Two Synagogues Without a Congregation

 Satu Mare

Satu Mare is an unimposing town in northern Romania close to both the borders of Hungary and Ukraine. Its name is Romanian for “Great Village.” However, this replaces its earlier Hungarian name which was Sătmar.

The town gave rise to one of the most well-known ultra-Orthodox – or Hasidic – groups. Although records show that Jews were first known to be living there in the late 16^th century, they were expelled in 1715, when the town was declared a “Royal Town”. In 1820, the Jews began to trickle back. By 1930, the town had five large synagogues and some 20 smaller “shtiebels” (services held in small houses), with a population of over 11,000 in a wider population of 53,000 (21%). By 1941, the Jewish population had risen to nearly 13,000 (25%).

Growth (and trades) of the Jewish population of Cluj

 

Map showing where the Jews came to Transylvania from

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was in this backdrop that Satmar Hasidism was founded in 1905 by Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum. He achieved a steady following, first from those who had followed him from Sighet, but later from all over the region. His popularity grew as did his standing in the community.

Even before the Holocaust, Jews’ rights had started to erode, being evicted from schools, barred from certain careers, and even swimming pools. As such, individuals had already started to leave Transylvania – many to Israel, but also to America and other places.

Of the 18,000 Jews who were transported from all over Transylvania, only 2,000 returned. Many found it difficult to settle once their loved ones were no longer there and moved on to join family and friends in other places.

Hard to make out clearly, but the black dots represent those who never came back; the green, those who did

Today Satu Mare has around 30 individual Jews. It is therefore astonishing to visit the Satmar synagogue in Sighet which is a veritable temple to ostentation and prayer simultaneously. 

The ark, surrounded by polished stone and adorned in gilt

Satmar Synagogue

No expense has been spared in building, decorating, and maintaining this edifice. We start in the men’s mikveh (ritual bath). There isn’t a women’s mikveh because the Satmar sect is a patriarchal society. There are rooms downstairs where women can prepare food and perhaps commune with each other while their menfolk pray and study the holy scriptures upstairs.

Everywhere we look is pristine, ornate, and expensively kitted out. But who – and where – are the congregants? In a town with just a handful of Jews, who is using this incredible facility? Today there is no-one there, apart from us. There rarely is.

The main prayer and meeting room

The answer is bizarre. The bulk of the Satmar sect now live in Williamsburg, New York. They are not lawyers, accountants, or doctors; they are business men. They deal in diamonds, property, commerce, and the like. They seem to have done alright for themselves. It is their money which has built this superlative structure which they visit on special occasions.

The library and also another prayer room

This is essentially just a building; no local community.

On the flipside we visit other synagogues. It could be any one of a number that we visited. Run down, memorialising what once was and hardly ever getting a minyan (the quorum of ten men required to conduct a service). The paint is peeling, the seats are rickety. Donations from abroad and government funding has enabled it to keep going. 

  

In the foyer of one shul, I thumb through some books, and spot one which is comprised of drawings from within the concentration camps. There is no question as to where this community is, or rather, went.

Two synagogues - no communities

Completely the opposite side of the community coin. The Satmar shul, is a thriving busy synagogue with Jews visiting from all over the world, filling its halls with loud singing and praying.

The local synagogue in Satu Mare is a dying community whose congregation are all over the age of 60 with no hope of ever replenishing their numbers. 

            Between youth and end of life. The sign points to religion school on the left and the burial board on the right

They depend on donations from all over the world, and much of their resources go towards maintaining both the building and the thousands of graves in the many Jewish cemeteries around the town. 

 

 

Synagogues in Romania nowadays are mostly memorials.

Next to the synagogue in Satu Mare is a memorial to the over 18,000 Jews from the town killed in the Holocaust.

In Sighet, the monument is huge.