Stanisławów Synagogues

Pre-WWI

September 1997

Comments and observations about The Great Synagogue building

by Susannah Juni

Obviously, the beautiful cupolas were destroyed during WWII, yet the building remains grand in appearance. The ground floor level, accessible from the arched door to the left of the curve in the front of the building, is now a store. It was unclear to me as to whether the store is leased from the government, or if the synagogue must rent out this space in order to have enough income to maintain the building. It’s well worth going inside the store to see the old detail on the building. Probably, this was the old social hall for the synagogue. After the holocaust, the space was used as a social club for a local professional association, who had restored the interior of this floor. Subsequently, the space was made into a store during Soviet times, which remains to this day. The store deals in furniture and hardware.

Old pre-WWI photographs show large beautiful pointed decorative cones on the roof. These no longer remain, but one can see where they had been attached. The old front of the building is across the street from the town's philharmonic theater hall. Anyone trying to find the shul might do better by asking people for the location of the philharmonic theater, as most residents do not seem aware that there is a synagogue.

The angle of the shot on the right is slightly different from the shot on the left, so you can see Rynek, the center of the town square (the pointed tower) in the background. The picture on the left shows two nearby buildings. The building on the far left was in the process of demolition during my visit in September, 1997. Directly across the street from the synagogue, notice the columns on the corner of the building on the right edge of the pre-WWI picture. That building, still existing and functioning, is the Philharmonic Concert Hall, built in the 1800s. A grand location for a grand synagogue.

Stanisławów was a city with over 50 synagogues, ranging in size from the large, elegant Great Synagogue in the center of town (shown above), to tiny shtibelekh, some of which were merely the living rooms of the homes of neighborhood rebbis, which functioned as places for a minyen to pray, and to study. There is one functioning synagogue today in Ivano Frankivsk. One could say that there is "only one;" and yet one could say that it is a miracle that there actually is a functioning synagogue at this time, over 50 years after the virtual destruction of the entire Jewish community. Keep in mind that Stanisławów had a total population of over 100,000 (perhaps over 150,000), with 25,000 to 30,000 or more Jews prior to WWII. (Different sources vary on exact figures depending on the exact time period referenced in history. We'll add a listing of population statistics to this web site in the future.)

The remaining synagogue is indeed the original Great Synagogue, pictured above. The building was returned to the Jewish community when Ukraine seceded from the Soviet Union in 1991 upon petitioning to the local authorities by Rabbi Kolesnik. (Rabbi Kolesnik was born in Ivano Frankivsk after WWII to Jewish parents stemming from further east in Russia. His parents, having survived the Holocaust, were resettled by the Soviet government in Ivano Frankivsk. He has created a functioning center of Jewish identity by opening the doors of the Great Synagogue for regular services, all year round, despite lack of heat (removed during the Holocaust), and other necessities. The original pews have been replaced by folding chairs. Every shabes, enough Jews come to make a minyen, and services are held. Every High Holiday, Jews come from all of the surrounding towns and villages to pray here. Reb Kolesnik counts the synagogue membership at over 300. A miracle; a tragedy with an eternal flame of hope and strength. (Note: Most, but not all, of the 300 Jews currently in the area did not originate in this city, but were resettled here by the Soviets from further east in Russia at various post-Holocaust times. Nonetheless, they are Jews who are faithfully holding our place in geographic and cultural history. We depend on them, and are grateful to them.)

In September, 1997, I had the precious honor of praying in the Great Synagogue, here in the city of virtually all of my ancestors, at a Sabbath service, and also at a Rosh Khodesh service. I still tremble when I ponder my cherished memories in that place. Each moment, during the services, while meeting with the Rabbi in his study, bending over my family notes with some of the few Jewish survivors who had actually lived in Stanisławów before the war, searching in vain for anyone who might remember my then-large family, the warmth of the women who sat with me at the kidush table after services, my tears when we all sang familiar Yiddish songs together in celebration of the Sabbath, all of these moments will forever resound in my heart as a metaphoric echo of our ancestors' voices.

View the photos below to join me on a tour of this beautiful and important building. May this structure, and all of the events that happen inside, from the leadership of the kind heart and soul of Rabbi Kolesnik, continue to keep and hold the reality that despite the vast efforts of our enemies, our people will not disappear from our home, our spiritual home. As Jews have done for thousands of years, we carry this spiritual home deep inside out souls, wherever we live; yet this building and all that it represents defiantly recall the tens of thousands who dare to never be forgotten. Barukh hashem.

A former Talmud Torah study house in Ivano Frankivsk (Stanisławów).
[photo source: Joyce Field, ShtetlSchleppers tour - September, 2000.]

The Great Synagogue Courtyard Entrance

[photo source: S. R. Juni, Sept. 1997]

You enter the synagogue today, through a gated courtyard entrance in the rear. For walking directions to the synagogue from the Roxalana Hotel (now called the Auscoprut Hotel, as of September, 2000) see the directions on the right side of the page.

In the gated courtyard, where one now enters the synagogue, there is a tiny free standing building (roughly the size of a toll booth) that looks like it might have once been a guard house of some sort. In September, 1997, it housed a jewelry repair shop. Neither of the two businesses in the synagogue property (this jewelry repair shop or the furniture shop in the front of the building) are run by Jews or are affiliated with the synagogue in any way. Both seem highly incongruous.

The Great Synagogue
How to Get There

[Source: From S. Juni's notes after September, 1997 trip.]

Directions to the Great Synagogue from the Hotel Roxolana (a five minute walk):

Turn right from the hotel on Grunwald Street.

Turn left on 3-go Maja Street (old Polish street names - see reference maps).

When you come to the new Parliament building on the right (huge curved white building), turn right immediately past it.

There’s a cafe called “The Black Cat” on this street across from the Parliament building, written only in Ukrainian, but you can see the cat decals on the window.

Turn left at the first small street.

Turn right at the next street. It’s on the right, first building on the corner. Enter through the gated courtyard in the back of the building. (The last two streets are not labeled on any new or old map we found, nor were signs posted with the names of these streets in any language.)

The Great Synagogue Interior
View from behind the current mekhitse (the wall separating the women's section)

[photo source: S. R. Juni, Sept. 1997]

[photo source: S. R. Juni, Sept. 1997]

View on right showing the current mekhitse (the lower wooden wall at the left separating the women's section) and the older original mekhitse in the balcony at the left. The wooden structure on the left, in the center of the main area, is where the rebbe reads the Torah, a traditional European shul layout.

Personal Memoirs: Davening in Ivano Frankivsk

LOCATION: Stanisle (Ivano-Frankivsk) Sept., 1997 - As spoken into a tape recorder for my mother, Rachel Juni. [by S.R. Juni]
We are in a café and I want to leave my impressions right away. We went to the synagogue on Shabes. It was just incredible. The service was very traditional.You know the women are separated from the men. Also, they are very short of sidurim so they really use whatever they have, all mix matched - you know it was kind of hard for me to follow along. There was someone there who made sure I had a sidur and who made sure I had one that had both English and Hebrew. In fact it was a funny irony because the sidurim they have are generally old ones that people have donated from synagogues from various places all over the world. The one they gave me was an old one from the original Anshe Chesed synagogue (in New York City). It is very funny because of course, I belong to Anshe Chesed now, but I belong to the new Anshe Chesed (new congregation, re-established in the early 1970’s when the original congregation was dwindling in numbers) and this was an old one from 1910 from the old Anshe Chesed. (The new congregation was started by Michael Strassfeld and Paul Cowen and their families who all had very progressive and egalitarian ideals. As I looked at this old sidur, the irony was amazing.) It was very traditional. It even had a blessing in the book....I don't know if they said it or not because I had trouble finding my place because it wasn't really following exactly the one that I had or the one that anyone had I think. It even had a very old fashioned translation of a traditional blessing for a man to thank God that he wasn't made to be a woman. An ultra, ultra humble version for a woman thanking God for making her from twigs of the earth or something. [My apologies to anyone reading this who feels that these are important traditional prayers. I do not intend to be disrespectful; I'm merely recording my personal impressions, based on who I am.] I was happy to be there. It felt most meaningful.

I really enjoyed talking to you last night mayn shayne mamale and laughing about my reaction to the women sitting separately from the men. Anyway, it was a very serious service. When I first arrived, there were only about 16 men and two other women besides myself. The two women who were there were probably in their 60s and they were very serious about their own type of praying. Then, later towards the very end of the service, about 8 or 10 more women came. They just stood behind the wall so they could see over it. They didn't even bother to sit down, so they could see. So, in the end there were about 16 men and about 11 women. (About four or five of the men wore tefillin, the traditional leather box with a prayer inside and long complex leather arm and head straps, an ancient prayer ritual.)

Then afterwards I was invited to go to kiddush (after services buffet) by the Rabbi and also by a couple of other people in the synagogue. Really, hardly anyone there speaks English at all. I had arranged for Alex [Dunai, my guide and translator] to come at 12:30 . The Kiddush started at 12:00 so the Rebbe and also two of the women invited me to sit. It was a separate table for women, and one for men at the Kiddush. They had boiled eggs and tomatoes cut into wedges and cold white navy beans and canned sardines, bottled mineral water . Far makhn L'Khaim zay hobn gehat vodke. (For making a toast, they had vodka.) So that was pretty unusual to me, since we usually use wine in America. [Wine is too expensive in Ukraine - and kosher wine very hard to find.] (Note from Ray Juni: Actually, in my memory [in America - 1920s and '30s], the Shabes kiddush usually did have shnapps. For the fish, it was usually herring. I am thinking of the old Union Hall street synagogue in Jamaica, Queens, but I think this was customary at the orthodox kiddush.) So, there was a blessing over the wine which the Rebbe did with the special goblet. Then we all hobn gemakht L'Khaim mit vodke ( then we all said the blessing with vodka) So, we were all sitting. There was a woman sitting next to me who knew just a few words of English. But, she did not know any Yiddish. We were trying to talk, but it was a little difficult. In the middle of trying to talk, suddenly from the men's table they started singing. They were singing a song about about the Rebbe tantsn. I think it was maybe Sha Shtil and I just burst into tears. (Note from Ray Juni: I used to sing this to you a bit. My grandfather used to sing it to the grandchildren, too. You have heard it often on various records that we have.) I just had to apologize and I was trying to explain that my grandparents knew this song.

There was one woman there, a couple of seats away, who knew some Yiddish (Rosa) and she found a little piece of napkin for me because she could see that I couldn't stop crying. They just were singing lots and lots of songs. I really wanted to turn on the tape recorder but I think it was kind of impossible . You know, I didn't want to offend anyone because it was Shabes. Lots of songs, lots of pieces of Yiddish songs and all of which I knew. Also, Hebrew songs like Shomer Shabes that Marilyn Krimm [a dear family friend in America] used to have us sing at the Beth Emeth synagogue in Ann Arbor [Michigan]. She had us sing it a certain way with clapping our hands. It was a lot of fun. She said some people didn't like to sing it quite in such a fun way. Actually, that was exactly how they sung it there with the clapping on the knees and whatever, "Shomrey, Shomrey, Shomrey Shabes." It was just so wonderful.

The Rabbe was calling out to me and someone there, a man, you know it was a small room, a men's table, a women's table, but we were all shouting back and forth to each other. Alex came at 12:30 and he of course had to sit with the men . He was wonderful. Whenever possible, he was shouting out translations for me from all the little jokes and everything. It was so wonderful. Someone was teasing. There was one man, sort of a big makher at the shul and he was really getting into singing some Yiddish songs. It was just like a verse of each one and that was it. The Rabbe would come in with some [lovely] old Nigun things. Someone was teasing him and said "What makes you so happy today?" He nodded towards me futily trying to wipe away my tears of joy, and said, Shoshana. Because they could see how happy I was and then they asked me how I was feeling. Through Alex, I said, "Well, I am crying, I am so happy. I feel the souls of my grandparents," and he translated for them. They were smiling and nodding and singing more songs. I think they were really enjoying seeing how moved I was. I really was moved, indeed. I just wish you could have been there and Jack [my brother] and Pop and everybody. I was just so much thinking of Grandma and Grandpa. They kept pouring me more vodka. It was very funny. They kept giving me more food. It was very nice. Anyway, I'm thinking of you very much.