, in 1941. However, Bucharest Jews were not deported and Jewish refugees continued to stream into the capital. At the end of the war Bucharest's Jewish population was in excess of 150,000. The overwhelming majority emigrated to Israel. 

Today there are about 4,000 Jews in Bucharest. There are two functioning synagogues: the Great Synagogue, erected in 1845, and the 19th century Holy Union Synagogue. Both have small museums.