Szegő Dóra - Szegő György: Synagogues - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2004)
The Synagogue in Berzeviczy utca
brick, the concrete, the finely wrought ornamental traceries of the railing and gates, the fluting and ornamental window-divisions give expression to a system of religious symbols," and, one might add, they express their idea in a daringly innovative manner far ahead of their time. Schöntheil's synagogue in Kőbánya is both a prefiguration of the future architecture of Israel in the old-new Jerusalem, and a collection of elements characterising Hungary’s contemporary regionalism. Burnt down in 1920, the roofing of the synagogue was restored by the community. The strong community set up a soup-kitchen in 1928 where the poor were given a hot meal in a warm shelter. The community, whose population had nearly reached five thousand by the 1930s, was decimated by the Holocaust. Restarted with a few hundred survivors, religious life was terminated in 1966. The building was purchased by the Ministry of Agriculture to be used as an exhibition hall. Later it served as a warehouse, a theatre and a depot of the Hungarian Television Company. In 1991, it was restored by the Scandinavian Philanthropic Foundation of the Ecumenical Christian Community, who had the interior refurbished. The community, whose mission is the care of drug and alcohol addicts, has turned the former soup- kitchen into a bakery. The new proprietor has spared the essential character of the one-time synagogue by preserving a few Jewish symbols alongside the Christian motifs. Over the inscription "Love the Lord thy God" on the gable above the Ark, they have restored the old Hebrew inscription of the sanctuary. However, a baptismal font suited for immersion has been installed in the central space. The Synagogue in Berzeviczy utca Until World War 11, the most significant Jewish community of the region flourished in Újpest. Their ancestors were settled by the landowner István Károlyi on his vine-lands in the 1830s. Károlyi guaranteed freedom both of worship and commercial activities. The first settlers were the Lőwys, coming from Nagysu- rány. Izsák Lőwy, who was elected the first magistrate and head of the community, established a leather-processing factory in Újpest. The first prayer-house was built on a plot of land in Bocskai utca donated by Count Károlyi, in the late 1830s when a cemetery was also opened. By the late 1870s, the community had outgrown the old synagogue. The great synagogue was built in 1886 at 8 Berzeviczy Gergely utca by Ármin Hegedűs to Henrik Böhm’s design. The orientation of the temple on a corner plot necessitated the turning of the Eastern wall to the street. The corner spires of the Neo-Romantic building are decorated with red and yellow brick stripes similarly to Forster's Dohány utca 58
