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

The Synagogue in Rumbach Sebestyén utca

■ Arabeique motifi on the hapade oh the Rombach

The progress of the Jewish people involved changes that went beyond the liturgical. The role of the rabbi also changed. Earlier, he had had little to do in the synagogue, since an appointed member of the community (the hazzan) conducted the liturgy. The rabbi mainly attended to legal affairs, passing judgment on issues related to Jewish law and commandments based on written and oral doctrine. In the modernising community, the rabbi became a pulpit orator, assuming the function of the travelling preacher as well as Biblical exegete. Orthodoxy rejected these changes, charging Neologue rabbis with apostasy. And yet it was precisely his oratorical skills that raised Illés Adler, the famous rabbi of the Rombach, above others, another indication of the progressive traditionalism that characterised the congregation of the temple in Rumbach utca. Benjámin Fischer, the most outstanding rabbi in the history of the Rombach, worked here for nearly half a century. Fischer was a follower of Frankfurt Neo-Orthodoxy. According to this branch of Orthodoxy, Jewry is not a nation but a religion until the coming of the Messiah, hence religious rules cannot be altered. Affiliation with the recip4>