Szegő Dóra - Szegő György: Synagogues - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2004)
The Great Synagogue in Dohány utca
building of the Orczy House there was enough room for a prayer-house to be used by the first reform association of Pest Jews and thus the forerunner of the Neologue community, the Hesed Neurim Society ("piety of the young”). The traditionalist Jewish Community of Pest accepted the reform society and the latter were allowed to build their temple by the great synagogue of the former on the premises of the Orczy House. Called Chorus Temple, the new synagogue was raised, also to plans by Lőrinc Zofahl, in the courtyard opposite the Király utca entrance to the Orczy House. Contemporaries referred to the two prayer-houses as the "quiet" and the "noisy” synagogue, as the traditionalist synagogue was filled with a variety of voices reciting prayers individually, thus creating the impression of cacophony on the outsider, whereas observers in the reform church listened quietly to the prayer recited by the choir in unison. The Chorus Temple was a three-nave building in Neo-Classicist style with a column-supported women's gallery. Zofahl followed the pattern of Christian altars by placing the Ark in a semicircular, apse-like space. With its observers providing the basis of the Neologue congregation using the Dohány utca synagogue (consecrated in 1859), the reform, or Chorus, temple of the Orczy House was eventually turned into a textile warehouse. The traditionalists’ synagogue remained in use longer, until the construction of the Orthodox synagogue in Kazinczy utca (1912). Yet a third prayer-house opened for the moderately traditionalist, ótatui quo ante, Jewry, who refused to embrace Neologue practices but would not join the Orthodox community formed in 1871 either. The Orczy House was demolished in 1936 as part of the rehabilitation project involving Madách Avenue and environs. The Great Synagogue in Dohány utca The traditional and reform synagogues of Orczy utca could no longer accommodate the enlarged community. The idea of a new temple had already arisen in the 1830s but at the time Jews could not yet own property. Thus they rented land for a synagogue from Baron Antal Baldácsy for 32 years in 1837 and then the adjacent plot at 12 Síp utca a few years later. After the law permitted the acquisition of Pest property to Jews in 1840, the rented plot was purchased in 1844. A synagogue was planned for Dohány utca and a school in Síp utca. The community commissioned the leading representative of Neo-Classicist architecture József Hild (designer of the cathedral in Eger, the Lloyd Palace and the Tänzer House in Pest) with preparing designs for the new synagogue, which was intended to be built in the reform spirit. Reform involved the innovation of liturgy, including the use of literary German and Hungarian besides Yiddish in sermons, 25
