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

The Páva utca Synagogue

great temple. The main building, which is in a particularly poor state of repair, has been in the process of being renovated for a decade now. Around the courtyard, however, the educational institutions and the Hanna Restaurant are in operation. Across the street at 16 Kazinczy utca is the only ritual bath (mikveti) of Budapest in a newly redecorated, red-marble-covered Art Deco building.

The Páva utca Synagogue

The temple at 29 Páva utca, on the corner of Tűzoltó utca, is a late work of Lipót Baumhorn. The idea of constructing the building was first raised at the turn of the century, and in 1910 Miklós Román, the designer of the Aszód synagogue, designed it with funds donated by the industrialist Géza Belatini Braun. A small prayer-house was built, but all further construction work had to be suspended because of World War 1. A fundraiser for the construction of a synagogue to be called "Temple of Peace" was begun among the community in 1918, but the present-day building, designed by Baumhorn, was only erected in 1923.

The synagogue-building drive of the 1920s was a deeply ambivalent enterprise. As a response to the increasingly anti-Semitic atmosphere attendant to

■ Ground plan ofi the synagogue in Páva utca (Lipót Baumhom, 1923)

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