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

The Great Synagogue in Dohány utca

Meisel. Ironically, Meisel was not an enthusiastic supporter of Neology. Having become a preacher under the tutelage of Meisel, Samuel Kohn came to be the most famous Chief Rabbi of Dohány utca and for a good reason. Born in Hungary, Kohn was a committed patriot. It was under him that the Dohány utca temple became a ''Hungarian" synagogue. His work as a historian is also of great significance. He laid a great deal of emphasis on the research of Khazar-Magyar relations. He believed the histories of the Hungarian and the Jewish peoples to have been conjoined from the beginning, and believed their destinies were tied, too.

In 1896, the year of the millennial celebrations of the Magyar conquest of the Carpathian Basin, the Dohány temple was already in a very poor state of repair and required urgent renovation. It was eventually in the 1980s and 90s that the American Emanuel Foundation (named for the father of the sponsor, Hollywood celebrity Tony Curtis) offered to contribute fifty percent of the funds required; the government of Hungary provided the other half of the budget. Since

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