Il Kal Grande
Il Kal Grande, also spelled Il Kal Grandi, is a former Orthodox Jewish congregation and synagogue, located in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The congregation worshiped in the Sephardi rite. The building has been used as a cultural center since 1946.
History
The large synagogue was constructed in the Moorish Revival style in 1930, by a design of the architect Rudolf Lubinski. It was the largest and most ornate synagogue in the Balkans. It included a large, ornately decorated prayer-hall, a smaller prayer-hall for use during the week, a genizah, rooms for the rabbi and various other utilities since the building was meant to serve not only as a synagogue, but also as a community center. The building was consecrated in 1930 in a ceremony attended by the chief rabbi of Yugoslavia Dr. Isaac Alcalay, chief Sephardic rabbi of Sarajevo Dr. Moritz Levy and chief Ashkenazi rabbi of Sarajevo Dr. Hinko Urbach, among others.The building was heavily damaged and looted by the Nazis in 1941 during World War II, and the majority of the Jewish community was murdered in the Holocaust.
After WWII, all the Jews of Sarajevo used the Sarajevo Synagogue, the synagogue of the Ashkenazi community.
In 1946 Jewish community reached an agreement with the city's new government to donate a building to the City of Sarajevo, and to be used exclusively for cultural purpose. The exterior of "Il Kal Grande" was restored in a simplified secular form in 1965, and the former dome was replaced with a flat roof. The building was initially used as the Đuro Đaković Workers' University Center and currently as the Bosnian Cultural Center.