Novi Sad Synagogue

The Novi Sad Synagogue is one of the largest and most beautiful in central Europe — a Hungarian Secessionist building from 1909 by the Budapest architect Lipót Baumhorn, who designed some two dozen synagogues across the old empire. The interior is a vast vaulted nave with floral stained glass and an excellent acoustic that the city now uses for classical concerts.

The building is no longer in religious use — the small surviving Jewish community of Novi Sad holds services in a nearby hall — but the synagogue is open during cultural events and worth slipping into when there is a concert on the programme.

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Before the Second World War, Novi Sad had a Jewish community of around four thousand. Most were killed in the 1942 raid known locally as the Racija, when Hungarian fascist forces shot more than a thousand Jews and Serbs and dumped the bodies through holes cut in the frozen Danube. By 1945 the community was almost gone. The synagogue has been a concert hall and cultural centre since 1966.

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