Kiseh Eliyahu HaNavi – Orthodox Congregation of Békéscsaba, Hungary – Inscription From 1910

Kiseh Eliyahu HaNavi – Orthodox Congregation of Békéscsaba, Hungary – Inscription From 1910
Kiseh Eliyahu HaNavi [The Chair of Elijah the Prophet]. Békéscsaba, Hungary, early 20th century.
Upholstered wooden chair with fabric upholstery. On its back, a stylish wooden plaque decorated with gilded borders and two metal ornaments bearing the caption, “Kiseh Eliyahu HaNavi in commemoration of the religious congregation of Békéscsaba, donated by Menachem Karaleck and his wife Mrs. Mascha, 1910.”
The arms and side panels of the chair are upholstered in red velvet, and the seat and backrest are upholstered in dark red fabric. (The upholstery of the arms and side panels is original; the backrest and seat have been re-upholstered.) The chair stands on four tall (original) wooden legs.
The chair is particularly wide and seats two. Unlike many communities in which the custom was to designate one chair for the "Sandak" and a separate chair for Eliyahu HaNavi, this chair is wide, in accordance with the custom of the Safed congregation and other congregations, where the Sandak sits to the left of Eliyahu HaNavi on the same chair (in accordance with the Halachic ruling that a disciple is prohibited from sitting to the right of his rabbi).
The Jewish congregation of Békéscsaba dates back to the late 18th or early 19th century (the oldest tombstone in the local Jewish cemetery is dated 1810). In 1825, five Jews are known to have resided the city. In the 1840s, upon the revocation of the ban of movement of Jews, the city's Jewish population began to grow and by 1851 the number of Jews amounted to 110. The Békéscsaba congregation served as a communal center for all the Jews of the Békés District. Following the rift the occurred in the Hungarian congregations in 1869, the Békéscsaba congregation defined itself as Orthodox; however, in 1872 it became a "Status Quo" congregation. This change was not to the liking of the Orthodox Jews, who in response established a separate congregation, known as "Shomrei HaDat," in 1883. The first synagogue in Békéscsaba was built in 1850 and in 1894, the Orthodox-Hassidic community founded a separate synagogue of their own – and it is from this later synagogue that this Chair of Eliyahu HaNavi originated.
Height: 122 cm. Width: 110 cm. Depth: 61 cm. In generally good condition. Some of the paint and writing has faded and been damaged over the years.