×
FREE ASSISTANCE FOR THE INQUISITIVE PEOPLE
Tutorial Topics
X
softetechnologies
Neue Synagogue, Berlin, Germany
Dohany Street Synagogue, Budapest, Hungary - Famous Synagogues
985    Dibyendu Banerjee    04/05/2022

Built between 1854 and 1859 by the Neolog Jewish community of Pest according to the design of the Viennese architect Ludwig Foerster, the Dohany Street Synagogue, named after the street on which it stands, is located in Belváros, the inner city of Pest, in the eastern section of Budapest. Also known as the Great Synagogue and constructed in the Moorish Revival style, with the decorations mainly based on Islamic models, it is the largest synagogue in Europe and a centre of the liberal and modernist Neolog community of Hungarian Jews, who were more inclined toward integration into Hungarian society, since the Era of Emancipation in the 19th century.

softetechnologies

Apart from the synagogue, the huge complex contains the National Jewish Museum and the Heroes' Temple, designed by László Vágó and Ferenc Faragó, in memory of the ten thousand Hungarian Jewish soldiers, who have given their lives in the World War I.

dohany street synagogue

The 246 feet (75 m) long and 89 feet (27 m) wide huge building of the Dohany Street Synagogue, equipped with 12916 square feet (1200 sq m) of floor space, has the capacity to accommodate 1,492 men and 1,472 in the women’s galleries, making it one of the largest working synagogues in the world. The western facade boasts arched windows with stone-carved decorations and brickwork of blue, yellow and red, the heraldic colours of the Budapest.

softetechnologies

The western main entrance has a stained glass rose window above it and the gateway is flanked on both sides by two 143 feet (43.6 m) tall octagonal towers, decorated with stone carvings of geometric forms. Both the towers contain clocks with a diameter of 4.40 feet (1.34 m) each and crowned with copper domes with golden ornaments.

dohany street synagogue

A single-span cast iron supports the 39 feet (12 m) wide nave of the synagogue. While the Holy Ark is located on the eastern wall, facing the nearby Bimah, a raised platform with a reading desk, the choir gallery is situated above the Holy Ark. The choir-gallery is situated above the Holy Ark and while the men’s prayer hall is located on the ground floor, the women’s galleries, supported by steel ornamented poles, are located at the upper levels on both the southern and northern sides of the synagogue. The internal frescoes of the Dohany Street Synagogue, designed by the famous Hungarian romantic architect Frigyes Feszl, are adorned with coloured and golden geometric shapes. Strangely, like most of the Christian churches, Dohány Street Synagogue also has a 5,000 tube synagogue organ, which was played by famous musicians like Franz Liszt and C Saint-Saens

dohany street synagogue

The Dohany Street Synagogue had its bad days during WW II, when in 1944, it was included in a military district and subsequently converted into an internment camp for the city Jews. Eventually, Adolph Eichmann, one of the major organisers of the Holocaust, termed by the Nazis as the Final Solution to the Jewish Question, transformed it into a concentration point from which many of the Budapest Jews were sent to their extermination in the gas chamber. When the Russians liberated the ghetto on 18 January 1945, around 8,000 to 10,000 people had already died and one part of the deceased was transferred to the Kozma Street Cemetery.

softetechnologies

Although It is not customary to have a cemetery next to a synagogue, more than two thousand of the unfortunate Jews, who died in the ghetto from hunger and cold, were buried in the makeshift cemetery in the courtyard of the synagogue.

dohany street synagogue

Much later, a Holocaust memorial, created by the sculptor Imre Varga and dedicated to the memory of the Hungarian Jews, who perished in the Holocaust, was installed in 1991 in the rear courtyard of the synagogue, in a small park named Raoul Wallenberg. The memorial, named the tree of life, resembles a weeping willow, bearing inscriptions of the names and tattoo numbers of the victims of the Holocaust on its steel leaves. In addition to that, the memorial also includes four large marble plaques bearing the names of 240 non-Jewish Hungarians, who took the risk of their lives to save several Jews from being exterminated during the Holocaust.

dohany street synagogue
The Tree of Life

Although after the end of the Great War, the damaged structure of the Dohany Street Synagogue was renovated to become a prayer house again for the much-diminished Jewish community, it was severely damaged again from aerial raids during the battle for the liberation of Budapest. However, the subsequent renovation started only in 1991, following the return to democracy in Hungary, which was completed in 1996, restoring the former beauty and dignity of the magnificent building. The Dohany Street Synagogue, the iconic landmark of the City of Budapest, today serves as the main synagogue for the local Jewish community and is reckoned as one of the most attractive tourist spots in the country.

Neue Synagogue, Berlin, Germany
softetechnologies
Author Details
Dibyendu Banerjee
Ex student of Scottish Church College. Served a Nationalised Bank for nearly 35 years. Authored novels in Bengali. Translated into Bengali novels/short stories of Leo Tolstoy, Eric Maria Remarque, D.H.Lawrence, Harold Robbins, Guy de Maupassant, Somerset Maugham and others. Also compiled collections of short stories from Africa and Third World. Interested in literature, history, music, sports and international films.
Enter New Comment
Comment History
No Comment Found Yet.
Albert Einstein
Education is not the learing of facts, but the training of the mind to think.
Albert Einstein
1603
59.47
Today So Far
Total View (Lakh)
softetechnologies
26/05/2018     44338
01/01/2018     36726
25/06/2018     36300
28/06/2017     34765
02/08/2017     33321
01/08/2017     27720
06/07/2017     27486
15/05/2017     27080
14/07/2017     22796
11/09/2018     21441
softetechnologies