Szegő Dóra - Szegő György: Synagogues - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2004)
The synagogue of the Rabbinical Seminary
ber—among the "benefactors". There are two horizontal rows of windows cut in the Western wall. The lower row of stained-glass panes represents Jewish symbols and Biblical scenes—the fire of the altar for the burnt offerings, the Cohanite blessing, the menorah, the shofar, Noah's Ark, and the Revelation on Mount Sinai. Between the rows of windows is a series of colourful decorative patterns of stars and geometric motifs. The synagogue has a major textile collection. Its various textiles of liturgical function (Ark curtains, Torah-scroll covers, rostrum cloths) were brought here, usually in a damaged condition, from the surviving possessions of provincial communities lost in the Holocaust. Most of them have been restored by textile artist Éva Tímár. About three hundred rabbis have graduated from the Rabbinical Seminary in its more than a century-long history. Students have been instructed by the foremost Jewish scholars, historians, and theologians of the twentieth century. The school's students and teachers have included such thinkers as Dávid Kaufmann, Ignác Goldziher and Sándor Scheiber. Friday-night kiddu&h conversations hosted on the eve of the Sabbath by Sándor Scheiber were memorable highlights in the life of the students attending the synagogue— these evening rituals were turned into an intellectual workshop and a social event for young people coming from outside the Institute, too. It was around ■ Synagogue interior of the Rabbinical Seminary, with the stained-glass Windows of the former synagogue at Bocskai út 35
