| Olomouc Synagogue | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Religion | |
| Affiliation | Orthodox Judaism |
| Leadership | Rabbi Dr. Berthold Oppenheim |
| Status | Destroyed, March 1939 |
| Location | |
| Location |  Olomouc, Czech Republic |
| Architecture | |
| Architect(s) | Jakob Gärtner |
| Completed | 1897 |
The Olomouc Synagogue (Czech : Synagoga v Olomouci), located in Olomouc, Czech Republic, was built in 1897 [1] and was destroyed during a Nazi attack in March 1939. [2]
In the late 1850s, Olomouc's "Izraelitische Cultusverein", the religious society, was founded. The institution of regular worship in rented halls in 1859 was due to the efforts of Hermann Zweig and the well-known Jewish scholar and physician Adolf Brecher. These services were officially approved by the authorities in 1860; and in 1863, an entire floor, which was subsequently acquired by the community, was dedicated by the Rev. Dr Schmiedl, at that time of Prossnitz, and subsequently of Vienna. In 1892, the "Cultusverein" was changed into a "Cultusgemeinde", and its constitution was confirmed two years later in conformity with the law of 20 March 1890. It was then that the notion of building a synagogue arose. In 1894, the community purchased a site adjacent to the Teresian Gate. The new synagogue, designed by Jakob Gärtner (1861–1921), was completed in and duly consecrated by Berthold Oppenheim, the first rabbi of the community, on 11 April 1897. A two-story building with flats and offices for administrative use was built adjacent to the synagogue. In 1904, the town of 21,933 had a Jewish population of 1,676. [1]
The edifice was one of the biggest and finest synagogues in Czechoslovakia, but was so for only half of a century. On the night of 15–16 March 1939, the synagogue was attacked and burned to ashes. [3] The Nazi instigators refused to let the town's firemen to extinguish the flames. Looters salvaged what remained of the synagogue's ornaments and furnishings until 1941 when the whole area was transformed into a grassy park.
Two Torah scrolls were salvaged and moved to a repository in Prague. They were among the more than 1,500 sent to the Jewish Museum in Prague in 1942 for safekeeping. In the early 1960s, British lawyer and philanthropist Ralph Yablon purchased the scrolls from the Czechoslovakian government and donated them to London's Westminster Synagogue, which established the Memorial Scrolls Trust that loaned them to synagogues around the world, with most going to U.S. synagogues. [4] In 1970 one of the scrolls was loaned to Peninsula Sinai Congregation in Foster City, California, where it was used for religious services.
The Olomouc Jewish community has now been reborn after being decimated by the Nazis, and in 2016 they contacted the PSC to request the return of its scroll. Damage to its Hebrew lettering has made it unfit, or "unkosher," for use in religious ceremonies in recent years. The PSC community, led by Rabbi Corey Helfand, had the scroll restored by sofer (scribe) Rabbi Moshe Druin. In October 2017, Rabbi Helfand, Cantor Doron Shapira, Linda Oberstein, Steve Lipman, Ron and Liz Mester, and Andrea Hawksley and Andy Lutomirski, accompanied Torah back to its home in Olomouc, [5] [6] where they were also joined by Rabbi Druin. At a ceremony on 22 October 2017, the last letters were restored, and the scroll was festively installed in the Jewish prayer room on the occasion of the Jewish Culture Days in Olomouc. It was the first Torah returned out of the 1,500 Bohemian and Moravian scrolls that are stored outside the Czech Republic. [7]
A synagogue, sometimes referred to by the Yiddish term shul and referred to by Reform communities as a temple, is a Jewish house of worship. Synagogues have a place for prayer, where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies, have rooms for study, social hall(s), administrative and charitable offices, classrooms for religious school and Hebrew school, sometimes Jewish preschools, and often have many places to sit and congregate; display commemorative, historic, or modern artwork throughout; and sometimes have items of some Jewish historical significance or history about the synagogue itself on display.
A rabbi is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi—known as semikha—following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of the rabbi developed in the Pharisaic and Talmudic eras, when learned teachers assembled to codify Judaism's written and oral laws. The title "rabbi" was first used in the first century CE. In more recent centuries, the duties of a rabbi became increasingly influenced by the duties of the Protestant Christian minister, hence the title "pulpit rabbis", and in 19th-century Germany and the United States rabbinic activities including sermons, pastoral counseling, and representing the community to the outside, all increased in importance.
Olomouc is a city in the Czech Republic. It has about 102,000 inhabitants, and its larger urban zone has a population of about 384,000 inhabitants (2019).
Simchat Torah or Simhat Torah is a Jewish holiday that celebrates and marks the conclusion of the annual cycle of public Torah readings, and the beginning of a new cycle. Simchat Torah is a component of the Biblical Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret, which follows immediately after the festival of Sukkot in the month of Tishrei.
A Torah ark refers to an ornamental chamber in the synagogue that houses the Torah scrolls.
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Heřmanův Městec is a town in Chrudim District in the Pardubice Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 4,900 inhabitants. The historic town centre with the castle complex is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monument zone.
The history of the Jews in Prague is one of Central Europe's oldest and most well-known. Prague boasts one of Europe's oldest recorded Jewish communities, first mentioned by a Sephardi-Jewish traveller Ibrahim ibn Yaqub in 965. Since then, the community never ceased to exist, despite a number of pogroms and expulsions, the Holocaust, and subsequent antisemitic persecution by the Communist regime in the 20th century. Nowadays, the Jewish community of Prague numbers approximately 2,000 members. There are a number of synagogues of all Jewish denominations, a Chabad centre, an old age home, a kindergarten, Lauder Schools, Judaic Studies department at the Charles University, kosher restaurants and even a kosher hotel. Famous Jews from Prague include the Maharal, Franz Kafka, Miloš Forman and Madeleine Albright.
The Old Jewish Cemetery is a Jewish cemetery in Prague, Czech Republic, which is one of the largest of its kind in Europe and one of the most important Jewish historical monuments in Prague. It served its purpose from the first half of the 15th century until 1786. Renowned personalities of the local Jewish community were buried here; among them rabbi Jehuda Liva ben Becalel – Maharal, businessman Mordecai Meisel (1528–1601), historian David Gans and rabbi David Oppenheim (1664–1736). Today the cemetery is administered by the Jewish Museum in Prague.
A wimpel is a long, linen sash used as a binding for the Sefer Torah by Jews of Germanic (Yekke) origin. It is made from the cloth used to swaddle a baby boy at his bris milah, uniting the communal world of the synagogue with the individual's own life cycle.
The history of the Jews in the Czech lands, historically the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, including the modern Czech Republic, goes back many centuries. There is evidence that Jews have lived in Moravia and Bohemia since as early as the 10th century. Jewish communities flourished here specifically in the 16th and 17th centuries, and again in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Local Jews were mostly murdered in the Holocaust, or exiled at various points. As of 2021, there were only about 2,300 Jews estimated to be living in the Czech Republic.
The White Stork Synagogue is a nineteenth-century synagogue in Wrocław, Poland. Rededicated in 2010 after a decade-long renovation, it is the religious and cultural centre of the local Jewish community, under the auspices of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland. It is the only synagogue in Wrocław to have survived the Holocaust.
The Westminster Synagogue is a non-affiliated Jewish Reform synagogue and congregation near Hyde Park, London. It is located in Kent House, a restored Victorian town house in Knightsbridge. The building, which dates from the late 1800s, also houses the Czech Memorial Scrolls Centre.
Gustav Sicher was a chief rabbi of Prague.
Joachim (Ḥayyim) Oppenheim, also known as Joachim Heinrich Oppenheim, was a Czech rabbi and author.
Berthold Oppenheim (1867–1942) was the rabbi of Olomouc, Moravia, from 1892 to 1939. He was murdered in 1942 at the Treblinka extermination camp.
Congregation Beth Tikvah Ahavat Shalom Nusach Hoari, also known simply as Beth Tikvah, is a Modern Orthodox synagogue in Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Quebec. The synagogue's Rabbi Dr. Mordecai Zeitz oversaw the building of its Hebrew Foundation School in the fall of 1970, also known as the "Hebrew Foundation School of Congregation Beth Tikvah", and served as its Educational Director.
Tobias Jakobovits was a Rabbi, historian and Czech librarian, historian of Czech Jewry, and an expert in ancient Hebrew manuscripts. He was the chief librarian of the Prague Jewish community in the inter-war period, and the professional manager of the Jewish Museum in Prague during the Nazi Occupation. He was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp in the fall of 1944 and was murdered there along with his wife.
Franz Irblich was a Sudeten German architect, construction entrepreneur and member of the city council of Krnov. He is credited by German and Jewish sources to be the key person of the exemption of the Krnov Synagogue from destruction in the November 1938 pogrom.
The New Synagogue of Graz is a Jewish synagogue in the city of Graz, Austria. Within the city, it is located on David-Herzog-Place, on the right bank of the Mur River in the Gries neighborhood of Graz. The synagogue serves the Jews of Graz, Styria, Carinthia, and southern parts of Burgenland.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Deutsch, Gotthard; Kisch, Alexander (1901–1906). "Olmütz". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia . New York: Funk & Wagnalls. Retrieved Jun 16, 2017.
49°35′26″N17°15′02″E / 49.59056°N 17.25056°E
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