Obj. ID: 22465  Novogoroder (New Town) Beit Midrash in Vilna (Vilnius), Lithuania

Novogoroder (New Town) Beit Midrash at former 41 (later 55) Novgorodskaia (Naugarduko) Street.

The wooden beit midrash in the New Town was established in 1866, to the west of the Novogoroder Synagogue; ritual slaughterers and other Jewish workers from the Vilnius slaughterhouse prayed there. However, it received the official recognition
only in 1891.

In 1899 the board of the Novogoroder Synagogue, which owned also the beit midrash, applied for a permission to build a new masonry beit midrash instead of the old wooden one as well as two buildings for the meat shops facing the street. In 1900 the design of a new spacious brick beit midrash was approved, while the design for the shops was rejected. The beit midrash building was completed by 1903.

A drawing from 1910 testifies that the design was implemented with changes: the 16 windows of the prayer hall were placed differently, the prayer hall was spanned with a vault rather than a flat ceiling, two columns flanking the bimah were missing, and the façades were executed in the so-called “brick style.” Contrary to the design, the entrance to the women’s section was made through an outer wooden staircase. This deviation from the approved design and building norms caused the sealing of the women’s section of the beit midrash by the police in 1909; at the same time, the maximum number of worshippers in the prayer hall was limited to 300 people by the city’s architect. Following these measures, the board applied for permission to replace the wooden outer staircase by a masonry one, which was granted in 1910.

A yeshiva existed in the beit midrash in the early 20th century. Before WWI the common board of the Novogoroder Synagogue and the beit midrash received a yearly subsidy from the korobka tax in the amount of 516 rubles; it also possessed meat shops and a poultry slaughterhouse. In 1916 there were altogather 300 regular worshippers in the synagogue and beit midrash; by 1936 their number diminished to 146. This beit midrash was considered the largest prayer house in Vilnius. By 1942 the beit midrash was damaged, but its bimah, Torah ark and the beautifully carved benches were still preserved, as well as a painting on the western wall showing the Western Wall of the Jerusalem Temple compound.

The building is not extant.

From: Vladimir Levin, “Synagogues, Batei Midrash and Kloyzn in Vilnius,” in Synagogues in Lithuania. A Catalogue, ed. Aliza Cohen-Mushlin et al., vol. 2 (Vilnius: Vilnius Academy of Arts Press, 2012), p. 327-328.