Slovakia -- More highlights from Slovak Jewish Heritage Route -- Presov

Mezuzahs in Barkany Judaica collection. Photo: (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Here are further highlights from my five days following the Slovak Route of Jewish Heritage -- a  project  devised by my friend Maros Borsky, the leading expert on Jewish heritage in Slovakia. The author of the book Synagogue Architecture in Slovakia, Maros founded and directs the Slovak Jewish Heritage Center. You can see earlier posts on the trip HERE and HERE.

A major stop on the journey was the Presov, in the far east of Slovakia, the country's third largest city.

Here we visited the orthodox Jewish compound, centered on the large and sumptuous orthodox synagogue, built in 1898. It is a wonderfully ornate building -- still used by the tiny Jewish community -- that testifies to the one-time size and prosperity of the community here. The women's gallery houses the wonderful Barkany collected of Judaica that was collected for what was the first Jewish museum in the region, which opened in Presov in the 1920s. Alas, it is a branch of the State-run Museum of Jewish Culture in Bratislava and suffers the same lack of information on the objects. But what is there is really wonderful.

Exterior of Presov orthodox synagogue. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Door into sanctuary. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Presov: Ark and Ceiling. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Sanctuary. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Ceiling near Ark. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

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