Galatz

The Jewish community built in 1852 a synagogue on Marc Aureliu Street, destroyed when systematisation works started. As it was insufficient for the needs of the growing community, it took in 1863 the initiative to build a coral temple on Al. I. Cuza Street, but the municipality refused to give its approval for the site. The efforts were resumed in 1880 by a committee presided by R. Flachs and the Coral Temple was inaugurated in August 1885, in the presence of Rabi Dr Moses Gaster. The religious service was celebrated according to the coral system, led by a cantor and a second cantor, and the vocal chorus was accompanied by an organ. The temple belonged to a society called the “Society of the Coral Israelite Temple from Cuza Vodă Street”[1]. The synagogue was an impressive building, and the ground floor had 390 seats for men and 352 for women. The edifice was severely damaged at the 1940 earthquake, and was thereafter demolished.

In 1883 there was also constructed a synagogue on Dornei St.[2]. The religious services were done according to the old system, every temple being administered by its own proper committee[3].

Besides them, there were numerous other smaller temples (belonging to guilds of craftsmen, such as the synagogues of the cab drivers, of tailors, of ironsmiths, etc.[4]. Nowadays there’s only one synagogue that survived the in Galaţi – the Craftsmen’ Temple.

Picture 3.3.2.1_1 The Craftsmen’ Temple
Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Templul_Meseria%C5%9Filor_din_Gala%C5%A3i,_4-16.6.10_315.jpg

[1] Moise N. Pacu, Cartea judeţului Covurluiu. Note geografice, istorice şi în deosebi statistice, (Bucharest: Stabilimentul Grafic I. V. Socecu, 1891), 146

[2] Pacu, Cartea, 146–147; Paul Păltănea, Istoria oraşului Galaţi de la origini până la 1918, ediţia a II-a, edited by Eugen Drăgoi, vol. II (Galaţi: Editura Partener, 2008), 214.

[3] Pacu, Cartea, 147.

[4] Galatz, in the Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities in Romania, at the address http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/pinkas_romania/rom1_00090.html.

References

Websites:

Galatz, in the Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities in Romania, at the address http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/pinkas_romania/rom1_00090.html

Website of the Jewish community of Galaţi

https://sites.google.com/site/cegalati/

Archival sources:

Bibliography:

Lazăr, Osy, Weinberg, Solomon, “Din istoria comunităţii evreilor din Galaţi” [From the History of the Jewish Community of Galaţi], Studia et Acta Historiae Iudeorum Romaniae, 6 (2001) 11–27.

Monografia comunităţii israelite din Galaţi. Din cele mai vechi timpuri până în prezent. Lucrare prezentată la expoziţia jubiliară, anul jubiliar 1906 [The Monograph of the Jewish Community of Galaţi. From the Earliest to the Present Times] (Galaţi: Lito-Tipografia Moldova, 1906).

Pacu, Moise N., Cartea Judeţului Covurlui. Note geografice, istorice şi în deosebi statistice [The Book of Covurlui County. Geographical, Historical and Mainly Statistical Notes] (Bucharest: Stabilimentul Grafic I. V. Socecu, 1891).

Păltănea, Paul, Istoria oraşului Galaţi de la origini până la 1918 [The History of Galaţi from Its Beginnings to 1918], second edition, edited by Eugen Drăgoi (Galaţi: Editura Partener, 2008).