Zedern und Pappeln: Der Garten der Synagoge von Oberrabbiner Immanuel Löw in Szegedin, Ungarn

Immánuel Löw (1854-1944) was, without a doubt, Szeged’s (if not Hungary’s) most
important Neolog rabbi and scholar. He was not only significant as a rabbi but also as a scientist in various fields. He was born in 1854 at Szeged to Szeged’s Rabbi Leopold
Löw. He was educated in his native town and in addition to his studies at the
Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums (College for Jewish Studies) in Berlin,
he also studied Semitic linguistics at the University of Leipzig, Germany. It was there in
1879 that he submitted his doctoral thesis on plant names in Aramaic (Aramäische
Pflanzennamen), for which he received his PhD. In the same year, he was ordained as
a rabbi and started his work in Szeged, where he officiated until his deportation in 1944.
He wrote several books both as a rabbi and a scientist. His most famous work is
probably Die Flora der Juden (“The flora of the Jews”), which deals with the various
plants mentioned in Jewish sources with a focus on Rabbinic literature. Immánuel Lőw
also took an active role in designing the building of the Szeged New synagogue (built
between 1899-1903), supporting the work of the architect Lipót Baumhorn with his
guidance by designing together a whole set of glass windows presenting the Jewish
holidays. Due to the traditions (aniconism in Judaism) and thanks to Löw’s
extraordinary botanical knowledge, the holidays were displayed using a symbology
consisting only of plants and objects. The garden around the synagogue was designed
according to Immánuel Löw’s plans presenting the flora of the Holy Land and Hungary.
The synagogue was empty after the Holocaust since Szeged lost most of its Jewish
population. Recently, between 2015-18 it was renovated from the outside and the
garden too was reconstructed. So far, 35 of the 76 plants were replanted, those that are frost tolerant. These include cedar, amber, pomegranate, fig, yew, apple, almond,
rowan, wild grape, thuja, myrtle, linden and birch. Researchers identified the original
flora based on the speeches of the chief rabbi, the plant motifs of the windows of the
synagogue, and the Jewish Folklore Bulletin of 1907-1908. Thus they were able to
identify 76 plants that stood in the synagogue's garden from 1903 until 1944, when the original vegetation was destroyed. The Szeged synagogue might be the only
synagogue standing in a garden.