The Synagogue, Tîrgu Mureş

The Synagogue of Tîrgu-Mureş, also known as the “Large Temple", was built between 1899 and 1900 at the initiative of the Jewish community "Status Quo" and is considered to be one of the most beautiful buildings of its kind in Romania. The marble plaque in the hall of the temple bears the names of all those who contributed materially or spiritually to its construction. Among these is the name of the then- president of the community Burger Adalbert, of its vice-president Farkas Mendel, of Rabbi Dr. Wilhelm Joachim and of the main donors.

The design of the synagogue was drawn up by Jewish architect Gartner Jacob of Vienna and the construction works were coordinated by Sóos Pál. The architectural conception is defined by monumentality and a harmonious eclecticism. Various Western European styles were combined with Muslim ones in order to create a visual effect of richness. The main facade consists of a central part and two lateral towers crowned by bulb-shaped vaults of oriental inspiration. The main entrance is sheltered by a portico with three semi-circular arches supported by columns. Above it lies the large, floral rosette. An inscription in Hebrew can be seen on the gable of the façade, which follows the curved contour of the rosette and the gable. The text is a quote from the Old Testament (Isaiah 56/7) and it means: “My house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples”. Elements such as svelte columns with caps decorated with floral motifs in relief, which support semi-circular arch openings are placed next to laced profiles and tri-lobed ornaments. Each tower has an access door to the stairs that lead to the balcony inside the temple, as well as a smaller rosette. The entire edifice is dominated by the central cupola. Each side of the central spire is decorated with a floral rosette similar to the ones on the facade. This type of window is also used several times on the lateral facades.

The vast interior is richly decorated, both with shapes and color. The temple has 314 seats on the ground floor (for men) and 238 on the top floor (for women). The space consists of an access corridor separated from the central nave by doors decorated with colorful stained glass windows. The central nave is delimited from the two lateral naves, above which there are balconies, by columns placed on high socles. The central vault is painted with star motifs in vivid colors and is decorated with shell-shaped motifs or fret-sawed panels with the Star of David in their center. Underneath the vault there is the bima – a square space surrounded by a railing – where fragments of the Tora are read.

An essential element of the Synagogue is the shrine where the rolls of Tora are kept, at the end of the central nave. Attached to the railing of the shrine is the monument dedicated to the Jews of Tîrgu Mureş who died in the Holocaust. In 1944 Jews were deported from Tîrgu Mureş, as well, as it was part of the Hungarian state. According to statistics, 5943 Jews of Tîrgu Mureş died in the concentration camp of Auschwitz. The plaque in the Large Temple bears the following Hebrew inscription in their memory: “The number of martyrs from our town is 5943. The stones in the walls themselves and the entire Jewish people mourn the extermination of our parents and our loved ones who were asphyxiated and burnt in Auschwitz in the year 5704 (1944)”.

Via. Photos from here, here.

Elie Wiesel - Nobel 1986

Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel (born September 30, 1928 in Sighet) is a writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor.


Elie Wiesel was born in Sighet, a little town in Transylvania, (now Sighetu Marmaţiei), Maramureş, Kingdom of Romania. His father, Sholomo Wiesel, was an Orthodox Jew, who instilled a strong sense of humanism in his son, encouraging him to learn modern Hebrew and to read literature, whereas his mother, Sarah, encouraged him to study the Torah and Kabbalah. Wiesel’s early life, spent in a small Hasidic community, was a rather hermetic existence of prayer and contemplation. In 1940 Sighet was annexed by Hungary, and in March 1944 the town was brought into the Holocaust. Within days, Jews were “defined” and their property confiscated. By April they were ghettoized, and on May 15 the deportations to Auschwitz began. Wiesel, his parents, and three sisters were deported to Auschwitz, where his mother and a sister (Tzipora) were killed. He and his father were sent to Buna-Monowitz, the slave labour component of the Auschwitz camp. In January 1945 they were part of a death march to Buchenwald, where his father died on January 28 and from which Wiesel was liberated in April.


After the war Wiesel settled in France, studied at the Sorbonne (1948–51), and wrote for French and Israeli newspapers. Wiesel went to the United States in 1956 and was naturalized in 1963. He was a professor at City College of New York (1972–76), and from 1976 he taught at Boston University, where he became Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities.

During his time as a journalist in France, Wiesel was urged by the novelist François Mauriac to bear witness to what he had experienced in the concentration camps. The outcome was Wiesel’s first book, in Yiddish, Un di velt hot geshvign (1956; “And the World Has Remained Silent”), abridged as La Nuit (1958; Night), a memoir of a young boy’s spiritual reaction to Auschwitz. It is considered by some critics to be the most powerful literary expression of the Holocaust. In the US, Wiesel wrote over 40 books, both fiction and non-fiction, and won many literary prizes.

All of Wiesel’s works reflect, in some manner, his experiences as a survivor of the Holocaust and his attempt to resolve the ethical torment of why the Holocaust happened and what it revealed about human nature. He became a noted lecturer on the sufferings experienced by Jews and others during the Holocaust, and his ability to transform this personal concern into a universal condemnation of all violence, hatred, and oppression was largely responsible for his being awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. In 1978 U.S. President Jimmy Carter named Wiesel chairman of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust, which recommended the creation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Wiesel also served as the first chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. He was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1985, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, The International Center in New York's Award of Excellence, KBE (Knight of The British Empire) and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1996. (From Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica)