[Not included in the original book]

Zychlin was granted town privileges before 1385. For most of its history, it was a private city, playing the role of the center of a large complex of land estates, often changing owners. At the end of the reign of King August III, the city became the property of Kazimierz Pruszak and remained in the hands of this family for the next three generations.

Probably the first Jewish settlers appeared in Zychlin only at the beginning of the 18th century. Traces of this settlement can be found in the tax documents of 1734-1735, where the Jewish community in Zychlin was mentioned for the first time, as a kehila of the Kutno commune that paid 140 zlotys in tax. According to data from 1765, 311 Jews living in the city and the surrounding villages belonged to the kehila. Around 1780, it gained the status of an independent community, as evidenced by the poll tax register, probably from 1781.

In 1789-90 there were 66 houses in Zychlin. According to the tariffs of the chimney tax from that period, 29 houses belonged to Catholics, 23 to Jews, and 14 were owned by the church. With the creation of the independent kehila in Zychlin, the Jews began their efforts to build a new synagogue befitting their status as a community. The new building was to replace the old prayer house that had been erected around the third decade of the 18th century. After the project was endorsed by the town's owner, Tomasz Pruszak, an approval request was submitted to the archbishop of Gniezno, Antoni Ostrowski. With a document issued in Skierniewice on August 18, 1780, he complied with the request of the kehila, ordering that, “to avoid scandal or agitation during the proclamation of the word of God, it should be erected in a place distant from the parish church, not as a bricked building, but made of wood.” The document mentioned the old synagogue: “The Jews of this town have had their synagogue here from ancient times. Since the old synagogue is in poor condition, destroyed with the passage of time and now dilapidated, they have humbly asked our approval of their plan to rebuild, or to complete a new construction in the place”. For the permission to build a synagogue, Jews were required to pay two Hungarian ducats to the local parish priest each year and to give one tallow stone for the candles.

The new synagogue was built as a wooden structure on a rectangular plan resembling a square. According to the municipal cadastral records from 1818, it was 27.5 x 25.5 Warsaw cubits (15.5 x 14.6 m). We know absolutely nothing about its architectural form, as no source materials have survived. However, this synagogue was thoroughly rebuilt around 1850. The condition after the reconstruction is documented by a preserved photograph, most probably taken at the beginning of the 20th century, which shows that the common body covered all the main rooms. The rooms for women, located above the vestibule, were reached by a staircase located in the front. In the ground floor, from south and north, there were rectangular doors leading to the vestibule. The walls of the building in the side elevations were regularly pierced by two pairs of windows, smaller ones in the women's section and much larger ones illuminating the prayer room. The whole building is covered with a multi-storey mansard roof protected with shingle.

Wooden synagogue rebuilt around 1850

In mid-August 1844, the builder completed the design work and the investment documentation package containing a cost estimate, two drawings of architectural designs, a building site plan covering an adjacent part of the city, and a consultation protocol for further official approval. On June 8, 1844, the synagogue supervisory authorities requested the approval of the Masovian Gubernia authorities to carry out the construction by the community itself under the so-called “administrative system” (rather than the “bidding system”). The “administrative system” consisted in the submission of a written declaration by the interested parties providing their own valuation of the works, which allowed the investment of amounts that were lower than the calculation based on the plans and cost estimates. The main reason for this was not just the rationalization of investment costs, but also the fear that the lack of financial resources would delay the commencement of construction works and thus adversely affect the date of their completion. Considering the existing bureaucratic procedures, such a danger was by all means justified, considering that in Kutno, for example, a much more modest investment in the construction of a new choir in the old synagogue had lasted nearly seven years.

Despite the fact that the “administrative system” was most often used when the sources of financing came from a single investor, the initiative was supported by the head of the Kutno Poviat. He considered that doing the works under the “administrative system” would be more economical for the community and that, in the longer term, would contribute to the collection of larger voluntary donations for the construction. He also considered that the representatives of the synagogue district would donate from their own funds to “rush the construction without asking for interest.”

The request included the approval of the administrative committee, selected from among the most prominent representatives of the city's Jewish community. The committee members were Josek Krajer, Wolek Rozenbaum, Pawel Lasman, Zelik Klinger, Michal Helmer, Josek Zajderman and Abram Hersz Lasman. The supervisory staff and the rabbi were also supposed to watch over the proper implementation of the investment. In addition, the supervision requested that, before drawing up and approving the distribution of the community fees, the provincial authorities inform the members of the committee about their disposition to start the construction “at the right time” under the oversight of the county builder.

Meanwhile, the lengthy bureaucratic machine was launched, beginning with the inspection of the cost estimates by Stefan Balinski, construction assessor of the Masovian Gubernia. The revision resulted in a reduction in the cost estimates of all the designed synagogue buildings. The cost of building a brick synagogue, taking into account the declaration of the city owner, Aleksander Pruszak, who offered to donate 111,000 burnt bricks and 19,000 carp tiles for the construction of the synagogue, was calculated at 2,450 rubles. The construction of the rabbi's house and the prayer room was estimated at 853 rubles, while the construction of the hospital and the apartment for the mikveh manager was estimated at 515. Total overhead costs for the entire complex of synagogue buildings were to amount to 3,818 rubles.

On November 14, 1844, the provincial government presented the synagogue buildings in Zychlin for approval of the Government's Office for Internal and Religious Affairs in Warsaw. The documentation was sent to the Department of Industry and Craftsmanship, which revised the cost estimates again and checked with the Construction Council the calculation of the list of costs of all synagogue buildings using old materials. In the end, the cost estimate of the brick synagogue, after being checked by the government builder Damazy Borzecki, decreased to the amount of 2,032 rubles. At the same time, the government builder made minor changes to the architectural plan of the synagogue in relation to the original design by Sylwester Baldi. Anyway, nothing is known about them, because the architectural drawings of the synagogue have not survived, contrary to the accompanying cost estimates. According to them, the synagogue was to be erected on a rectangular plan, 38.5 x 23 cubits (i.e. 22 x 15 m), on the top of a cornice made of lime-burned brick, with a roof covered with plain tiles in a lace manner. In the case of the rabbi's house and the hospital, the Department of Industry and Craftsmanship decided that these buildings should also be made of brick, as it was forbidden to build wooden houses in cities. The Department of Denominations also commented on this matter, noting that according to the regulations of the Construction Police of September 26, 1820, it was only possible to erect wooden buildings in cities whose surrounding areas were completely devoid of bricklaying materials and that, in the case of Zychlin, there was no information on the topic. In this situation, the Denominations Department informed the provincial government on February 20 1845 that it would suspend issuing a final decision on the building of wooden houses for the rabbi and the hospital until the matter was resolved. In response, the provincial government sent to the Office for Internal and Religious Affairs in Warsaw a protocol that was jointly drawn up by the municipality and the synagogue supervision, explaining the reason for erecting wooden buildings in Zychlin. Based on these explanations, the Office for Internal and Religious Affairs approved on August 13 1845 the cost estimate of all the synagogue buildings along with their architectural plans for a total amount of 3,343 rubles. On that basis, the provincial government issued the final decision which allowed the construction works to begin.

First, the kehila committee started to build the rabbi's house with a house of study and the mikveh with a hospital, considering that they were more urgent and less costly and that, at that stage of the construction, the expenses were only covered with the private funds of the committee members. The intended plans were fully implemented, as evidenced by two acceptance reports drawn up by the magistrate, the synagogue supervision and the district builder on November 17 1850 and August 28 1851. The house for the rabbi and the prayer room were built in a log structure on a foundation, with outer and middle walls made of 4-inch sawn logs connected with a lock and pillars. According to the records, it was built on a rectangular plan with dimensions of 30 x 20 cubits (17 x 11.5 m) and 6 cubits high from the foundation up to the beams. The roof with two gables was made of a timber frame filled with lime-fired brick, and the whole roof was shingled. The mikveh was 27 x 20 cubits and 4 cubits 18 inches high from the foundation up to the beams. It was a log structure on a stone and brick foundation above the ground, laid on lime, and in the ground on clay with circular walls made of 5-inch logs, and central 4-inch walls joined with a lock and poles.

According to the acceptance protocols, the synagogue administration spent 879 rubles for this purpose, and “asked” for them to be returned from the community treasury in order to complete further construction works. The Gubernia authorities complied with the committee's request, but they considered the return of the entire sum impossible due to the lack of sufficient funds in the synagogue fund, in which only 822 rubles were deposited. However, the payment did not take place because of the cholera epidemic raging in Zychlin in 1852. The members of the committee Wolek Rozenbaum and Josek Krajer, who were in charge of the construction works and were fully trusted by the commune, were victims of the epidemic. The foremen used for the construction also died. Most of the funds deposited in the cash register were spent on material aid for impoverished residents. In such a difficult situation, the construction of a brick synagogue was abandoned, the more so because a large part of the wealthier Jews left the city during the cholera epidemic.

The project of building a brick synagogue was resumed twenty years after those dramatic events. In 1875, an engineer from the Kutno Poviat sent a cost estimate for the construction of a brick synagogue in Zychlin for the amount of 10,501 rubles to the construction department of the Gubernia. The cost estimate was accompanied by architectural plans, a protocol from the meeting of members of the commune regarding the investment, and an excerpt from the Bank of Poland confirming that the funds needed for the construction were available in the supervision's account.

The architecture of the synagogue was designed by Jan Kowalski, an engineer of the Kutno Poviat, who most likely based it on the previous design by Sylwester Baldi. The synagogue project was then sent to the architect of the Warsaw Gubernia, Aleksander Woyde, but it is difficult to ascertain whether he made any fundamental changes to Kowalski's design.

Brick synagogue built around 1880

In the 1920s, construction work was carried out on the walls of the synagogue changing the composition of the side elevations. At that time, rectangular openings leading to the vestibule were carved on the north and south with rich architectural frames. However, during the German occupation, the high windows were bricked up, leaving only their upper fragments to illuminate the interior. The synagogue has survived in this architectural shape to this day. Inside, a gallery has survived, running around the main hall on three sides, supported by cast-iron fluted Corinthian columns, with a high wooden balustrade filled with rows of panels with painted decorations. On the eastern wall, near the recess for the Aron Kodesh, the remains of wall paintings have survived.

The Zychlin synagogue today

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Updated 26 Aug 2022 by JH