Szegő Dóra - Szegő György: Synagogues - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2004)

A Pair of Synagogues in the Buda Castle

■ The bow and the Star ofi David in the .sgraffito in the synagogue at 26 Táncsics Mihály utca

parts still existing, Jewish quarter of the Buda Castle was formed at the North end of the Castle area, next to the Magna Curia Regis or Royal Supreme Court in what is now Táncsics Mihály utca. The two synagogues of the quarter were found by Melinda H. Papp and dug out by László Zolnay with his associates in the course of the major Castle-area excavations in the 1960s. At 26 Táncsics Mihály utca, during the reconstruction of an apartment building, were discovered remnants of what is believed to have been the older synagogue of the two found here. A pillar of the walled-in Gothic gateway was found to bear red Hebrew inscriptions and figurái patterns. One of the seed represents a bow turned upwards, the other a star or shield of David. Sándor Scheiber, Budapest’s preeminent Judaic scholar of the post-World-War-11 period, deciphered the inscriptions as Biblical quotations. The one connected with the bow in Hannah’s prayer from the second book of Samuel reads: "The bows of the mighty men are broken, and they that stumbled are girded with strength." The inscription accompanying the star of David is the Priestly Blessing from Numbers: ’’The Lord bless thee and keep thee: The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee” (6:24-25). Mediaeval Jews used the star of David in a representative function as a seal or in a magical function as a shield granting invulnerability in Cabalistic operations. In his work on the history of ideas, The History of a Symbol, Sholem Gershom points out that "in Poland and among the Eastern

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