Kazinczy Street Synagogue: The Orthodox Heart
Why is it significant?
Stop in front of the tall facade squeezed between the apartment houses of Kazinczy utca. It has no domes and no Moorish towers. Instead, look for clean vertical lines, Art Nouveau ornament, and Hebrew lettering above the entrance.
Key Facts
| Place | Kazinczy Street Synagogue: The Orthodox Heart |
|---|---|
| Address | Kazinczy utca 29-31, 1075 Budapest, Hungary |
| Geo Coordinates | 47.49820, 19.06270 |
| Part of Walk | Three Synagogues and a Tree of Life: Budapest's Jewish Quarter from Gozsdu to Dohány Street |
| Generated | Generated |
Stop in front of the tall facade squeezed between the apartment houses of Kazinczy utca. It has no domes and no Moorish towers. Instead, look for clean vertical lines, Art Nouveau ornament, and Hebrew lettering above the entrance. This is the Kazinczy Street Synagogue, and it tells a story of a community that split in two.
In 1868 and 1869 the Jews of Hungary held a congress to organise their community life, and they could not agree. The reformers, who would be called the Neologs, accepted organs, sermons in Hungarian and a modernised service. The traditionalists refused, and formed their own Orthodox organisation. A third group stayed outside both camps and was known simply as status quo ante, the way things were before. Budapest's Jewish quarter ended up with a great synagogue for each of the three, and you will see all of them today.
This is the Orthodox one, built in 1912 and 1913 by the brothers Béla and Sándor Löffler. Behind it lies a whole community complex of offices and institutions, around a courtyard that reaches through the block to Dob utca. The Löfflers managed something difficult: a strictly traditional prayer house dressed in the most modern style of its day.
During the ghetto winter the building stood inside the closed zone, and the community's own institutions tried to feed and shelter people in desperate conditions. The synagogue survived the war damaged but standing. Unlike many prayer houses in the city, it never stopped being used, and it is still the centre of Orthodox Jewish life in Budapest.
If you pass on a Friday afternoon, you may see men hurrying along Kazinczy utca before the Sabbath begins, past tourists heading to the bars a few doors away. Two worlds, one pavement. Now continue to Dob utca, turn left, and follow it east to a leafy square with a long market hall on its far side.