Choral Temple

The Choral Temple, located at 9-11 Sfântul Vineri Street, is one of the most important buildings of Romania's Jewish community. Built between 1864 and 1866 (on land purchased by the community back in 1857), to designs by Viennese architects I. Enderle and Gustav Freiwald, the temple was raised in Moorish-Byzantine style, inspired by Vienna's Tempelgasse Synagogue, and can hold about 800 worshippers. The name "Choral" comes from the mixed choir that performed inside, an innovative feature for Jewish communities of the era. The building stands about 32 meters tall, 32 meters long, and 14 meters wide, with a main prayer hall impressive in both scale and ornamentation. Its inauguration was delayed after nationalists set the building on fire in 1866, amid debates over granting citizenship to Jews; the temple reopened in 1867. Over the years it has been renovated several times, with the most recent major restoration carried out between 2008 and 2015. Bucharest's Jewish community numbered around 70,000 members at its interwar peak (1930s), and the Choral Temple was one of its spiritual centers. Today the building functions both as an active house of worship and as a tourist and cultural attraction. It is reached by public transport, with Unirii and Universitate metro stations roughly 500-700 meters away. Worth visiting for its well-documented architectural value, its historical relevance within Eastern Europe's Jewish heritage, and its collection of ritual objects on display inside.