Photo gallery: Beautiful but Desolate Kerepesi Jewish cemetery in Budapest

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

(This post also appears on my En Route blog for the LA Jewish Journal)


In Budapest earlier this month, I visited the Jewish cemetery on Salgotarjan street, which was founded in 1874 and is the oldest Jewish cemetery in the Pest side of Budapest.

It is actually the Jewish section of the city’s Kerepesi monumental cemetery, where national heroes are buried — and is the final resting place of many wealthy and influential Hungarian Jews of the time. Massive family tombs of Jewish noble families and industrialists line the perimeter; but there are also the graves of ordinary people. There is also a section where Holocaust victims are buried.

I had not been there in years -- despite some efforts at clean-up some time back, the cemetery is more densely overgrown than ever and tragically neglected, and I was glad that a friend came with me, as I do not like wandering around there by myself. There used to be a lot of stories of homeless people camping down there, or others coming in to rob the graves. Once I was startled to flush out a pheasant. There is decent security now, though, and a responsible young caretaker (who tied up his dogs when we arrived).

Still, many of the huge tombs of families who once wielded social, political and financial power are literally crumbling; collapsing and being swallowed by vines and other vegetation. Some of them have been broken open: you can even see the coffins in the crypts.

Quite a few of the tombs are the work of leading architects of the day — such as Ignác Alpár, Sándor Fellner, Albert Körössy, Emil Vidor and Béla Lajta. Lajta, whose work prefigured art deco, also designed the entry way from the street and the massive Ceremonial Hall (now roofless), built around 1908.

I posted a gallery of photos on www.jewish-heritage-europe.eu, the web site that I coordinate for the Rothschild Foundation Europe.

Here are just a few of them  (all photos © Ruth Ellen Gruber) -- click here over to Jewish Heritage Europe to see the full selection.

Click to see more pictures   

This past week's updates from Jewish Heritage Europe

Murals of the Holy Land from Beit Tefilah Benjamin in Chernivtsi, Ukraine. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

As I did last weekend, I'm posting here this past week's updates from www.jewish-heritage-europe.eu, the web site that I coordinate as a project of the Rothschild Foundation Europe. There's news from Ukraine, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Italy and the UK....

I post on the JHE newsfeed several times a week, to keep content dynamic on what we aim to make the go-to web site for Jewish heritage issues in Europe. JHE will celebrate two years online next month, and we are planning to expand the enhance the site with new features.

Meanwhile -- please subscribe to the JHE news feed! You can use the subscribe buttons on the home page or on any of the news pages. The deal is that, on days that I post on the JHE news feed, you will receive one email with the links to the posts. Easy, convenient and informative, no? And you won't miss any of the feed.

Look at all the news we've run this past week:

Plans for Holocaust Museum in Budapest prompt debate 

My article about a complex situation, published in Tablet Magazine

Lublin: Exhibition of photographs of Jewish cemeteries

Call for applications: fellowship at Center for Urban History in Lviv

Niš Jewish cemetery: new signage, possibility to visit

Great news, thanks to the indefatigable Jasna Ciric

Launch of online catalogue of Romanian archives

Rich new resource

New digital uploads of old synagogue postcards from the Rosenthall collection

Fantastic images and great resource -- for the armchair traveler, too

Technology: 3d scanners help digitize weathered inscriptions

Science in action to benefit historic research!

Update: Bradford Synagogue received first tranche of lottery funding for restoration

A shining example of Jewish-Muslim cooperation

“Visions of the Holy Land” in northern Romanian synagogues

Explanation of beautiful murals that decorate synagogues

How to mark the Kristallnacht anniversary? With glorious synagogues

Entryway, Jubilee synagogue, Prague. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

This weekend marks the 75th anniversary of what we call Kristallnacht, the Night of the Broken Glass, the night of violent coordinated Nazi attacks against Jews, Jewish property, and Jewish places of worship which saw some 7,000 Jewish businesses trashed and more than 1,000 synagogues put to the torch all over Germany and German-occupied lands. Some 30,000 Jews were imprisoned and more than 90 were killed.

The destruction wrought on the night of November 9-10, 1938 foreshadowed the mass destruction of the Holocaust that followed a few years later.

To mark this anniversary, rather than dwell on the destruction, I thought I would focus on rebirth and survival, in particular the survival of synagogues whose restoration over the past two decades has been a symbol of Jewish rebirth in Germany and elsewhere in central and eastern Europe.

Here, then, just a few photographs of synagogues, still used by Jewish communities, that stand now as enduring monuments to the glory of what was destroyed -- and offer hope that the still somewhat fragile renewal of Jewish life in Europe may continue to strengthen. This is only a very small sample of the synagogue buildings that have been restored in Europe (most of them now used for cultural or other purposes).

Tempel synagogue, Krakow. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

Interior, Tempel Synagogue, Krakow. Photo © JCC Krakow

Facade, Pilsen synagogue, Czech Republic. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

Dohany st. Synagogue, Budapest. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

Dohany st. Synagogue, Budapest. Restored in the 1990s

Dohany st. Synagogue, Budapest. Restored in the 1990s

Kazinczy st synagogue, Budapest

Ceiling, Kazinczy st synagogue, Budapest

Ark, Kazinczy st. Synagogue, Budapest

Orthodox synagogue, Presov, Slovakia. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

Orthodox synagogue, Presov, Slovakia. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

And here are a couple of synagogues built in recent years. The use of glass is a real answer to Kristallnacht, no?:

Ohel Jakob synagogue , Munich (l) built 2004-2006

Synagogue in Graz, Austria, dedicated in 2000 on the site of the magnificent synagogue destroyed on Kristallnacht. Notice how the upper part of this synagogue is a glass dome. A real answer to the Night of Broken Glass. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

Glass dome of the new synagogue in Graz. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

Jewish Budapest's lively street corner

Kazinczy st. Synagogue. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

This post also appears on my En Route blog for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal
When I was in Budapest last month, I took a look at some of the new cafe and restaurant offerings in the heart of the 7th District -- the city's historic downtown Jewish neighborhood, where I myself have a little apartment.

The district has become known in recent years for its new and growing crop of trendy boutiques and restaurants and funky clubs, bars and pubs, including the famous "ruin pubs" that mainly operate in the summer on the site of vacant lots and torn-down buildings.

The inner part of the 7th is also known as the "Jewish triangle" as it is anchored by three magnificent synagogues -- the Dohany St. synagogue, the largest in Europe and the Kazinczy street Orthodox synagogue, both of which have been beautifully restored and are used by active congregations, and the Rumbach st. synagogue, a beautiful building designed by Otto Wagner that is in dire need of restoration but is use now for occasional cultural events.

(I've posted a lot on these and other developments over the years -- click HERE to see some of the posts.)

Last month, though, I was interested to see that one street corner -- the corner of Dob and Kazinczy streets -- is becoming something of a hub for a rather more upscale (though still sort of funky), overtly Jewish restaurant and cafe scene.

Macesz Huszar. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

Two (or really three) new places opened since I had last been there in the fall.

One is the Macesz Huszar -- a self-proclaimed "Jewish Bistro," right on the corner. It actually occupies the spot that used to be the very nice (and also "Jewishy" restaurant Koleves, which has now moved around the corner, on Kazinczy, nearer to its summer ruin garden.)

The Macesz Huszar is not kosher, but it doesn't serve pork. Its menu features a variety of traditional Jewish dishes -- including stuffed goose neck & barley, cholent (solet), borscht. Instead of a hamburger, it offers a "gooseburger" from smoked ground goose.

I wasn't terribly impressed with the borscht, and the service was spotty -- but all in all, it was worth going there to support the effort.

The owner of Macesz Huszar is David Popovits, who also runs the wonderful Doblo wine bar, a dimly lit place with bare brick walls, just a few steps away on Dob street. My friend Eszter and I went there one night to celebrate her receiving a major grant for a project she's working on about the Jewish district -- and we had far too much to eat, even though we only ordered a couple of antipasto dishes. Not to mention a fabulous Cabernet -- I wish I could remember what it was! The staff, though are very helpful in counseling you on which of the many Hungarian wines on the menu to choose..

Just a few steps further down Dob street is the Spinoza cafe and restaurant, owned by an energetic Israeli, Tal Lev. Spinoza offers bagels and other light dishes, some with an Israeli flavor, as well as heavier fare. There is also a theater which hosts concerts and other performances. And just a few steps from Spinoza is the Dob St. entry to Gozsdu Udvar, a series of connected courtyards that stretches from Dob all the way to Kiraly street. The courtyards were renovated and restored several years ago, and they are finally attracting enough bistros, cafes, boutiques and other businesses to make the unique setting lively. And I shouldn't forget the Frohlich kosher pastry shop, also on Dob street.....

But, back to the intersection of Dob and Kazinczy....

Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

Catty-corner across the street from Macesz Huszar is a newly renovated old building that now houses theKazimir bistro and Info point. The name clearly refers to Kazimierz, the old Jewish quarter of Krakow, which has become a major Jewish tourist attraction and includes several nostalgia-tinged "Jewish style" cafes aimed at evoking pre-war times.

Budapest's Kazimir has an old-world look, but doesn't hype the Jewishness -- its menu includes pork dishes as well as cholent (which is, in fact, a staple at many Budapest restaurants and even sold in cans in supermarkets.) It also features some Asian dishes -- and has a program of mainstream music and other events.

Across the entry hall, the Info Point serves as a little tourist center for the 7th District, including its Jewish sites. The helpful young woman at the desk when I dropped by spoke good English, but it was clear that the operation was still not up to full speed. There were a few books about the city and Jewish quarter for sale, and some brochures were available. The Info point web site is packed with information, but so far is only in Hungarian.

Kazimir - Info Point is located directly across the street from the Kazinczy street Orthodox synagogue -- the photo at the top of this post was taken from the Kazimir doorway.

The synagogue was built in 1911-1913, as part of a complex designed by Béla and Sándor Loeffler: built in a sort of Byzantine-art Nouveau style, the complex includes a courtyard surrounded by other buildings, with entrances on both Kazinczy street and Dob street. The rather simple Hanna kosher restaurant is located in the courtyard. Next door on Kazinczy there is an upscale kosher restaurant, Carmel. And by the Dob st. entrance there is a kosher butcher and salami-maker.

Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

In Budapest, a Different Kind of Jewish "Jewish" Cafe

Mazel Tov... Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

This post also appears on my En Route blog for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal

Thanks to CEU professor Daniel Monterescu for introducing me to the Mazel Tov cafe in Budapest's 13th district. On first look, it seems similar to the "Jewish style" cafes in Krakow and elsewhere in eastern Europe, where sepia-colored shtetl nostalgia is the norm....But at Mazel Tov the decor is actually very different.

Inside Mazel Tov. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

Outside, the cafe's name is written in Hebrew-style letters, and inside, its walls are covered by pictures -- as at the "Jewish-style" cafes elsewhere that I have visited and written so much about in the past.

But these are not the "usual" pictures of bearded sages, rabbis, antique-style Jewish genre scenes and the like.

In the Ariel Cafe, Krakow. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

Instead, Mazel Tov's walls are covered by pictures of living Jews -- Jewish celebrities -- from Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook to Woody Allen to Barbra Streisland, Leonard Bernstein and even the Hungarian philosopher Agnes Heller.

On the surface, it looks similar. But the focus is totally different from the other places. (Though in Krakow my favorite Jewish-style cafe, Klezmer Hois, does also include a lot of pictures of real, live Jews on its walls -- most if not all of whom have been patrons of the establishment.)

Judaica for sale in Mazel Tov. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

Mazel Tov is located in what was a modern Jewish neighborhood (pre-WW2) and on a street where there is a small synagogue that still operates. It is run by a Jewish woman, there are some Judaica items on sale, Israeli pop music was playing, and there is a mezuzah at the door.

But it's not kosher -- on the menu are ham and cheese sandwiches. (But this is also typically secular Budapest Jewishness.....)

Me in Mazel Tov cafe. Photo: Dan Monterescu

Matzo Apple Cake in Budapest -- Rachel Raj's Recipe

Rachel Raj and ingredients. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

 This originally appeared on the En Route blog of the Los Angeles Jewish Journal.


I’ve been meaning to link to this piece I did for The Forward’s The Jew & the Carrot blog, about the Budapest Jewish chef and pastry cook Rachel Raj. (I had written about her in the past, in an article about the Budapest Jewish food scene in general.)

It was a delight to research—eating pastries in Budapest and talking about food! I like the Cafe Noe I write about here…. it’s a nice, intimate place with a hidden little terrace garden.

Enjoy!  Oh—and here is Rachel’s recipe for matzo apple cake, which is nice and light and good all year round.

Rachel’s Matzo Apple Cake:

Ingredients:

- 3.3 lbs apples
- sugar
- Cinnamon
- 6 eggs
- 6 Tbsp. sugar
- About 5 oz ground walnuts
- Matzos
- Approx. 1-1/2 cups of white wine, sweet or dry

Grate the apples and mix with sugar and cinnamon to taste

Separate the eggs and beat the whites until stiff.

Beat the yolks separately with the 6 Tbsp of sugar, then mix the yolk mixture with the ground walnuts and the beaten eggwhites.

In an oiled baking pan, place a layer of matzo that has been well moistened with wine. On top of this place a later of the apple mixture. Cover this with another layer of wine-moistened matzo, then cover that layer with the nut and egg mixture. Add more layers, making sure that the top layer is the nut and egg mixture.

Bake in a moderate oven (325-350 F) for about 35 minutes, cool and cut into squares. It’s good lukewarm, room-temperature, or even cold.

Still Early Spring in Budapest

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

I seem to have been eating a lot this trip.... spending a lot of time at the Cafe Noe, in the 7th District Jewish quarter, and Torta, near the Danube, sampling Flodni, Matzo Apple Cake and other items... both places are run by Miklos Maloschik and Rachel Raj.

Matzo apple cake and Flodni, at Cafe Noe. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Cafe Noe is around the corner from the grand Dohany st. Synagogue (the biggest in Europe) -- last week, before the leaves started coming out, I could actually get a picture of the full complex. The section on the left houses the Jewish museum. It was built in the 1930s on the site of the hosue where Theodor Herzl was born, in a style that matches that of the synagogue, which was completed in 1859.

Dohany St. Synagogue. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Early Spring in Budapest

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

It has been a busy visit so far in Budapest, with little time to stop and reflect (or post). Here are a few highlights..... and with luck I'll be able to add a bit more in the coming days. Today at least I managed to stock up on matzo for Passover -- there are several kosher shops now selling kosher for Pesach brands, at a wide variety of prices, I might add. The commercial kosher shops sell it for just about twice the price of what the Jewish-community run outlets do. But that's business....


Let me perhaps tell it in pictures:

Last week I attended the opening of a newly enlarged synagogue -- three times its original size -- in a residential neighborhood in Buda. And then I went there for services.  Here's a link to a 360 degree panorama of the place. And my own pic from the opening:

Synagogue on Karoli Gaspar ter. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

This is one of three synagogues in Budapest that have young and growing congregations. Another is the lovely courtyard Frankel Leo synagogue, also in Buda.

Frankel Leo Synagogue. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Frankel Leo synagogue. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Budapest -- Q6Q7 Jewish District Festival Holds a Spring Edition at Passover

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

For the past few years, Budapest's downtown Jewish Quarter, straddling the 7th and 6th Districts, has been the scene of a Hanukkah festival that takes place in various local clubs, galleries, restaurants, cafes and other venues.

This Spring, the organizers are offering a similar Quarter6Quarter7 festival over Passover, April 6-14.

The program includes both first and second night seders, as well as concerts, dances, films, talks and guided tours of the district.

Hungary -- Hard Times for Budapest Jewish Summer Festival

Banner during the Festival in 2009. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Deutsche Welle runs a report about hard times, financial and other, hitting the annual Jewish Summer Festival in Budapest.

Hungary's Jewish Summer Festival takes place this year in the shadow of economic gloom and extremism plaguing this EU nation of some 10 million people.

Under the current center-right government, the festival's budget was slashed and the city of Budapest reduced its financial support by 70 percent to five million forints (about 18,500 euros or $26,700).

"Despite the economic difficulties, we tried to organize the festival," explained Gusztav Zoltai, executive director of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Hungary. He pledged the program would be so good "that the public does not notice we have financial problems."

[....]

Budapest Klezmer Band ... member Ferenc Javori hopes music and culture will ease tensions in Hungary's troubled society.

That seems necessary since Hungary has been rocked by anti-Semitism. Several festival posters were painted over with swastikas and slogans such as "Jews go home," for example.

Earlier in August, the Sziget Music Festival saw scores of neo-Nazi and far-right activists trying to storm the Budapest event, which they viewed as organized by Jews and anti-Hungarian investors.

Police detained several demonstrators, including a prominent parliamentarian of the rightist Movement for a Better Hungary, or Jobbik. Earlier, thousands of neo-Nazis from across Europe gathered at their own Magyar Sziget, or Hungarian Island festival in the village of Veroce, just north of Hungary's capital.

Among those performing there was far-right Swedish singer Saga, singing for neo-Nazi and other extremists, who were waving flags and giving the Hitler salute.

 See full story by clicking HERE

Hungarian Yiddishe Mamma Mia

Yum. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

I'm on the road -- this week in Poland, and last week in Budapest, where I came across (but didn't sample) this new restaurant in Gozsdu Udvar, the wonderful series of linked courtyards in the 7th District, between Kiraly and Dob streets, that was renovated recently with debatable results.....It's not clear if it's Italian Jewish (which I rather doubt), or comfort food with an attitude (which may be more like it.)

Gozsdu Udvar will be part of the scene of the Judafest festival on Sunday -- food, music, stands, etc in the old downtown Jewish quarter.

I'll miss this, as I'm heading to Krakow (from Sanok, in the far southeast tip of Poland, where I've been all week) in order to take in the "Night of the Synagogues" festival Saturday night, when all seven of the historic synagogues in the Kazimierz district will be open to the public, with lots of programming, until 2 a.m.

There's a lot to report from my trip -- but it will come in dribs and drabs... I haven't had much time (or a constant internet connection) to sort out photos and stories.

Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Eating Jewishly

By Ruth Ellen Gruber


A couple of months ago, Saveur magazine published a series of articles by David Sax about eating Jewishly in Budapest and Bucharest. I advised him on the piece and pointed out people to talk to in Budapest -- essentially the same people that I noted in my own article about Jewish food in Budapest for JTA.....

A visit to eastern Europe reveals the origins of the cured and smoked meats, matzo balls, pickles, and other beloved staples of Jewish delicatessens around the world. "It hit me that it's nothing short of a miracle that these foods, these traditions, have survived," writes author David Sax.

Budapest -- Hanukkah party central continues

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

The eight night festivities go on.... last night, in cafe Siraly's basement, the hip-hop/fusion/klezmer/etc band haGesher, with Adam Schonberger (far left) and Flora Polnauer (right) on vocals....

Budapest -- Adam LeBor on Possibilities in Budapest's Downtown Jewish Quarter

Adam LeBor has a nice commentary in the Economist about the Jewish quarter in Budapest, pegged to the Quarter6Quarter7 Hanukkah festival.

District VI and District VII have survived wars and revolutions, invasion by the Nazis and the Soviets, and decades of communism. But capitalism has proved perhaps their deadliest enemy yet, as property developers—many of whom, ironically, are Israeli—knock down large swathes of the area and build ugly modernist office blocks and parking lots.
Yet the twists of Hungarian politics, and the recession, may prove the Jewish quarter’s greatest allies. The developers have run out of money, at least for now. The Socialist municipal officials who permitted historic buildings to be destroyed lost office in October's local elections. György Hunvald, the disgraced former mayor of District VII, is in detention awaiting trial on corruption charges.  

Municipal government was decentralised after the collapse of communism, giving Budapest's district mayors substantial powers. The new Fidesz mayors and their officials are said to be pragmatic and open-minded—and doubtless aware of the political and financial value of a thriving Jewish quarter. The Quarter6Quarter7 festival is already attracting commercial support: Vodafone has sponsored audio guides to 30 locations that can be downloaded on to a mobile phone.

Budapest -- The Hanukkah Festival is on!

Tour guide Agi Antal leads a group to the Dohany St. synagogue in Budapest during the 2009 Hanukkah festival. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

I'm back in Budapest for Hanukkah again -- I arrived last night and plunged right in to events in this year's Quarter6Quarter7 Hanukkah festival, which takes place in the city's downtown old Jewish quarter (the 6th and 7th Districts). I wrote about last year's festival for JTA and the New York Times online.

My train from Prague was too late to catch the concert I wanted to hear of Shkayach, a group that sings updated versions of Israeli and traditional Jewish songs. The group's singer, Flora Polnauer, also fronts hip-hop klezmer fusion groups -- and she chanted the Rosh Hashanah service this year for a Budapest reform congregation.

But I did manage to catch the concert by the Polish Klezmer Jazz group, the Bester Quartet.

And afterwards, I had a drink with the festival's organizer, Adam Schonberger, at "M"  restaurant -- which is serving special menus during the festival. Last night there was a Sephardic menu; I had the fish empanadas with a orange and black olive salad.

Adam told me that he is experimenting with the festival format this year. Instead of having concerts, performance, openings and other events for the full eight days of Hanukkah, as last year, the last four days are devoted to a film festival.

One of the innovations this year is a downloadable Jewish quarter tour guide app for smart phones -- more on this after I take a look at it. So far it's just in Hungarian, but an English version is coming.

As last year, though, more than 30 local venues and businesses in the 6th and 7th district are involved in the festival, hosting events or providing programs.

Budapest -- Variety at Rosh Hashanah

My latest Ruthless Cosmopolitan column for JTA focuses on how I once again savored the "goulash Judaism" of Budapest when I was there last week for Rosh Hashanah.

English-speaking travelers should note that the two alternative congregations I attended are English- and Visitor-friendly -- at the Bet Orim reform services, I met a mother and daughter who were on vacation from the U.S. Rabbi Raj (who is retired from a synagogue in Berkeley) conducted the service in Hebrew, Hungarian and English -- he even gave his sermon in both English and Hungarian.

Savoring "goulash Judaism" in the Hungarian capital

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

JTA -- Sept. 16, 2010

BUDAPEST (JTA) -- I always try to spend at least part of the High Holidays in Budapest, so I can sample some of the spicy mixture that characterizes the Jewish experience in the Hungarian capital.
As many as 90,000 Jews live in Budapest, the largest Jewish population in any central European city. The vast majority are unaffiliated -- and probably always will be.

Those who do identify as Jews, however tenuously, have an evolving choice of public and private, religious, cultural and secular ways to express or explore their identity.

Gastronomic, too: This year, one friend made challah for the first time to serve at the holiday dinner, and a downtown restaurant even offered a special Rosh Hashanah menu.

Call it "goulash Judaism," if you will -- a simmering mix whose disparate, and often fractious, components combine to form a highly seasoned whole.

Events and observances this year bore witness to the growing array of Jewish options, both inside and outside traditional settings.

The week leading up to Rosh Hashanah, for example, saw the conclusion of the city's 13th annual Jewish Summer Festival, a 10-day series of performances and other events, including a book and crafts fair, that drew thousands of visitors. Also that week, an ambitious Israeli Cultural Institute opened in a refurbished building at the edge of the main old downtown Jewish quarter.

And further afield, in the Obuda district in the northern part of the city, a 190-year-old synagogue that had been used for decades as a state TV studio was rededicated as a Jewish house of worship.

Rented from the state and restored by Chabad, the synagogue will form part of Chabad's growing local network.

Foreign VIPs were in town for all three occasions.

The Jewish Summer Festival culminated with a well-publicized concert by the Chasidic reggae rapper Matisyahu in a major city event arena.

Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky affixed the mezuzah to the doorpost of the Israeli Cultural Institute, which was largely funded by the agency. Institute director Gabor Balazs said the institute's aim was to introduce and popularize Israel's "mosaic-like" culture to the Jewish and non-Jewish public at large.

And Israel's Ashkenazi chief rabbi, Yonah Metzger, joined Chabad rabbis in cutting the ribbon at the Obuda synagogue.

"This is the best possible answer to what the Nazis did," Metzger told the crowd of 1,000 or more, including Hungarian government and religious leaders, attending the ceremony. "Fifty years after the last time Rosh Hashanah was celebrated here, it will be celebrated here once again."

My own holiday observances also reflected new choices.

I usually attend High Holidays services at one of the 15 or so mainstream synagogues active in Budapest, or sometimes I "synagogue hop" to two or three shuls. Most of them belong to the Neolog movement -- the Hungarian variant of Reform Judaism that is the country's dominant religious stream. But there are also several traditional Orthodox synagogues, as well three or four now affiliated with Chabad.

This year I chose to avoid the mainstream. I sampled Rosh Hashanah services at two small alternative groups -- Bet Orim, one of Budapest's two American-style Reform congregations, and Dor Chadash, a young people's minyan associated with the Masorti, or Conservative, movement.

As neither Reform nor Masorti is recognized by the Hungarian Jewish Federation, both operate outside the umbrella of establishment Jewry.

Bet Orim celebrated a formal service in the auditorium of the Budapest JCC, while Dor Chadash held a more informal gathering in the living room of the local Moishe House, a downtown apartment that serves as a combination residence and center for Jewish educational encounters.

Each group numbered about 30 or 35 people, and both offered an American-style egalitarian Jewish prayer experience that is alien to mainstream Hungarian Jewry.

At Bet Orim, in fact, a young woman named Flora Polnauer served as the cantor for High Holidays services.
"It's the first time that a Hungarian Jewish woman has fulfilled this role," Bet Orim's rabbi, Ferenc Raj, told me proudly.

Raj, a native of Hungary, moved to the United States decades ago and is rabbi emeritus of Congregation Beth El in Berkeley, Calif.

"We are making history tonight," he said.

I had met Polnauer before under quite different circumstances. The daughter of a rabbi, she sings with several local music groups, including hard-driving Jewish hip hop bands.

During the service, dressed in white, she chanted the familiar melodies in a lilting voice. But she looked a little nervous and was clearly moved by the experience.

"I really feel we deserve the Shehecheyanu!" she exclaimed at the end, referring to the blessing recited to mark special occasions and moments of joy.

We all joined in and chanted it with her: "Blessed are you, O Lord, our God, sovereign of the universe who has kept us alive, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this season."

Book Event semi-washed out....

Heavy rain, alas, washed out my book event today in Budapest promoting Zsido Emlekhelyek, the Hungarian edition of Jewish Heritage Travel .... it was supposed to have taken place in an open-air courtyard of Gozsdu udvar, a long series of connected courtyards that leads from Kiraly street through to Dob street.

For the past few days, Gozsdu udvar was the scene of a book and crafts fair that was part of Budapest's annual summer Jewish festival.

With the weather threatening, the publisher, Geographia kiado, organized another venue for the event -- a slide-illustrated talk by me -- in the upstairs cafe of one of the main branches of the Alexandra book shop, just around the corner from the Dohany St. synagogue.

About a dozen intrepid souls found their way to the new venue, and the presentation was a much more intimate experience than anticipated....

Still, people were very interested -- and the publisher says the books has been selling well, comparable to sales of a paperback novel!

Budapest Jewish summer festival celebrates its Bar Mitzvah

 Part of the festival in 2009. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Adam Lebor in Budapest writes a nice piece in the Economist online about the annual Budapest summer Jewish culture festival celebrating its 13th edition -- its bar mitzvah, so to speak.

The festival opened last night with a magnificent concert by the Boban Markovic Orchestra, the world's best known Serbian gypsy brass band ensemble, in the Great Synagogue on Dohany Street in downtown Pest. The synagogue, which holds 3,000 people, is the centre of Jewish life in Hungary. The synagogue was built in the mid-19th century in a neo-Moorish style and has been beautifully restored to its former glory. Playing to a packed house the orchestra kicked off with a rousing rendition of "Hava Nagila", probably the best known traditional Jewish song. The thumping Balkan beat soon had even dowager grandmas clapping along. The Boban Markovic Orchestra is the latest in a long line of renowned musicians to perform here: a century ago both Franz Liszt and Camille Saint-Saëns played the synagogue's organ.It was an interesting choice to open a Jewish cultural festival with a Serbian gypsy band. Partly because of their shared history of persecution, Jews and Roma often feel a kind of kinship. But despite the glorious life-affirming emotion of hearing "Hava Nagila" inside the synagogue, there was a poignant aspect to the concert, for this corner of Dohany street is a haunted place. The small Jewish cemetery behind the main hall houses the remains of perhaps 2,000 people who died of sickness and starvation during the winter of 1944-45 as the Hungarian Nazi Arrow Cross ran wild and the Red army steadily advanced, until the ghetto was finally liberated in January 1945.

On Monday, the festival features a presentation of Zsido Emlekhelyek, the Hungarian edition of my book Jewish Heritage Travel. I'm due to give an illustrated talk about Jewish heritage in Europe.

Hungarian edition of Jewish Heritage Travel presentation

The new Hungarian-language version of my book "Jewish Heritage Travel" -- Zsido Emlekhelyek -- will be featured during the book bazaar of the annual summer Jewish festival in Budapest.

I am scheduled to give an illustrated talk about the book on August 30, at 4 p.m., in Gozsdu Udvar.

Come one, come all!

Budapest -- Eating Jewish

 Flodni advertised at Cafe Noe. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Here's a repost of an article I've written on  trends in Jewish eating in Budapest -- mentioning old classics (like the Fulemule restaurant and its six types of solet) as well as nouvelle places such as Koleves and Spinoza.

By Ruth Ellen Gruber (May 12, 2010)

BUDAPEST (JTA) -- Rahel Raj calls herself a 21st-century Yiddishe mama. The daughter of a rabbi and mother of a toddler, she and her family run a pair of popular Budapest bake shops that specialize in Jewish pastries such as flodni, a calorific confection of layered nuts, apple and poppy seeds that is one of the symbols of local Jewish cuisine.

"A modern Yiddishe mama is not someone who sits in a chair and says, 'Eat!,'" said Raj, a slim 29-year-old with long, dark hair. "I like to dress up, I have a profession, I have a baby -- but on Shabbat I serve a four-course Friday-night meal."

Raj is part of a burgeoning Jewish food scene in Budapest that’s making an impact on restaurant menus in the city and on the way Hungarian Jews eat at home. In addition to her pastry business, Raj writes a column for a local Jewish magazine and two years ago anchored a 10-part Jewish cooking series on a Hungarian TV food channel. On the show, Raj prepared dishes with several local Jewish cooks to demonstrate how old-style traditions now coexist with new forms of culinary practice, as Jews use food both to connect with their roots and reflect a contemporary Jewish lifestyle.

One of her guests was Andras Singer, whose award-winning Fulemule restaurant goes heavy on cholesterol-laden recipes handed down from his mother and grandmother. They include stuffed goose neck, chopped liver, spiced goose fat and six types of solet -- the Hungarian version of cholent, the slow-baked dish of beans and meat traditionally served on Shabbat.

But Raj also featured a young Jewish working mom who prefers to feed her family salads and Israeli favorites such as hummus and pita, which have become popular and easily available in Budapest in recent years thanks in part to an Israeli-run chain of hummus bars downtown.

Another guest was the influential Jewish food writer Eszter Bodrogi, who goes by the pen name Spicy Eszter. Bodrogi, who is in her late 30s, has helped spark new trends in Jewish at-home eating with a popular food blog and lavishly illustrated cookbook, "Spice and Soul."
Her message is that contemporary kosher (or kosher style) cooking can be elegant, easy, healthy and fun.
"Things are really different today," Raj said. "We want modern, lighter, quicker versions of the old traditional recipes -- using olive oil, for example, instead of goose fat. Or making gefilte fish with salmon, flavored with orange. Or instead of solet, maybe serving a barley risotto with smoked duck."
 [...]

Read Full Article at JTA web site