APATIN SYNAGOGUE – APATIN

APATIN SYNAGOGUE – APATIN

When members of the consistently small Jewish community had become sufficiently prosperous to finance the construction of a purpose-built place of worship to meet their religious needs, funds were raised to enable this building project to go ahead. Until then, a residential building had been used for this purpose. From as early as the second half of the eighteenth century, Apatin’s Jewish community had paid rent for the property, which had been adapted only to a limited extent to accommodate basic religious activities. The Jewish place of worship was built in the Neo-Gothic style in 1885, at what is now 5 Ognjena Price Street. One of the synagogue’s distinctive features is a polychrome ceiling mural depicting the two tablets of the Covenant (Hebrew: luhot habrit), bearing the Ten Commandments inscribed in Hebrew script with the letters reversed. As a result, the text can only be read using a mirror. This feature makes the Apatin Synagogue unique in the world. After the Second World War, the synagogue was no longer needed, as the Jewish population of Apatin had virtually disappeared. Of the town’s former Jewish community of 60 people, 52 perished following their deportation to death camps in 1944. Consequently, the building was sold to representatives of the Baptist Church in 1955. The entire façade was preserved, and the only alteration was the addition of a cross at the top of the building. A cross was placed on the stone tablet bearing the luhot habrit, symbolically marking the conversion of the building from a place of Jewish worship to a Baptist place of worship. The narrower end of the building is positioned directly on the street building line, departing from the legal regulations in force at the time, which stipulated that Orthodox Christian and Jewish religious buildings had to be set back from the street and enclosed by a boundary fence. The street-facing façade features two Neo-Gothic windows, with a small circular window, or oculus, between them. The façade also incorporates two symmetrically positioned pilasters, while the gable is decorated with a series of small arches following its outline. On the southern, courtyard-facing side, there is a row of four transom windows and the entrance to the synagogue itself. This arrangement represents a significant departure from Jewish religious requirements, which stipulate that the entrance should be located on the western side.

Petra Drapšina Street, Apatin
www.apatin.org.rs/videti-i-iskusiti/razgledanje/religijski-objekti/sinagoga-u-apatinu_69

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