Tag #124070 - Interview #98839 (Aron Nissim Alkalai)

Our synagogue was not big. There was a separate building for midrash in the yard. There were benches inside. Jewish weddings were made in the synagogue. I remember that the newly-weds broke glasses. The interesting thing was that there were amphorae built into the walls for better acoustics in the synagogue. It was destroyed at the end of the 1970s. Then my uncle Mois Alkalai, who was secretary of the Jewish municipality was accused that he and some other Jews had agreed to the destruction of the synagogue. But the truth was that nobody asked them about that. Someone in Sofia decided on that and it was destroyed. [There is no further information on this fact]. There is a Home of the Technics in its place now. Then some people took a brick as a remembrance of it. There was great resonance inside. There was also a choir and a special place for the people. Men always wore a tallit when entering. Hats were not taken off in the synagogue and the chazzan wore a special hat. There were not kippahs then. The Jews in Dupnitsa did not have payes.