Adventures in the Jewish Quarter

This past wednesday, JSBP had a great visit to the Budapest Jewish Museum and the Dohany Street Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of Budapest. The Dohany Street Synagogue is the largest synagogue in Europe and the second largest working synagogue in the world. We were fortunate enough to get a tour inside and be able to sit in the synagogue while our tour guide explained many different parts of it. It was interesting that the synagogue was styled sort of like a church because the Jewish community wanted to show the rest of the Budapest community that they were trying to assimilate and appreciate their religion as well, while being able to practice theirs. It was set up so the pews were all facing forward in a straight line looking straight on at the rabbi whereas in a normal synagogue it is a round layout and the rabbi is placed in the middle. The inside of the synagogue was breathtaking. I was fascinated to learn that the highest point of the synagogue always faces towards Jerusalem.

The inside of the Dohany Synagogue, you can see its layout is similar to a church.

I found this field study to be a different experience than what I think others were having for two reasons. First of all, my mom's entire side of the family is Jewish and they were raised Jewish. I was raised Christian and have never practiced Judaism however one of my mom's sisters has raised her family practicing Judaism so I have been part of many bar-mitzvah's and bat-mitzvah's! They are always a lot of fun to go to and there is great food and dancing of course! But they can all speak hebrew and although they do celebrate a bit of Christmas, most everything they practice is done the Jewish way. So it has been really cool to have a small look at that. Anyway, my family has spoken to me several times about visiting the Dohany Synagogue and the museum when I came to Budapest and turns out I got to, twice! So I am very excited to have done something they were hoping to see and bring home part of this experience that they would love to be involved in. It is always interesting for me to learn about Jewish practices and the history of Jews in any country. Of course, I do not feel the way about it that some of my family does, but I still do feel a little something extra because of my family. I was honestly terrified to go to Auschwitz and see one of the family member's names on the wall because some of my family members can trace back their relatives to that time. And although it would not be a direct connection to me, I would have felt very sad to see that. It is always interesting to me to be sort of in the middle so I can experience and learn a lot from two different sides of the story. 

This is the garden where there are 24 graves, each holding many people. Normally, the cemetery is far away from the synagogue but during the extermination of the Jews there was no where else to put the dead bodies from the ghetto so they were placed in piles here and then buried. 

The other reason I was so interested to return back to the Jewish Museum is because I was assigned to go here earlier on in the year for Agnes, but my experience was entirely different. I had no idea what I was looking at or what anything represented. I took a million photos of things like "looked pretty" but I had no idea what any of them stood for. Coming back with JSBP allowed me to find out what I had actually been taking photos of! This was great. 

The most interesting thing I took from the visit was the symbolism of the rock and placing it on the grave. Our tour guide explained to us that people place stones on the grave to show their love and respect because the stone lasts for eternity and will never be damaged. It symbolizes eternal love and support. I thought that was awesome, not that flowers aren't great, but putting a stone on means the most when it comes to showing respect. 

This is a wall of families of the church who are remembered. As you can see here, the stones are tucked inside representing the eternal love and respect for the families. One of my favorite parts of the museum. 

I feel I have learned more in Budapest about the culture and the history of not only Hungary but the world, then I do in the states. As you all know, I am not the best with history so maybe that's why, but I think the fact that we can visit things we learn about and maybe learning about it from the outside as opposed to being a citizen of the county helps too. I just think its awesome that we can visit the places we learn about and when someone references what we have learned about its cool to piece the things together. 

This is a beautiful piece of stained-glass art.  At the very top right corner you can see the head of a serpent and that is supposed to represent the Nazis and all the evils and the fire down below is burning the snake. It represents an eternal flame that will never stop burning. 

Here you can see a copy of the Torah, you are to read from right to left. The torah scroll pointer also known as "Yad" is actually a hand with the index finger pointing. I didn't ever notice this until our tour guide pointed it out. No pun intended. Very interesting though!

This is the Tree of Life memorial, a weeping willow, that has names of those who never received a burial or a memorial. Their relatives don't know what happened to them or where they are, so their names are placed here for remembrance. 

This photo depicts the section of the museum I had the hardest time with. It was a giant room full of photos- dedicated to the Holocaust. The goal of the Nazis was to humiliate the Jews and one way of doing this was taking important, religious things from them and using them for items the Nazis needed. Here you can see pages from the Torah made into drum head covers. And to the right there was a dress made out of a prayer shawl. 

Yet another great field study. SO SAD OUR LAST ONE IS COMING. Not ready to leave Budapest, ever. Maybe I'll miss my plane or something.

Great Thanksgiving by the way everyone, many thanks to Kurk and Molly! 

Happy Thanksgiving from JSBP!