Budapest has many fine religious buildings for visitors to see, one of which is the Great Synagogue, also known as the Central Synagogue. It is located on Dohany Street in the Jewish Quarter and just north of the Palace District in central Budapest. It is close to Astoria station on Line 2 of the Metro. The building actually looks Moorish, which is no accident as the Neo-Moorish style was in vogue when the synagogue was constricted in the 1850s, with the building being completed in 1859. That represents most of what people can see today, although Budapest’s Jewish Museum was added in 1931, while the twin towers underwent restoration work in the 1990s.
The same cannot be said for the clocks, which don’t work – so avoid relying on them. Although the rise of antisemitism in the 1930s led to the building being vandalised by the Arrow Cross Party, a fascist party allied to Germany, it was not destroyed and the Germans used it for radio communications after occupying the country in 1944 when it decided to negotiate a peace with Britain and America. Having survived relatively unscathed, the building emerged as a key part of the Jewish Quarter, which became a UNESCO World Heritage site. This led to developments like the laying of a red brick pavement in the square by the synagogue. Inside, there are some highly impressive features. These include the rose windows, the omnipresent eight-pointed Stars of David, high arches, large chandeliers and the oriental-byzantine decoration, which make the interior appear on first glance more like that of a mosque.
Visitors should see the Heroes’ Temple, a part of the synagogue added in 1931 as a memorial to Jews who died in the First World War. This is well worth seeing as well as the rest of the interior.Indeed, any visit should be a lengthy one to take in the full grandeur of the building, but also the poignancy of the history and the richness of the local Jewish culture. For that reason, the Museum is a must-see, as is the Jewish Cemetery round the back, which holds the graves of 2,000 people who died during the Nazi occupation of 1944-45.
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