Synagogues Documentation Project

Ця сторінка також доступна українською.

Introduction

Today there are no consecrated synagogues in Rohatyn. Counting synagogues and smaller prayer houses, ritual bath houses, batei midrash, cheders, and other religious school houses, plus the buildings associated with the kehilla and other social and religious organizations, Rohatyn once had more than ten Jewish community buildings. All of those former community buildings are today either repurposed, in partial ruin, or completely gone; for some of the buildings and functions, their former locations are not even known. This status is similar to that throughout Ukraine, which is estimated to retain only one in eight of its pre-war synagogue buildings (ref: Center for Jewish Art at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem).

Read about the history and heritage of Rohatyn’s Jewish religious community buildings.

Browse our news articles for coverage of events related to this project.

Wall murals in the Rohatyn beit midrash, in 1994

Wall murals in the Rohatyn beit midrash, in 1994. Photos © the Center for Jewish Art. Click to enlarge.

Unlike the two Jewish cemeteries in Rohatyn, and the two WWII mass grave sites in town, which will forever retain their sacred purpose as burial grounds, and the headstones stolen from the cemeteries during the war which continue to serve as essential public reminders of the lost Jewish community, in the absence of a living Jewish presence in Rohatyn it is difficult to justify allocating heritage resources to preservation or renovation of the few surviving community buildings. The four surviving buildings are each in private or municipal ownership; two are repurposed and in use, and thus are in good structural condition, while the other two are serving as informal warehouses and are in serious structural decay.

Although Rohatyn Jewish Heritage agrees with others that built religious heritage can and should have value for future generations, we are unable to take on the care of former Jewish religious buildings in this program. For now we intend to document the buildings as best we can, through photographs and interviews with Rohatyn residents and referring to the data and documents of other heritage researchers in Ukraine and abroad. As we collect and review new information, RJH will incorporate that into the Jewish community heritage page linked above.