Trip to Budapest

Rumbach Street Synagogue
Hello all- Finally I 'm back! Some folks have asked if we fell off the face of the earth, but no- we are still here. We have been busy with a couple of trips and other activities here in Vienna. Now there is a lot to catch up on, but I will get to it- have patience. We may be here forever if the ash cloud does not lift, so I could be writing for a while!

But now I return to where I left off- Budapest. We left Vienna on Thursday, April 1 and moved on....



Rich standing in the main city square by a building marked with bullet holes for all the people who were killed there in 1956.


The building of the Art Nouveau Museum.


The Doheny Street Synagogue


Building on the main pedestrian street- Vaci utca -covered with blue tiles


Yum Yum!


Our guide Gabor waxing nostalgic about an old Trabent car- old Russian model that used to be the only car available in Budapest - and his first car- made of cardboard!


Overview of Budapest (Pest side)

Here we are over the Danube in Budapest. You can see it was still pretty chilly.


The Buda castle



St. Stephens Basillica


The Buda Castle across the river

Rub this little guy's knees to bring good luck

So you wouldn’t think that Budapest would be the most desirable location for a trip during Passover, but you have to do what you have to do! Rich has a 2 week break from classes, so we felt that we had to take advantage of that, with box of matzah and peanut butter in our bag!

We took a 3 hour train ride to Budapest on Thursday. The immediate impression of this city is one in great need of renovation and repair. There are many beautiful buildings, as well as many really ugly ones, but almost all of them, with the exception of the really new ones built by banks and hotels appear really dirty and derelict. We were told that this country has really suffered from the financial crisis and the many empty stores seem to attest to that. On the other hand, traffic was really bustling, there were many locals and tourists on the streets, and one of our guides told us that the main concern of most Hungarians is to have a good time! Hungary is not yet on the Euro and their money is the florenc, which is worth about 200 to the dollar, so it was a bit crazy to figure out. But generally, things are not too expensive there.

Here is your history and geography lesson for today- Budapest is comprised of three original towns: Pest, which is the old center built on the bend of the river and is where the Romans built their outpost; Buda, which is across the river and up the hills and the location of the palace (reminiscent of Prague); and its neighbor Obuda, or old Buda. Pest is where the commercial center is, with lots of narrow old streets winding around, and the City Hall, etc. The wealthy residents generally live in the Buda hills, which is more spread out. Our hotel was right near one of the bridges on the river, on the Pest side. We went to both, but spent more time in Pest. Although it is a very old city, we were told that there are hardly any buildings older than early 19th century. Supposedly, the really old, Medieval and Renaissance buildings had deteriorated so badly that they were torn down and replaced in the early and mid- 19th century. Then there was also quite a building boom in the late 19th, early 20th centuries when a huge number of Jungenstil and Secession buildings were constructed. (Seemed like even more than in Vienna and Prague.) So the old street patterns persist but the buildings are either neo- Renaissance, or neo- Gothic or some other classicist version or really interesting early 20th century ones, with tiles or other decoration and more irregular massing. There are a handful of 16th and 17th century houses near the palace in Buda, and one 17th century house in Pest and that is it! And then of course, the city was heavily damaged during WWII so there is also a lot of really bad infill done by the Soviets during their period of dominance. Some of those are being retrofitted to make them better, and some are being torn down. Also the Russians destroyed all the bridges across the river during their stand in the Buda hills. Most of the bridges have since been rebuilt to look like the originals, but one was replaced with a very contemporary design. I will put up some photos for those who are interested in such things.

Moving along to what we did… On Thursday afternoon we took a kind of dopey bus tour to get ourselves oriented to the city. It did achieve that, but maybe not in the best way. But we did get to see some of the more outlying sights, such as the Citadella which was built by the Hapsburgs after the 1848 revolution and used to house Russian troops and a huge “Liberty Monument” in front of it. It was way up on top of a large hill overlooking the city, and also a site of a large city park where an international exposition was held in the 19th century. That evening, we found an outlying jazz club that had pretty good music, but where the musicians and some other guy spent way too much time talking very seriously about the music (we think, since we couldn’t understand any of it!) But apparently it was a very hip place and we impressed one of the tour guides the next day that old people like us had been there!

On Friday, we took a walking tour of the main historical parts of the city, in Pest and also the castle in Buda. It was given by a fellow named Gabor, who said he was an economist, but was really a showman! He clearly enjoyed the audience and gave many insights into the city and its culture as well as its history. Yet again, we realized how little we know about this part of the world and even the things we did think we knew, are different than we thought. (more on that later) That afternoon we stayed at the castle to see a museum of local art and artifacts (not very good) and then took a funicular down the hill toward town again. That evening we went to Shabbat services at the main synagogue, which they say is not orthodox but a sect they call “neo-logue.” It was actually held in the small chapel rather than the large sanctuary and there were about 100 people there. The men and women sat on different sides of the room, but nothing between them. They had a lovely organ and choir of mixed men and women, all of which reminded me of Oheb Shalom! The women just sat and talked most of the time and Rich said the men mostly dovened to themselves, so I am not sure what the music did for anyone. And the only other thing they did that was not orthodox, was that the rabbi spoke in Hungarian (not that it helped us!)

Saturday we started out at the Jungenstil Museum, which is in a very lovely building and has a large collection of furniture, art objets and jewelry, some of which is for sale. It was a bit of a weird place, since there was no information about the building or anything in it- just here it is! After that we moved on to one of the large central market halls for yummy viewing and for lunch! Then we had a private architectural walking tour for about the next 4 ½ hours. We covered a lot of territory with a very nice young man who was very knowledgeable about local history and where interesting buildings were located, but not so much about the specific buildings. It was ok though, because he took us to see more buildings than I knew about and I knew enough about the architecture to make up the difference! There is the most incredible collection of Jungenstil architecture in Budapest that I have ever seen. Apparently, in addition to a huge building boom at the turn of the 20th century, there was a national effort to create a style that was unique to Hungary (although it had similarities to what was happening in other places at the same time). Here they called it Liberty style and it includes a lot of oriental influences because of the Turkish influence in the country. It can take the form of swirling elements, or ornament inset into the façade, like mosaics or beautiful colored tiles.

We really felt like we covered a lot of territory, both physically and in terms of information. The guide was also informative about the events of 1956 and later, all of which we had of course known about, but it is different to see the bullet holes in the buildings and see the plaques where people were killed. A lot of these activities took place in the main square in front of the city hall, a place where the most mundane activities take place all the time! And so many individuals thought they had made their point successfully and that they were going to be able to push back on the Soviets! Even most of the police joined the revolutionaries! Incredibly violent and horrible events that are too close to home.

Anyway- moving along, on Sunday we had another private tour- not by design but it worked out that way. We signed up for the extended Jewish tour that took us to several synagogues, including the main one (Doheny Street Synagogue, 1859 by Ludwig Forster) as well as a later one designed by a young Otto Wagner (Rumbach Street Synagogue, 1872). We were supposed to also visit the main orthodox synagogue, the Kazinczy Street Synagogue (1913, Loffler Bela) but we only got to the outside and couldn’t go in because it was Pesach. The Hungarian Jewish community seems to have its own system (why not). There is, of course, several regular Orthodox congregations, but also in the mid 19th century, the reformists in this country created something called “”neo-logue” congregations. As far as I can figure, this is not so different from the orthodox, since men and women sit separately, but it allows for an organ during services, and the sermon can be in the vernacular language. Of course, this infuriated many people at the time and so several years later they created their own congregation which is called “status quo ante” or how it was before! I can’t quite understand how this is different from what would be seen as regular orthodox, but obviously they do.

Budapest has the largest Jewish population in this part of the world of any of the countries devastated by the Holocaust and it is very interesting because people actually know Jews and they are clearly part of the society, rather than an interesting historical curiosity as in Prague. I think there are about 70,000 Jews in Budapest now, which is pretty amazing. The young woman who gave our tour had been educated at Paideia in Stockholm, where our friends Barbara and Rabbi Phillip Specter are running a school for Jewish teachers in former Eastern Block countries. So there is really an effort to bring life back to the community.

The other interesting thing to note about Budapest is the image the people there have of themselves. Several different people mentioned this, so we had the sense that it is a really widespread attitude. They really believe that they are losers! The often say, in exactly the opposite sense of what we get in America, that we lose every conflict we enter. They lost against the Hapsburgs in 1848, they joined the wrong side in WWI and WWII, they lost against the Soviets in 1956, until finally in the Velvet Revolution they achieved a positive result! It has clearly colored their sense of self, but they are extremely confident about the future at this point, in spite of their current difficulties.