Jewish Quarter
We made a list of things that everyone wanted to do during the last month in Hungary. On Zoey’s list was finding out what is in this building with a blue roof that she can see from our walk to gymnastics. So when I picked her up from the gym we walked over to the building to find out what it was.
I wish it wasn’t so foggy, but we finally made it over to the building after taking a rather roundabout route. We found that it is an Institute for Geological Sciences. That is a check for one of the items on our list!
Another thing on my list was doing a walk through the Jewish Quarter. We have walked around parts of the Quarter several times going to the arcade and other restaurants, but hadn’t yet made it inside any of the synagogues. I knew we had to at least go into the Great Synagogue, so I planned a walk through the area.
The Great Synagogue, or the Dohány Street Synagogue, is the largest synagogue in Europe. It was built in the 1850s as part of the Neolog Judaism movement.
The church is really pretty, but was also pricy to get into. The kids really didn’t know anything about Judaism, so we spent some time discussing some of the differences between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Because this is a Neolog synagogue, it looks a lot like a church with the pulpits (two of them) and the big altar up at the front instead of in the center of the room. The synagogue was damaged during WWII and like many ‘old’ buildings was extensively renovated.
Outside in the building is a courtyard with a metal Tree of Life which has names of Hungarian Jews who died in the Budapest Ghetto. There is also a memorial to the 600,000 Hungarian Jews killed during the Holocaust. The cemetery had several mass graves along with plaques for those that are known to be buried there. A smaller synagogue is located behind the cemetery and I really liked the blue stained glass windows with the stars.
Also on the premises of the synagogue are two museums. The first is a museum talking about the Budapest Ghetto, which is located where the Jewish Quarter sits today. There were so many people squeezed into a radius of only a few blocks, and we tried to explain to the kids the living conditions of the ghettos. There were quite a few pictures so we saw how skinny and malnourished everyone was, and the piles of dead bodies in the snow.
The second museum has Jewish artifacts, and although Zoey was fascinated, particularly with the scrolls, the other two kids were not very interested.
There are several other synagogues in the Jewish Quarter, and we wanted to visit at least one more. We walked past some cool street art and some ‘giant poppers’ the kids had to jump on.
The Rumbach Street synagogue is a few blocks from the Great Synagogue, and although is also a Neolog synagogue is a bit more conservative. The main pedestal is in the center like in a traditional synagogue (I think—at least that is what we were told) and there is no organ. The walls are a colorful raised stucco or plaster, and the kids thought they were cool. Upstairs there is a small exhibit about the synagogue and the Jewish Quarter.
We walked over to the Kazinczy Street Synagogue, but after paying to go into two other synagogues it was too expensive to pay for all five of us to go into this one too. So we just admired it from the outside.
On Kazinczy Street are several ruin bars and a food truck courtyard. We walked around the courtyard and planned on getting something to eat, but the items were pretty pricy and we were already cold and wanted to go inside to eat. We probably would have stayed and tried it if there were any heaters or inside areas, but it was just too cold to eat outside! No wonder the courtyard was completely empty. I bet it is hopping in the summertime (and when the bars let out!).
