Obj. ID: 10081
  Architecture  Sephardi Synagogue in Drobeta Turnu Severin, Romania

"The Sephardi synagogue in Drobeta-Turnu Severin was erected in 1896, in 1973 it was closed, and the building was sold. A notary bureau occupies the building now and its owner has prevented us from entering the former synagogue. A huge Orthodox cathedral was built near the former synagogue in the late 1990s.

The synagogue is a small building with an ornate western façade made in the Neo-Moorish style. The tripartite unplastered brick façade with octagonal half-columns and elevated central part repeats the scheme of the Leopoldstädter Tempel in Vienna (1858) of the architect Ludwig Förster, which was especially popular in Austria-Hungary and beyond in the second half of the nineteenth century. In Romania, the Choral Temple of Bucharest was built in 1864–1867 according to this scheme. Like in Vienna and Bucharest, the façade is surmounted by the Tablets of the Law.

Other façades of the synagogue are plain and plastered. Its eastern part forms a kind of apse. A commemorative plaque states that the building was the Sephardi synagogue from 1896 to 1973.

The interior of the synagogue is known from a photograph from the collection of Moshe Kunes held in the Center for Jewish Art. There was a women’s gallery on all four sides of the prayer hall and the walls and ceiling of the hall were covered with decorative paintings." [Levin, 2025, pp. 18-19]

Sephardi Synagogue in Drobeta Turnu Severin, Romania - photos of 1997

Sephardi Synagogue in Drobeta Turnu Severin, Romania - photos of 2025