Dohany Jewish Synagogue, Budapest

April 24, 2008

The thing my Dad wanted to do the very most when he was here was to visit the Dohany Synagogue. Aaron and I have been wanting to go there since we moved here almost two years ago, so I was glad to have the excuse to go! We took a short tour from a guide who pointed out a few interesting things to us about this synagogue in particular. It is the largest in Europe, and the second largest in the world (after Manhattan). They also nicknamed it the largest "Christian Synagogue" in the world, since it has a lot of Cathedral-like characteristics... like an organ. I was interested to hear about how 600,000 of the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust were from Hungary. I remembered seeing so many pictures of the Budapest Jews in the displays at Auschwitz. There were a lot of pictures of them in the ghetto there in Budapest, which is right where the synagogue is. 3000 died in the ghetto, in the 2 months it was there until they were deported. There is a cemetary there on the grounds for some of those people. There is a memorial garden in the back with donations from Tony Curtis and Estee Lauder, who have Hungarian Jewish heritage, memorializing Holocaust victims. I couldn't help but think of the great minds and potential Noble Prize winners the world lost to this horrible event. It was truly humbling.