Gyergyádesz László, ifj.: Kecskemét és a magyar zsidó képzőművészet a 20. század első felében (Kecskemét, 2014)

Jegyzetek

four vertical Roman Ionic engaged column with unfluted shaft (presumably closed with a tympanum) representing the classical style in conformity with the era. The architect might have been Ágoston Fischer. After the completion of the new synagogue, first it was used as a winter preaching house then it was also utilized for other reasons, therefore, it has been altered many times and has also been quite neglected these days, although, its renovation started at the same time of the edition of this book.

The Jewish community had increased by the end of the 1850s (in 1857 there were 1211 people, in 1869 1514 people) and their members mainly came from the Danube-Tisza Interfluve and the northern part of Hungary. Thus it is not surprising that the religious community set itself the aim to build compared to the old one a larger synagogue with 600 seats on the initiative of Simon Henrik Fischmann. The merely twenty- five-year-old (1846) scholar and energetic chief rabbi born in the Czech Republic (father of the Kecskemét born painter; Adolf Fényes) first appointed Ignác Wechselmann of Jewish origin, the site architect of the Great Synagogue in Budapest in 1861. Although the Jews received the plans the following year they did not satisfy the demands of the religious community In 1863 a member of a renowned family of architects in Pest János Zitterbarth jr. was employed and his plans were approved on the 3rd January 1864 by the council of governor-general. The synagogue in oriental (Moorish) and romantic style was built during 1864-1868 under great financial difficulties (it had to be knocked off for three years) while the internal ornamentations and furniture were completed in 1871. The exterior dimensions of the synagogue are 27x38,9 m and it is the prototype of the so called Jewish cathedrals together with the Dohány Street Synagogue. This type (belonging to the reformed neolog synagogues) proudly proclaimed the newly gained equal rights of the Jews with adopting the structure of the most popular axial Catholic churches with their huge (in our case 55 m high) tower/towers, with their imposing external decorations and with their large interior spaces. The role of the emancipated synagogues was not only to pray there, but to be a manifestation. Jewish people would like to be emancipated and have a ‘church’ similarly to the Calvinists, Catholic and Greek Catholic people. This can be well perceived in Kecskemét since the one-towered building appears as the actual pendant of the Great Catholic Church. However, until the turn of the century it could not be well

observable because “the fagade - looking even more monumental next to the one-storied houses - could only be seen through the alley-like, narrow Szlemenics Street. Directly in front of the building there was the so called Aradi Street and the new church could be approached only from this direction." Nowadays almost nothing is visible of the original internal decoration of the neolog synagogue of Kecskemét thus the enormous and high inner space with the two-storey women’s galleries in the sides supported by slim cast-iron columns, the 554 male and the 334 female seats (József Szabó carpenter of Pest), or the ornamented bi- mah (almemar), the Ark of the Covenant made of parget in an arched niche on the eastern wall, or the oriental decoration of the flat ceiling (Mihály Horovitz from Kassa) cannot be seen today Particularly many postcards and photos recorded the tilted dome of the synagogue on the top of the octagonal tower during the great earthquake of 1911. Despite the widespread conception this was not only the consequence of the matitunal occurrence of the 8th July that caused the greatest destruction. In this respect an especially important document is the pen-and-ink sketch of the Nagykőrös born painter, Tibor Bakoss seen on page 9 where he documented the building twice. He also reconfirmed with a text on the drawing made on the 16th July depicting the fagade that the dome was only ‘bowed’ for a couple of days. However the following day another detail was sketched to the top right corner of the paper, and we can read the following at the bottom: “on the 17th as a consequence of another upheaval it leant over or perhaps it has already tumbled down”. This was verified by the newspaper, Kecskeméti Újság the next day on the basis of which we know that the dome “at the 7:10 a.m. earthquake with great rustling and cloud of dust fell on the tower The damaged sphere smashed its joist open and sank into the right corner of the tower. The perilous place was cordoned off by the police." The restoration of the building after the earthquake was done according to the plans of Lipbt Baumhorn (previously had been working at the office of Ödön Lechner and Gyula Pártos for 12 years) a specialist on synagogues between 1913 and 1914 when the former onion dome was replaced with a dome forming a lotus bud on the top of the octagonal tower (the smaller domes of the turrets were also adjusted), moreover; the entrances of women were replaced on the sides of the fagade (partly using the place of the large arched windows) and an amplification was constructed as well on the side conforming to the

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