NOVÁ CEREKEV SYNAGOGUE

The first prayer room could already be found in Nová Cerekev in 1693, but a new synagogue, this time not wooden, was built in 1855. It was a temple in the Babylonian-Assyrian style of a three-nave hall. It was designed by the Pelhřimov architect Štěpán Walser. The synagogue was built in Neo-Romanesque style with oriental elements. It has wide buttressed towers with battlements and a clock in the western façade. Inside there is a hall, a triple nave and an apse. In front of it, between two columns, there is a high classical tabernacle with the tablets of the Ten Commandments and the biblical quotation Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory. The bright interior is surrounded on three sides by women's galleries on massive prismatic pillars.

After the deportation of the town’s Jews, the synagogue was used as a storage space for their furniture and then as a brush warehouse. After the Velvet Revolution it was bought by a private investor, but it continued to decay. Eight years later the synagogue was bought by the Jewish Community in Prague. Long-term renovations began and continued until the building opened to the public in 2014.

Thanks to the excellent acoustics, various concerts are held in the synagogue and the permanent exhibition The Architecture of Synagogues in the Czech Lands can also be visited. It conveys the idea of the original cultural mission of synagogues as centres of religious, educational and social life of Jewish communities.

Photo: Market town Nová Cerekev, m - ARK