Romania. Jewish Bucharest

Although many books have been written about Bucharest, with the exception of a rather small guide printed by the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania (FCER) and several articles published in Studia Hebraica (the academic journal of the Center for Hebrew Studies of the Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest) and in the Bulletin of the Center for the Study of Romanian Jewish History, there is, unfortunately, no unitary source that introduces the public to a less known aspect of the Jewish presence in Bucharest: namely, its architectural and, implicitly, its cultural heritage. Yet, very little is known today about the old Jewish quarters of Bucharest, with their specificity (houses composed of stores at the front and dwellings at the back or on the upper floors) and typical lifestyle (family life, relations between neighbors, holiday celebrations, etc).

Moreover, these quarters, as well as the individual buildings, both the community ones (synagogues, hospitals, schools, etc.) and those built by Jewish architects and engineers (such as those designed Marcel Iancu and Marcel Locar, Edwin Reininger and Emil Calmanovici, Harry Stern and Leon Stern, Leonida Negrescu and Jean Monda, etc.), for Jewish businessmen who wished to assert their social status by luxurious mansions (such as the Hermann Spayer Palace or the Mauriciu Blank Mansion), or by Jewish entrepreneurs interested in business development (such as the Prager Building, the Marmorosch Blank Bank, the Herdan/Grand Hotel du Boulevard or the Grand Hotel Continental) are not only interesting from the aesthetical point of view, and do not represent just a part of the metropolis’ great architectural heritage, but also constitute a standing proof of the Jewish contribution to the urbanization and modernization of Bucharest and of Romania.

The book is structured in such a way as to offer a wider perspective than a simple overview; it combines historical information with its literary image, old photos with contemporary ones, so as to appeal to both specialists and knowledge driven readers.

More than just a city guide and at the same time less, the book is meant as an invitation to discovery, an incitement designed to prompt the reader to go out and explore for himself what is left of Jewish Bucharest.