DOHáNY STREET SYNAGOGUE

The 'Dohány Street Synagogue' or Great Synagogue (, ) in Budapest is the largest synagogue in Europe and the second largest in the world, after the Temple Emanu-El in New York City. It seats 3,000 people and is a centre of Neolog Judaism.
The synagogue is 75m long and 27m wide ^[1] and was built between 1854 and 1859 in the Moorish style, based chiefly on Muslim models from North Africa and Spain (the Alhambra),^[2] according to a plan by Ludwig Förster, with interior design partly by Frigyes Feszl.
Franz Liszt and Camille Saint-Saëns played the organ here.^[3]

The original synagogue was bombed by the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party on 3 February, 1939^[4] and was used as a base for German Radio and also as a stable during World War II.
A three-year program of reconstruction (funded largely by a US$ 5million donation from Hungarian Jewish immigrant Estée Lauder)^[5] was completed in 1996.^[6]
The square in front of the synagogue is named after Theodor Herzl, who was born in a house nearby in 1860. The ''Jewish Religious and Historical Collection'' adjoins the synagogue.
The Raoul Wallenberg Emlékpark (memory park) in the rear courtyard holds the ''Memorial of the Hungarian Jewish Martyrs'' — at least 400,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered by the Nazis.^[7] There is also a memorial to Wallenberg and other Righteous Among the Nations, among them Swiss Vice-consul Carl Lutz, who saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews during World War II.

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References

1. Frojimovics, Kinga; Komoróczy, Géza; Pusztai, Viktória and Strbik, Andrea (1999). ''Jewish Budapest: Memories, Rites, History''. Central European University Press. ISBN 9639116378, p. 111.
2. Mendelsohn, Ezra (2002). ''Painting a People: Maurycy Gottlieb and Jewish Art''. UPNE. ISBN 1584651792, p. 90.
3. Perlman, Robert (1991). ''Bridging Three Worlds: Hungarian-Jewish Americans, 1848-1914''. University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 0870234684, p. 72.
4. Frank, Tobor (2003). ''Discussing Hitler: Advisors of U.S. Diplomacy in Central Europe 1934-1941''. Central European University Press. ISBN 9639241563, p. 225.
5. Mars, Leonard (2003). Jewish Identity in Contemporary Hungary. ''Acta Ethnographica Hungarica'', 48(1-2), 35-48.
6. Troen, Selwyn (1998). ''Jewish Centers and Peripheries: Europe Between America and Israel Fifty Years After World War II''. Transaction Publishers, ISBN 1560003731, p. 135.
7. Rosen, Ilana (2004). ''Hungarian Jewish Women Survivors Remember the Holocaust''. University Press of America, ISBN 0761827048, p.3.

Gallery

External links

★ Tourism Office of Budapest info on the Synagogue

★ The Great Synagogue in Dohány Street

★ Home page of the Synagogue