Explore Sarajevo / Destinations / Ashkenazi Synagogue
Destination · Hrid / south bank · 4 min read
Ashkenazi Synagogue
A 1902 Moorish-revival synagogue on the south bank of the Miljacka. One of the few Sephardic-style synagogues still active in southeastern Europe.
- Established
- 1902
- By
- Karel Pařík
Address
Hamdije Kreševljakovića 59, Sarajevo
Hours
Open to visitors by appointment, or before Friday/Saturday services
Price
Free; small donation appreciated
Getting there
5 minutes south of the Sacred Heart Cathedral, across the Miljacka
Time needed
30 minutes
Best time
Friday afternoon, before Shabbat
Coordinates
43.8563° N 18.4251° E
Navigate
On the south bank of the Miljacka, five minutes’ walk south of the Sacred Heart Cathedral, stands a small but striking building with horseshoe arches, geometric patterns, and a green dome. This is the Ashkenazi Synagogue, completed in 1902 by the Czech architect Karel Pařík, and the largest working synagogue in Sarajevo — and one of the few Sephardic-style buildings still active as a place of worship in southeastern Europe.
The architectural style is pseudo-Moorish — a Habsburg-era choice common across the empire for Jewish buildings, intended to evoke the Sephardic heritage of the Iberian-descended Jews who had lived in Sarajevo since the 16th century. Pařík designed dozens of major buildings in Sarajevo during his career, including the National Museum and the Land Government building; the synagogue is one of his most carefully composed small projects.
Two communities, two synagogues
Sarajevo’s Jewish history splits into two main strands.
The Sephardim arrived first, from the 16th century onward, after their expulsion from Spain in 1492. Sultan Bayezid II of the Ottoman Empire, in a moment that still echoes in Sephardic memory, opened his territories to the refugees that year. Thousands made the long journey east. A substantial number settled in a city that had been founded only thirty years earlier on the bank of the Miljacka. By the 19th century they were the larger of Sarajevo’s two Jewish communities, spoke Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) at home and in business, and worshipped at the Old Synagogue — El Kal Grandi — in the Jewish quarter of the bazaar. That synagogue, built in the 1580s, still stands and now houses the Sarajevo Jewish Museum, two minutes’ walk north of this one.
It was during this Sephardic period — in roughly the 16th and 17th centuries — that Sarajevo became known to the wider Jewish world as Mali Jeruzalem, Little Jerusalem. The English phrase “Jerusalem of Europe” that travel guides still use is a 20th-century inheritance of the older name. It is, like most nicknames, a little overused. But it has a real origin, and it sits on this side of the river.
The Ashkenazim arrived later. After Austria-Hungary occupied Bosnia in 1878, a wave of Jewish immigrants from central Europe — Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Galicia — settled in the city, bringing their own liturgical traditions and Yiddish. By the 1890s the Ashkenazi community had grown large enough to need its own synagogue, and the Habsburg administration approved Pařík’s design.
The Ashkenazi Synagogue was consecrated in 1902. The two communities — Sephardic and Ashkenazi — coexisted in the city through the early 20th century, with separate synagogues and slightly different traditions, but a shared institutional life and intermarriage.
The Holocaust
When Nazi Germany and the Independent State of Croatia occupied Bosnia in 1941, Sarajevo’s Jewish population numbered approximately 12,000. By the end of the war, fewer than 2,000 had survived. The community was deported, mostly to the Jasenovac camp in Croatia and other extermination sites further afield.
The synagogue building survived. Its interior was looted and partially destroyed, but the structure remained standing. After the war, the small surviving Jewish community took it back. Restoration was carried out in stages over the following decades.
During the 1992–1995 siege, the synagogue served as one of the city’s centres of humanitarian aid, distributing food and medicine to residents of every faith — a fact the community is rightly proud of. The building took shellfire but did not fall.
Today
The community is small — perhaps 600 Jews in Sarajevo at present, though numbers fluctuate. The synagogue still holds services. Friday evening and Saturday morning Shabbat are the main weekly liturgical times. The community also maintains a museum and an active cultural calendar.
Visitors are welcome. The community is friendly, the staff are happy to talk, and the building can be visited at most times by appointment. Men may be asked to cover their head; a kippa is provided at the door. Modest dress for everyone.
What to see, in 30 minutes
- The exterior facade — Pařík’s Moorish-revival ornament, the green dome, the geometric window patterns.
- The interior — a single large prayer hall, women’s gallery upstairs, the ark housing the Torah scrolls, the bimah at the centre.
- The siege memorial inside the entrance — a small plaque listing the community’s humanitarian work during 1992–1995.
- The exhibits along the side walls — photographs, archival documents, small artefacts from the community’s history.
Combine with the Jewish Museum
Two minutes’ walk north — back across the river — the Sarajevo Jewish Museum occupies the Old Sephardic Synagogue, the 1580s building that was the centre of Sephardic life in the city for three and a half centuries. It is one of the best small Jewish museums in southeastern Europe and the natural companion visit to this one.
Allow two hours for both. The story is more important than the buildings, and the buildings together tell it more completely than either alone.
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Ph: Julian Nyča · CC BY-SA 3.0
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