Szegő Dóra - Szegő György: Synagogues - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2004)
The Synagogue in Vasvári Pál utca
The synagogue at 5 Vasvári Pál (at the time Hajós) utca was built a decade and a half after the Dessewffy utca complex. It was commissioned by the Budapest Talmud Association, whose members regarded Talmudic study as their sacred duty. According to tradition, the Bible has to remain a lifelong companion even after one's student years are over. The Association also undertook praying for the dead. Due to the vigils kept here, the synagogue assumed citywide significance besides serving as a local house of prayer. Traces of the original inscription announcing the former function of the building are still legible on the gable. This fusion of apartment block and prayer house was well-justified by the way of life led by the male members of the Talmud Association, whose days were mostly filled with studying the Talmud. According to contemporary witnesses, the ihamei, or sexton, would knock on the members' doors with a hammer early in the morning to wake them with the call "Come on out, it’s time to study!" Religious Jewish artisans and merchants lived in the neighbouring building at 7 Vasvári Pál utca, too, indicated by the finely-wrought iron railing in the staircase. Built to plans by the little-known architect Sándor Fellner in 1887, the building imitates a symmetrical layout to the extent permitted by the reversed wing of the synagogue building. The huge historicist order of arches on the pediment above the main gate is dominated by the large arched window built in one with the door frame. Details of the pediment topped with the tablets of the law bear the marks of the Neo-Gothic and the Art Nouveau styles. The Neo-Gothic is represented by the cornice, while the rick-shaped vault provides the Art-Nouveau touch. Inside the courtyard, the wooden gallery is wedged in between the temple interior and the staircase with a Neo-Gothic banister and a row of windows in Neo-Renaissance frames. The interior of the hall is covered with a row of staves resting on pendentives supported by engaged columns. The Neo-Romanesque stained-glass double windows extending the height of the entire floor alternate with arcades in the late mediaeval/early Renaissance style of the Parliament building. Made in a straightforward Neo-Gothic style and decorated with more finely wrought ornaments than the structure at large, the Ark dominates the central axis in the manner of an independent piece of sculptural decoration. In the tympanum of the Ark is a star of David painted in an Orientalising style. The bimah, with two candelabra on the plinths of its columns, repeats this structure on a smaller, more furniture-like, scale. Closing the space of the rostrum is a wrought-iron railing, in the centre of the interior space hangs a huge bronze chandelier matching the architecture. The interior transcends in quality the limitations imposed on the proportions of the building by the rather modest size of the 46
