Alexander Friedman

Alexander Friedman was born in 1905 in Sighetu Marmației

Alexander Friedman was born in 1905 in Sighet, in the Maramureș region of Transylvania, into a family of 8 children. His father Hermann (Zvi) traded in timber and his mother Teresa kept the home. Most of his family died in the Holocaust.

He liked to draw as a child. In 1927 he left home to study architecture at the University of Padua in Italy. In 1933 he moved to the Land of Israel and settled in Jerusalem.

From 1933 until the early 1960s he worked in the office of architect Meir Rubin, and later worked alone. His buildings often used the International Style, sawn stone and symmetrical lines. With Rubin he worked for years on the Great Synagogue next to Heichal Shlomo, completed in 1982, including its interior design.

In 1941 he married Yona Bernstein, and their son Yehuda was born in 1951. In 1982 the Jerusalem municipality gave him the Yosef Pepperman Prize. He died at home in 1987 and was buried on Har HaMenuchot.