Obj. ID: 24121
Jewish Architecture Choral Synagogue in Nizhnii Novgorod, Russia
By 1871, there were four minyanim in Nizhnii Novgorod. In contrast to other communities along the Volga, the community in Nizhnii was affluent enough to construct a large building of the synagogue in 1881–1884 by the local architect I.F. Neiman. Apparently, it was a synagogue with a modernized, choral worship, since the Russian-Jewish Encyclopedia states that “a small group of intelligent public activists built the synagogue.”58 In order to keep the prayer direction toward southeast (to Jerusalem), the building faced the street with its corner. The main façade had two domed protrusions and the prayer hall had a women’s gallery supported by wooden columns, one of which is preserved in the synagogue museum. In a later stage, the wooden columns were covered by brick and such a column still could be seen in the ground floor. A mikveh was situated in the cellar. The synagogue was closed by the Soviet authorities in 1938 and the building converted into an accordion factory. Several illegal minyanim continued to function in the city during the entire Soviet period; in the 1980s a minyan was gathering in a house at 29 Priokskaia St. The revived community received the former synagogue building in 1991 and performed its reconstruction in 1998–2000. Currently, the building houses a synagogue and a community center. While originally the prayer hall was situated at the ground floor, the new design placed it at the first floor. The upper floor with a women’s gallery and a social hall was added in 2005. Currently, the prayer hall with a skylight has an impressive rectangular Torah ark against the wall made of Jerusalem stones . The two domed protrusions of the main façade were reinterpreted as the two staves of the Torah scroll and became the logo of the new synagogue. There is a small Jewish community museum in the building. The museum keeps a handwritten ketubbah from 1969, originating from Nizhnii Novgorod and several pink sim of the Hevra Kadisha from the Soviet period.
sub-set tree:
Beizer, Michael. Our Legacy: The CIS Synagogues, Past and Present (Moscow-Jerusalem: Gesharim - Mosty Kultury, 2002), p. 18 with ill., p. 169.
Levin, Vladimir and Anna Berezin, Jewish Material Culture along the Volga
Preliminary. Expedition Report (The Center for Jewish Art, 2021), https://cja.huji.ac.il/home/pics/projects/CJA_Report_on_the_Volga_expedition_2021.pdf (accessed June 6, 2023)
Levin, Vladimir and Anna Berezin, “Jewish Prayer in the Heart of Russia: Synagogues along the Volga,” Ars Judaica 18 (2022): 111–44, https://doi.org/10.3828/arsjudaica.2022.18.6.