#romania

The Baal Shem Tov wooden synagogue of Piatra Neamt

Located in northeastern Romania, the city of Piatra Neamt used to be an important trade hub as early as the Middle Ages. A genuine melting pot, inhabited by Romanians, Saxons, Hungarians and Jews, back in the time of Stephen the Great, the city was one of the king’s princely courts. The Jewish community there grew in time, accounting for half of the city’s population at the end of the 19th century. The Baal Shem Tov synagogue is a living proof of the Jews’ flourishing history in this area. There is a local legend connecting the name of Baal Shem Tov to the synagogue in Piatra Neamt. Legend has it that at a certain moment he had withdrawn to mount Ceahlau to meditate and he would go to spend the Sabbath in Piatra Neamt at the synagogue; an older one that had been built on the same place. Baal Shem Tov died in 1760, six years before the construction of the present-day synagogue, but when they started refurbishing it, they found evidence of the existence of a an older synagogue on the same site. Its other typical element, the fact that it is made of wood, as well as the architectural elements such as the dovetail corner joints, but also the wood used in construction, oak and fir-tree, make it very similar to the wooden monasteries on the Bistrita River valley. It was erected with craftsmen from Piatra Neamt, and the material coming from the same place, but it was commissioned by the Jewish community there.

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