Sinagogile din Iaşi la mijlocul secolului al XIX lea (aspecte culturale, sociale, arhitectonice şi urbanistice)
Synagogues of Iaşi at the Middle of 19th Century (Cultural, Social, Architectural and Urbanistic Aspects)

Summary/Abstract: The subject of this study refers to the location of the synagogues in the urban perimeter of Iaşi town from the middle of 19th century. The main documentary support of this analysis is an unpublished document, more exactly a list of the synagogues from Iaşi at the 1st of November 1843. The studying of the document has been preceded by the clearing up synonyms of the synagogue word in the Romanian documents from the middle of the 19th century. We have also emphasized which were the most important medieval restrictions concerning the settlement and the location of mosaic cult places on the Romanian territory. There are the first certain restriction of the synagogues settlement during 18th century. The synagogues had to be build from wood and they had to be placed on the outskirts of the Christian dwelling places or in isolated places and to have a common architecture. Even if the restrictions weren’t respected and put in the practice consequently, they had important discriminatory effects not only on the social level but also on the urban level which has been transmitted in the 19th century. This is an explanation of the fact that even after the Jews settled on the central streets of towns, many synagogues weren’t conspicuous in any kind because they were built or settled in the back of the buildings from the front side of the streets. In Moldavia, in the middle of the 19th century there was at least one important synagogue in all towns and market towns where Jewish community lived. In Iaşi the number of synagogues increased in the four-five decades while the Jewish population of this town was increasing in a surprisingly way representing almost half of the town’s population. For such a significant Jewish community there were approximately 30-40 synagogues and houses for prayers, (3-5 big synagogues) plus a large number of confessional schools having less importance. Both interpretations of demographical situation and of the plan with the spreading out of synagogues on the Iaşi territory made us jump at several simple conclusions. The synagogues were placed most of the cases in the centre of the places with an important density of Jewish population but also in the places where Jews has just begun to establish. The oldest synagogues but also the largest number of them were placed in Târgu Cucului and Târgu de Jos districts, these were traditional zone for dwelling and for economic Jewish activity.

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