Small synagogue, Berehove

TheSmall Synagogue in Berehove (8 Ilona Zrinyi Street) is the only functioning Jewish religious building in the city, and is considered the main center of Hungarian culture in Zakarpattia. The synagogue was built in the early 1920s, and the adjacent Jewish ritual bathhouse was erected around the same time. The nearby ritual bath (mikvah) has retained its appearance; it is now home to Privatbank, and in Soviet times it functioned for quite a long time as an ordinary city public bath.

Believing Jews come here, and there are no more than five dozen of them left in Berehove. The building of the small synagogue was in poor condition for a long time. In 2012-2013, with the assistance of the Consulate General of Hungary and the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the temple received three million forints to repair it and create a museum. A considerable amount of assistance was also provided by businessman Jozsef Weiss, president of the Shalom Foundation. Philanthropists are constantly contributing to the development of the church, and the names of the most generous of them are listed on a special stand.

In 2014, the reconstruction of the Berehove synagogue was completed: the roof and windows were replaced, and the furniture and interior decorations were restored. The old blank fence was replaced with a new and transparent one, and an updated memorial plaque commemorating the victims of the Holocaust was installed in the backyard outside the temple, with the names of the victims and the inscription "We will never forget" in Hebrew, Hungarian, Ukrainian, and English.

There were once six synagogues in Berehove, including the Great Synagogue, which was disfigured in the 1960s during the reconstruction of the current House of Culture. Not all religious buildings managed to survive the period of Soviet rule. Only one remained in operation, the so-called "small synagogue." There are no more than 50 Jewish believers in Berehove, but the shrine still remains the only center of Jewish religious and cultural life in the city.

The sacred building is open every Saturday for worshipers, and at other times for those who wish to learn about Jewish culture and tradition. And there is no shortage of them - Ukrainian visitors and guests from Hungary, Israel, the United States, Germany, and others come here. To get to the temple, one has to call the numbers on the board (unfortunately, for some reason the invitation did not use Ukrainian, but we hope that this shortcoming will be corrected), and the synagogue's caretaker or his wife will come to the guests.

There are no tariffs or tickets here; after the tour, visitors leave as much money as they see fit in a special box. In the temple you can see the prayer room and the Great Prayer Hall, and on the second floor there is a small museum with exhibits from the life of the Jews of the Bereh comitat.