The Fabric Synagogue, a beautiful Jewish temple sadly abandoned in Timișoara

In the past, Romania, a predominantly Orthodox Christian country, had a large Jewish community of more than 700,000 people.

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Between 1897 and 1899, in the city of Timișoara (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), in western Romania, the Jewish community built a large synagogue in the Fabric district. The temple was designed by the Hungarian-Jewish architect Lipót Baumhorn, in a peculiar neoclassical style, with neo-Moorish elements and Byzantine influences, which resulted in a building of great beauty. The temple had an organ built by local craftsman Carl Leopold Wegenstein. The history of this building is linked to the sad fate of the Romanian Jewish community. During the dictatorship of Ion Antonescu (1940-1944), hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered in Romania, so this temple was a witness to those years of persecution.

The antisemitic genocide perpetrated by the Antonescu dictatorship led to mass emigration of surviving Romanian Jews to Israel after World War II. The Fabric Synagogue was eventually abandoned in 1985 during the communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu (1974–1989), when the local Jewish community was greatly reduced due to emigration.

In 2009, the Jews of Timișoara donated the building to the National Theatre for use as a performance venue. This marked the beginning of a period that saw the building change hands several times, with restoration plans never implemented. Since 2023, it has been owned by the Timișoara City Council, but its state of neglect is evident, as can be seen in this video published a few days ago by the channel Broken Window Theory:

You can see some screenshots from this video here. Here we see the colorful plaster and red brick facade of the Fabric Synagogue, which still looks beautiful despite decades of neglect.

The interior of the synagogue. The years of neglect and the numerous acts of vandalism it has suffered over time are visible.

The synagogue's impressive central dome. This temple was built in the style of other synagogues Baumhorn designed in other cities of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Its stained-glass windows are one of the most beautiful features of this building. The light still filters through them, flooding the interior with beautiful colors, as if the building were still alive.