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Published: July 11th 2015
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Let me be frank: The visit to what remains of a Jewish quarter in Budapest was a downer. Yes, there is the restored amazing Dohany Synagogue, where I attended Shabbat services on Friday evening, rebuilt in the 1990s with funds from the Estée Lauder family and Tony Curtis (both of Hungarian Jewish descent) that was bombed by the pro-Nazi fascist Arrow Cross Party in February 1939, was used as a stable under the Nazis, and until its restoration had a huge hole in its roof and grass growing in the sanctuary. There are other synagogues as well in the quarter that are open, and Chabad has established the first mikveh (ritual bath) since the war (which on the inside is supposed to be quite beautiful although you'd never guess from the outside). But the neighborhood is seedy, the kosher restaurants notwithstanding, and it has a desolate feel to it. In the immense and ornate sanctuary of the synagogue I could only imagine the vibrancy of a community that felt committed to and proud enough of its existence and future to invest in such a structure in the five years between 1854-1859, a full eight years before the Jews of the Hapsburg
Guarded Entrance to Dohany Synagogue
In order to enter for services I had to go through an electronic security gate like at an airport. empire were legally fully emancipated. Herzl, it turns out, was born in a house right next to this synagogue, the location of which is now a museum and archive of Hungarian Jewish history adjacent to the synagogue.
Before the war over five percent of Hungary was Jewish, but almost a quarter of Budapest was. At the turn of the 19th century and even until the late 1930s its Jewish population occupied a prominent place in the city's life, so much so that the antisemitic demagogue mayor of Vienna, Karl Lueger, who presided over that city from 1897-1910, is credited with derogatorily calling Budapest "Judapest" (meaning in German "Jewish Pest") because of the number of Jews and their significance to the city's cultural, economic, and political life. The name caught on and was a well-known epithet for the city that was a hub of culture and cosmopolitanism in Europe.
The genocide of Hungary's once dynamic Jewish world was terribly brutal. One third of the Jews murdered at Auschwitz were Hungarian. Even Adolph Eichmann, who supervised their deportation, was surprised by the zealous participation of the Hungarian police and administrative authorities in the decimation of its Jewish population. As my
Ruins of the Rumbach Synagogue
Built in 1872 in the style of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. father and I walked around the shell of what had been a bee hive of Jewish life, then a forbidding ghetto, and now a neighborhood in search of an identity, I felt a hole in my heart at the unleashing of hatred, violence, and savagery that was perpetrated. How is it that we humans are so susceptible to these orgies of brutality against our brothers and sisters? And how is it that there are men and women of all faiths, ethnicities, and inclinations who even in times such as those hung on to their dignity and defied the evil forces?
The services were less than inspiring, I must confess. Afterwards it felt as if I'd spent a few hours as a bit character in a poorly written script, with little choreography or direction, and with uneven sets. In other words, it seems to me that what remains of Hungarian Jewish life in this post fascist and post communist era is still very unclear, unsteady, uncertain. And, yet, I also thought of perhaps how apt, in the best sense, the Yiddish word chutzpah is in this case. Yes, Budapest's Jews were brutally murdered, yes, their neighborhoods and synagogues were demolished,
yes, all discussion of what happened to the Jews was forbidden during the Communist era, and yes, even today the current Hungarian government will not undertake a serious reckoning with the country's past and, yes, many Hungarians with Jewish ancestry often feel safer keeping their family's origins a secret from their children and grandchildren. Despite all this a handful of Jews, with some support from Jews worldwide, have chosen to stand up again and affirm their right to a place in this city where once they managed to contribute so much to its effervescence. That takes chutzpah.
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Scott Rees
non-member comment
Graet post
Sarah, Such a great post. I've had problems with my computer lately so I am just now pouring over your peripatetic missives. Such a great mix of local color and historical perspective. This one was particularly moving, such inconceivable darkness and brutality. It sounds like you saw only an ashen shadow of what that place must once have been. Yet there is chutzpah!