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

The synagogue of the Rabbinical Seminary

bers of the congregation are seated on the left and their pews are separated from those of the men by an aisle as a symbolic gesture to tradition.

Enclosed between the two buildings is a courtyard. In it, on one pillar of the arcades toward Wesselényi utca where the plank gate of the ghetto stood once, is a slab commemorating the liberation of the ghetto. From the end of 1944 on, the Jews who were murdered or starved to death in the crowded Terézváros ghetto were buried there. One of the many ghetto mortuaries was here in the Heroes' Temple. The more than two thousand Jewish victims of the last two months of the holocaust had to be buried here—that was how the Heroes' Courtyard was turned into the Martyrs' Graveyard. Today, the plaque of the liberation can be seen on the site of the former ghetto-entrance, while the walls of the garden nearest Dohány utca bear the names of the martyrs who fell in World War 1. Hanna Szenes's memorial plaque is also here. On the pillars of the old arcades toward Dohány utca are slabs commemorating Tivadar Herzl’s birthplace and the memory of the martyrs. The latter was unveiled by Germany's president Herzog.

The synagogue of the Rabbinical Seminary

The Institute was built to plans by Ferenc Kolbenheyer and Vilmos Freund in 1877 in the block bordered on three sides by József körút, Bérkocsis utca and Rökk Szilárd utca. Kolbenheyer followed the example of the great master Miklós Ybl in preparing the historicist design of the building in Neo-Renaissance palatial style, which makes a perfect match with the architecture of the Great Boulevard (Nagykörút) and Joseph Town (Józsefváros) district, which was under construction at the time. The street-side wing is occupied by the school, the library and the archives. The ceremonial hall and the synagogue are housed in the courtyard building.

From the courtyard the vestibule leads to the main interior of the synagogue, whose nave is of a simple spatial design. Above the entrance are two cast-iron pillars supporting the gallery, which was occupied by the organ and the choir as there was no need for a women’s gallery due to the absence of female students here. Along the Eastern wall is the white-gold Ark: resting on two pillars on either side is a tympanum crowned with the tablets of the law above the Ark itself. The mizrah-side rostrum was adjusted to the modest proportions of the building and was convertible into a pulpit. On either side are the carved pews of the future rabbis and their professors. To the left and right of the Ark along the Eastern wall are plaques with the names of the seminary’s prominent teachers— Mózes Bloch, Vilmos Bacher, Ignác Goldziher, József Freund, and Sándor Schei34