Maputo’s Hebrew Congregation Synagogue:
A Description and Short History
Text and Watercolor by Jay A. Waronker, 2008
Set within a central site in Mozambique’s capital city, Maputo’s synagogue is a beautiful little structure built in the Portuguese Baroque-revival style. The Jewish house of prayer, the only ever built in this southeastern African nation, was consecrated in 1926 on property procured by the congregation’s executive board five years prior. Mozambique was then a Portuguese state and its tree-lined tropical capital was known as Lourenco Marques. How this attractive white-washed synagogue came to be realized within this outpost of the Diaspora was something I set out to discover as a recent Fulbright scholar on sub-Sahara African Jewish architecture.
The Jewish Community – The Early Years
At the time of the synagogue’s consecration, there were some 30 Jews in Lourenco Marques from Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States, and various Eastern European nations. They had settled in this enclave beginning in the late 19th century for a variety of professional and personal reasons. As immigrants from the width and breadth of Europe speaking many languages, originating from both the Sephardic and Ashkenazi communities, coming from a range of social and educational backgrounds, and taking on a variety of activities and professions once in Mozambique, they were a diverse, even disparate, group.
Although the synagogue dates from 1926, its congregation was founded in 1899 by Reverend Dr. Joseph Herman Hertz on his arrival in Lourenco Marques from Johannesburg. Dr. Hertz had been exiled by President Kruger’s South African Government on account of his pro-British positions. Hertz briefly found haven in Mozambique’s capital before resettling in British-controlled Durban a week later, but his short stay in town produced lasting results. At his meeting with Maputo’s Jews, Dr. Hertz impressed the need to organize a community, procure space for a Jewish cemetery, find land for building a synagogue, and assist in Jewish education. Over a period of years and in stages, these goals came to be realized.
Steps to Building a Synagogue
During the early years of the 1920s, a Jewish cemetery was founded and a tiny chapel (now derelict) was built on property granted by the municipality in central Lourenco Marques. About the same time an organization called the “Honen Dalim” was established. With officers elected and a general assembly selected, it set out to acquire a plot of land to build a synagogue and school as well as to maintain the cemetery.
From 1899 and lasting for a quarter of a century, the Jews of Lourenco Marques had no communal property for congregating. Services, whenever held, were led in private homes or temporarily in commercial property. By the early 1920s, it became clear to the community that a synagogue was needed. In September 1921, as a first step, a building site on Avendia General Botha (formerly Telegraph Avenue) was purchased. Next to come was the design and construction of the synagogue.
The architect of Maputo’s synagogue was the non-Jew Couto Martins of the Public Works, and Raimundo Moreira of Lourenco Marques served as the contractor. Neither gentleman had previous synagogue experience. It is not clear what guidance the synagogue’s board gave Mr. Martins nor why the building looks as it does. The building, grandly consecrated in 1926, cost about 1,500 libras and comfortably sat 80. Parking for the synagogue has always been on the street, so in its history vehicles have never infringed on the site.
In the 1970s and 80s, after the anti-religion Marxist government took control of the synagogue and other houses of worship throughout Mozambique, Red Cross offices were housed here and the synagogue was used as a its warehouse.
The synagogue has a prime location in one of the nicest sections of Maputo and is today on valuable real-estate. Within a short walk is the Museum of Natural History, and in the immediate vicinity are many shops, restaurants, businesses, hotels, low and high-rise residences, and government offices. Also nearby is the early twentieth century Geological Museum. This building has often been confused as a synagogue since it features a large window at its façade containing a Star of David.
In the mid-1990s, minor alterations were carried out. A wall was added along the street and painted steel gates with a blue Stars of David were installed. While functional, they do not complement the aesthetic of the synagogue. Today the gate is kept locked and the property manned by a team of guards supposedly on duty.
Maputo Synagogue is a Portuguese Baroque-revival building with its white-washed plaster walls, symmetry, liberal classical features, setbacks, swoops, angled walls, vertical projections, planar relief, pronounced shadow lines, and flanking towers. The structure is also notable for its incorporation of scrolls, profiled brackets, volutes, urns, medallions, and bold use of trim. The absolute emphasis on the façade in the theatrical, stage-set tradition is another distinct element of Baroque architecture. From the front, the synagogue is fancy and flamboyant, making for a memorable approach and first impression. It is a relatively exuberant and striking building closely resembling earlier churches built in Portugal or at its former outposts.
Compared to the elaborate front, the sides and rear of the Maputo Synagogue are plain, even dull. Except for a base line and unadorned shallow pilasters interspaced with windows, these three elevations are featureless squat walls. Today the windows are protected by painted steel grilles with a Star of David pattern. These bars are clearly not original and were likely added in the 1990s.
Typical to many early 20th century buildings in Maputo, the gabled roofs of the synagogue are corrugated metal that are supported by a simple wood framing system whose members are exposed at the overhangs. Today the roof, partly rusted and with crude flashing, noticeably sags and is not altogether watertight.
A Restrained Interior
Unlike the elaborate front elevation of the synagogue, the interior is restrained. The pair of painted paneled wooden doors leads into a small foyer. Its only decoration is a shallow commandment-shaped panel affixed to the wall opposite the entry doors. Today it is blank, but it was once used for synagogue announcements.
From the foyer, the visitor is given a choice, to turn left or right, and pass into anterooms. These small mirrored spaces are identical except for service equipment. The sanctuary, 39’ (12m) x 25’ (7.5m), comes next. What is unconventional about walking into this room is that the view is not of the ark, which is the common focal point of synagogues, but of the synagogue’s rear wall. The original drawings for the design of the synagogue show entrances on the opposite wall, but the orientation of the site would have made entering from the far side impractical.
The interior of Maputo synagogue has a smooth concrete floor, now painted a vermillion red, and it appears to be original. It walls are masonry, loading bearing veneered in plaster that have been painted cool white. Today there are prominent cracks or fissures in areas of the walls. Although these clearly indicate settlement and structural concerns of the 82-year-old synagogue, the building appears stable and in adequate condition.
Narrow casement windows, set high off the floor, line the walls of the sanctuary. Four are along each of the side walls and two at the rear near the corners. These windows, swinging inward, are in poor condition with panes of glass cracked or missing and the wooden units deteriorated or rotted.
The synagogue’s sanctuary is a modified basilica plan, an arrangement first devised by the ancient Romans for secular purposes that in time came to be applied to many religious buildings. At its highest point, along the central ridge, the sanctuary is 20’-2” high and the side walls measure 10’-6” in height.
A high circular window with its Star of David pattern is centered on the sanctuary’s rear wall. Now in derelict condition, it matches the one at the synagogue’s front elevation. At one time it was also glazed with clear glass within the star pattern itself and translucent blue glass filing the perimeter. Over the years, sections of the glass were broken or vandalized (including a series of incidents in 1965) and wrongly replaced, so today none of the colored panes remain.
Lighting within the synagogue today is made up of four small brass chandeliers that hang from the posts and beams. They are in working order albeit tarnished and dirty. Not original to the building since early photographs indicate the synagogue had larger ball chandeliers featuring more arms, the current ones are nonetheless tasteful.
The Seizure and Reclaiming of the Synagogue
After the departure of the Portuguese in June 1975, and ensuing into the 1980s during years of civil war and the Marxist Frelimo government, organized religions were not tolerated in Mozambique. The Maputo Hebrew Congregation Synagogue was taken by the government when President Samora Machel nationalized all privately-owned buildings in 1976. The actual acquisition of the synagogue was not so much a physical seizure as commonly reported but more a default since, during these adverse times, most members of the Jewish community fled from Mozambique. In the spring of 1975, the synagogue’s sefer Torahs had been sent to South Africa for safekeeping along with the keys to the building. For some years the structure was used for an array of inappropriate activities and functions, including a place reportedly for prostitution, and not properly maintained. Even once the Jewish community regained control of the synagogue, a few leaders allowed the building to be rented out as a kindergarten without any connection to the congregation. While the synagogue did survive these difficult years, its bimah, pulpit, furnishings, and many of its fittings were removed and lost.
The furniture found within the building today was put there after the synagogue was reclaimed by the Jewish community in 1989. The inventory is modest: one small plain wooden table, a small wooden bookshelf, and two steel desks. One desk currently serves as the bimah. Draped with a blue cloth with a gold Star of David in the center, this makeshift surface is freestanding and, in the Sephardic tradition, centrally placed in the sanctuary.
The other furniture now in the synagogue is banks of theatre-like seating. Not original to the building, the 45 seats are stained wood, not all matching, in poor condition, in some cases missing seats, and of early 20th century vintage. Two sections are positioned against each of the side walls and five others are stacked haphazardly to the rear of the sanctuary. None are currently used and it is doubtful that any have been regularly sat on since the synagogue reopened in 1989.
The synagogue’s ark is centered on the eastern wall of the sanctuary. Since it is Jewish custom to locate the ark on the wall closest to Jerusalem, the synagogue meets that liturgical arrangement. The sefer Torahs sent to South Africa for safekeeping during the civil war were never permanently returned. Today the opening is covered by navy blue velvet drapes hung on a wooden rod.
A couple of years back, the synagogue committee commissioned a local carpenter to fabricate a new pulpit, and paid him half the sum as a retainer. To this day, the work has never been completed nor has the money been refunded.
In the early 1990s, one of the sefer Torahs sent to South Africa in 1975 for safekeeping was returned once the synagogue had been reclaimed. It remained in the Maputo Hebrew Congregation Synagogue’s ark until 1997, when Chief Rabbi Cyril K. Harris of the Union of Orthodox Synagogues of South Africa authorized Rabbi Moshe Silberhaft, the spiritual leader of the southern African communities and of the African Jewish Congress, to return it to South Africa. Maputo’s Jews had violated conditions for keeping it, including the provision of a minyan. Since that time, the synagogue has been without a sefer Torah.
Maputo’s Jewish Community and Synagogue Today
Once the Maputo synagogue opened in 1926, the Jewish community remained stable for the balance of the decade and the 1930s. At that time, the Jewish population of South Africa slowed dramatically once the Aliens’ Act was enacted. This curtailed Jewish immigration, so Mozambique became a shelter for reluctant refugees. Some Jews who escaped Nazi occupied Europe traveled via Lisbon, it being one of the last neutral European ports, to the likewise neutral ports of Mozambique. Many of the new arrivals were destitute, however, since a Portuguese law prevented non-citizens from seeking employment or engaging in commerce. By 1942, due to World War II and immigration restrictions elsewhere, the Jewish population of Lourenco Marques reached its peak of some 500. Soon thereafter, men of military age and their families were granted visas to enter the Union in British South Africa presumably to enable them to join the army. This reduced the refugee community in Maputo, only to be followed, immediately after the end of the Second World War, by refugees leaving for neighboring Swaziland when work become available to them. By the 1950s, the numbers of Jews living in the city had further decreased. In the 1960s, some Jewish refugees settled in Lourenco Marques briefly during the instability of the neighboring African independence movement. Nearly all left for South Africa or lands abroad. At the time of national independence from Portugal in 1975 and the years of civil war that followed, a high percentage of Jews left Maputo. Previously small, the Jewish community diminished in size and stature. Following this dark period, the city never attracted many new Jews. Although Maputo is now stable with an improving economy, the Jewish community numbers no more than 20 people. As a result, its beautiful little synagogue is irregularly used and the building is not completely maintained. On a typical Sabbath, services are sometimes held on Friday evenings but never on Saturday. Rarely is there a minyan. While the size and vitality of the congregation will unlikely change, let there be hope that funding can be secured to restore the synagogue. May this architectural gem be enjoyed by its congregation and visitors for years to come.
(Jay Waronker is a practicing architect and professor of architecture in Atlanta. In 2005/6, he was awarded a Fulbright Grant to begin the documentation of current and former synagogues and other Jewish architecture in sub-Saharan Africa. With the support of a Littauer Foundation Grant, he will return to the region in the summer of 2008 to expand and complete his work.)