Categories: places
Tags: Sibiu, Romania, synagogue
Date: 27 June 2007 10:31:27
Not that I'm counting or anything. Yes, tomorrow I head down to Satan's Armpit (aka Bucharest) to get HD from the airport. It's been so so long, I know this has always been a long-distance relationship but 2000 miles (or so) and nearly 2 months is just too long-distance. Thankfully we had a storm in the early hours this morning which has (unlike the last couple of storms) done a great job of clearing the air and making it cooler, so hopefully the bus journey tomorrow won't be too sweltering. I was seriously wilting yesterday.
In other news, I was really pleased today to find the synagogue open. Today is the last day of the EuroJudaica 2007 festival, I've not been to any of the events (mainly because the posters were rubbish and proclaimed that lots of events were happening but didn't actually say what or where), but as I was dropping some stuff off at the laundrette I noticed that the synagogue (which is opposite the laundrette) had its doors open, something I've not seen before. So I crossed over to take a look, and found a very friendly man who was happy to show me round and let me take pictures. There was an exhibition on synagogues in Romania, and a brief history of the Jewish community in Sibiu. There are now, apparently, only 65 members of the Jewish community left in Sibiu and Medias (a nearby biggish town), around half of whom are ethnic Jews and the others non-Jewish spouses who keep the Jewish traditions. The community is mostly rather elderly (I was interested to see that the community actually increased just after WW2, to around 2,000 (from 1,708 in 1940), due to many refugees and survivors from the extermination camps settling here, but it dwindled dramatically in the 1970s and 1980s with large-scale emigration to Israel). Now, although the synagogue doesn't seem to be used for regular services (I don't think there is a rabbi here), the community works hard to maintain the two synagogues and 10 Jewish cemeteries in the judet (county) and still keep the various holy days of their faith. And, despite the fact that it is so small, I still had a tangible sense of "community" as I looked round, and as I was greeted with "Shalom, Shalom" by one of the older men who came in while I was there. I thought back to when I went to the Klezmatics gig at Celtic Connections (see early Feb entries) where I had felt so excluded - today I felt welcomed by the community and was glad to experience a little of their culture.