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NAVIGATE BETWEEN THE DESCRIPTIONS OF OUR BUILDINGS
The second largest synagogue in the world
Hungary, Budapest, 1074 Dohány utca 2, Hungary, 1074
The Dohány Street synagogue is one of Budapest’s touristic highlights as it is the largest synagogue in Europe and the second largest in the world. The synagogue was built in 1859 in the Moorish style and it can seat 3000 people. Its huge size demonstrates the significance and the high economic and cultural standards of the Budapest Jewry of the age.
The temple was designed by Ludwig Förster (1797-1863), a German architect, professor of the Vienna Academy. The clerk of works was the architect Ignác Wechselmann (1828-1903) who later bequeathed his entire wealth to the Institute of the Blind. After Förster left, Frigyes Feszl, the famous architect of the Budapest Vigadó designed the temple’s inner sanctum. The official consecration of the synagogue took place on 6 September 1859. The interior of the synagogue is 1200 square metres, the towers are 44 metres high. There are 1497 seats for men downstairs and 1472 for women in the galleries, altogether the seating capacity of the flat-ceilinged inner space is nearly 3000 people.
The Synagogue is the temple of the Neolog Jewry. It was built in Budapest’s former Jewish quarter where many people of the Jewish faith still reside today.
The memory of the Holocaust is strongly connected to the old Jewish quarter where the Synagogue is situated. Dohány Street constituted the border to the ghetto during World War II. The area which was planned as a garden is the burial place of nearly 2600 Jewish people who perished during the Holocaust. The Synagogue can be visited during weekdays. It is closed on Saturdays and for Jewish holidays.
The Synagogue is still predominantly a venue of worship but it also houses cultural programmes, such as concerts.
It was built based on the plans of the Austrian architect Otto Wagner
Rumbach Sebestény street 11-13, Budapest, Hungary
The Rumbach-street synagogue, built according to the plans of Austrian architect Otto Wagner and inaugurated in 1874, like many other synagogues of the time, was built in the so-called Moorish style, resembling oriental architecture. The synagogue was commissioned by a modernizing (Neologue) Jewish community but built according to the principles of traditional synagogue architecture. Thanks to the state-of-the-art, iron-frame construction technique of the era, the Rumbach Synagogue is a modern, light, airy structure.
The building was used by the community for religious purposes until World War II. As the darkest chapter in its history, the Hungarian authorities turned it into an internment camp in 1941: it was here that Jews without Hungarian citizenship were gathered before their deportation. In 1944 the building became part of the Pest ghetto. The remaining community and thus religious activities completely disappeared by the end of the 1950s.
Following decades of neglect and decay, the synagogue underwent a complete renovation and restoration and opened in 2021. Today, the building functions as a community space, hosting concerts, theatrical performances, events, and as an external exhibition space of the Jewish Museum and Archives, exhibitions and museum pedagogy programs, and the synagogue also is an active place of worship. There is a kosher café in the building. Men must have their head covered inside the synagogue area.
