Meet Buda and Pest

After a wet Purim in Jerusalem, the group and I woke up before 2 to catch a bus and flight to Budapest.

What follows are posts and notes about my stays for 2 days in Budapest, 4 in Prague, and about a week in Berlin. Each city had its own look, more or less rebuilt after the war. Each city also had its own relationship and attitude toward the Jewish story.

Pictures from Budapest

A full day of touring followed our landing in Budapest. Meet Agi, a Jewish travel agent, who only serves as a tour guide twice a year- for us and for Dorot, a post-graduate program based in Israel. Among the first Jews to return to Hungary after the Holocaust, she received her degrees in Jewish culture and history from the Rabbinical seminary in Budapest. On the ride to our first site, the Lauder School, she shared some basic facts about the area. Budapest is composed mainly of Catholics. Hungarians arrived circa 3rd Century (don't ask me from where), and the Jews before them. The language is a product of Finnish, Estonian, and Turkish influences. As reflected in the title, the city is really two, separated by the Danube river. "Yiddishkeit," as Agi calls it, was killed here, if not by the Holocaust, then by Communism that followed. However, now there is a growing Jewish community, estimated by the Joint Distribution Committee to be 120k, completely restarted and liberal. There are 4 Jewish Day Schools, and a strong Neolog presence. This religious view was completely foreign to me, and is mostly concentrated in Hungary, but can be compared to Conservative and Reform American Judaisms. For example, services would include an organ, and split seating, but without a mehitzah, or separator. Female Rabbis are not ordained at the seminary. That's the Jewish bit. The modern bit is that the government is moving rapidly to the right, there is a significant fascist party that's gaining ground, and fear is therefore brewing again about the future and future Judaism. Interestingly, when Germany entered Hungary, on March 19th, 1944, the Jews were so sure they would survive any and all restrictions imposed by the Nazis because it was so late in the war. Now, they might be the first in Europe to face politically sanctioned anti-Semitism, this time around. Note that I am not familiar with politics here, and don't mean to exaggerate an issue if it really isn't this serious.

On a different note, there are 9 bridges between Buda and Pest. All of them were blown up by the Nazis, but were since restored. There is a growing Roma, or Gypsy populations, who originaly came from India about 600 years ago (according to Agi), and got the name Gypsy from their stop in Egypt. Finally, 1000 Hungarian Forint are worth about 5 dollars. My wallet couldn't fit all the bills I got for lunch, and everything for sale was measured in feet (FT).

We began at the Lauder school, where we visited a class. The students explained that most of the student body isn't Jewish, but everyone takes Hebrew. Projects of artwork and announcements around the hallways publicized Jewish holidays, and graduate classes. They reminded me of Synagogue Hebrew School class pictures from the 60's.

Having been up for 12 hours, and just after noon, we explored the Castle District in the "Old Town" in Buda. Aside from spectacular views of the city, we could see the romanticization of Hungarian history through neo-Gothic constructions of Churches. Buda became the capital in the 13th Century, and the Jews lived around the aristocrats of the city, protected by the wealthy for their money dealing. The neo-Gothic buildings here, such as the Fisherman's Bastion and Matthias Church, were constructed to commemorate the millennial anniversary of Hungary (894 or 896). Jews were officially emancipated here in 1867. This motion led to a significant detail of the War: The Jews owned about 80% of the industry in Budapest. This made is significantly harder and more damaging to persecute them here. It also meant that at times, the Jewish-owned factories were supplying the Nazi armies. Amazing.

At this point Agi informed us that before the War there were 250k Jews in Budapest, a city of about a million people. No wonder this place was called "Judapest." I also realized that half of that Jewish population exists here now. I don't know what the general population is though.

Now we dug into the Jewish community here, beginning with the JCC (careful, this link is straight up Hungarian. I suggest Chrome or Google Translate). Walking in, I was amazed to find that I could watch Israeli television from a Hungarian lobby. There happened to be very significant news: the former President of Israel was being sentenced to prison for sexual abuse charges. Unbelievable...

The Balint Community Center, or JCC opened in 1994, with the goals of reaching out to the Jewish community as well as the 80k unaffiliated Jews in Budapest, providing an "incubator house" for partnerships, to serve as a "shopwindow" for uninformed or prejudices non-Jewish Hungarians, so they can see the doings of the Jewish community, as well as a site of social responsibility for social issues like the Gypsy population. This place was really like any other small-scale American JCC. Gym, children's playhouse, computer center, auditorium, cafeteria, etc. We met with counselors part of a special leadership training program for the international Hungarian Jewish Szarvas Camp. Then we went to the Israeli Cultural Institute, or ICI, where we enjoyed a Zumba class to further drain us.



At one point, even the director joined in...



We concluded the day at a Kosher restaurant, sleeping in between bites of schnitzel.

The next day we explored the Jewish community further, taking a look at synagogues in particular, as well as memorials and museums dedicated to the Holocaust. We began in the "Orthodox Square," noting the choices made by the community in their selection of verses from the Hebrew Bible. The community here was insular, and was a Nazi "ghetto" from October 1944 through January 1945. Around the corner was a synagogue for the "status quo" Jews. It's called the Rumbach, and here 16-18 thousand Jews were collected before being transferred to the Ukraine and massacred.



As we continued walking around the neighborhood, I stumbled over a pair of shiny square tiles on the pavement. When I looked closer, I found names of individuals, dates, and locations I recognized from the Holocaust. Apparently a recent phenomenon, a German gentile artist has begun a private project of memorializing the victims of the Holocaust by installing "stumbling stones" at the foot of their former homes. I was told that these stones appear all over Europe. We'll see.

One such memorial we visited was dedicated to Carl Lutz, a Swiss, who provided fake visas to the Jews and bribed the Nazis. Naturally, the Nazis knew they were being bribed, but by the time the war arrived in Hungary, the Nazis knew their future was grim, so they took what they could get. Lutz also worked with Wallenberg. The memorial depicted the contrast and bridge between heaven and hell, and next to it, a stone had a quote by Lutz engraved, translating loosely to: "I'm getting mad when I have to decide who lives, who dies...where is God?"

For a serious transition, we visited next the second largest Synagogue in the world, called the Dohany Synagogue (literally, Tobacco, because of the street name and the tobacco market that once operated here). For one gigantic place, there was a lot to experience. For one thing, Theodore Herzl was BORN right next to the site of the main building, just before its construction began, in 1859. Later, his home became part of the premises, and the Synagogue expanded to include an additional block.

On another note, the Synagogue contains the only memorial in the world for Rudolf Kastner. This controversial Jewish Hungarian was involved in direct negotiations with Nazi Adolf Eichman that resulted in a special train of Jews that went to neutral Switzerland instead of Auschwitz. Kastner moved to Israel after the war where he became shunned by the community as a Nazi collaborator, and was eventually assassinated. Israel still hasn't made up its mind whether or not to recognize Kastner for saving Jews or criticize him for talking to the enemy and potentially choosing who he wanted to save. There are talks of Israel naming a street after him the future.

You can see a little of the Dohany here from the outside.


We took this opportunity to discuss the level of Jewish integration into Hungarian culture. This synagogue was the Neolog prayer place, and yet the community used Moorish influences, meaning North American and Berber designs in the architecture. Why? Obviously to make a few statements. It appears though that these statements weren't directed entirely at the general community, but rather at other Jews. In addition, these Neolog Jews prayed in Sephardi Hebrew, meaning basically modern Israeli Hebrew (not as whiny). Today though, this site has become the popular place for the 2-day-a-year Jews. On High Holidays it's packed with people arriving in fancy cars, putting on fashion shows, and then departing for the local pubs. The Judaism here has changed significantly.

After a brief lunch, which was a serious struggle for someone who avoids sausages, we visited the Shoe Memorial along the banks of the Danube, the river that separates Buda from Pest. Here marked the place where thousands of Jews lined up in October 1944, took off their shoes, and were shot into the frozen sea. Amazingly, 60 years later, in 2005, a memorial was established to mark the event. Plaques in English, Hebrew, and Hungarian recognize the involvement of the Hungarian Red Army in these deaths. However, the plaques fail to identify that Jews were in fact murdered here. Kind of ridiculous. In addition, the backdrop of the pictures of Facebook not only has government buildings, but residential ones as well. People were watching Jews get shot and drowned.



Powerfully, the moment we arrived at this memorial, students started gathering around blackberries, and words like "bombing" began to circulate. About 15 minutes before we arrived at the Danube, a bomb exploded in one of the most heavily congested places in Jerusalem; across the street from the Central Bus Station, where stations run along the side of the street; less than 10 minutes from our hostel. We drove on that street a little more than 2 days before. Suddenly, while standing next to these empty metal shoes, we shared feelings of grief and rejection.

Our last official stop for the day was the Holocaust Museum in Budapest. I was particularly interested in seeing this place because I had never been to a museum of this time, providing a local and personal narrative of the genocide. This wasn't just a Holocaust museum, but a museum of the Hungarian Holocaust. Unfortunately, the metro was down, so traffic took us an hour, and we had about an hour and a half to literally run through the hallways. The site was inaugurated in 2004, and the first exhibit that opened shared the pictures from Lili Yaakov, a girl who survived Auschwitz. On the day of her liberation, she went into a Nazi barrack and found a photo album with pictures of her family and community. The real album is in Yad Vashem, but a copy was displayed for 2 years here.

My first impression of the place was that it was very futuristic and artistic in presentation. Buildings were slanted, and a large but mostly empty panel contained the names of very few of the 600 thousand Jews, Roma and others who perished. The hallways in the museum continued to descend, and there was very minimal light, coming from white stripes in the walls, reminiscent of a fence.

If you're looking at this story from a country where that story took place, what do you tell? How general and how specific do you get? In my opinion, the place allowed you to get lost in its virtual and technological presentation to relate to the events depicted. There were a very small number of artifacts. Mostly, the exhibits consisted of interactive maps, screens, narratives, blown up pictures, and videos. To share the Hungarian story meant to provide a brief picture of Ghetto life, referring to the Warsaw ghetto as an example, but also to provide a significant piece on Auschwitz. The majority of the Jews killed there, 450,000 according to the Museum, were Jews from Hungary, since it was the most efficient way to exterminate based on the state of war in '44-'45. They all arrived over a ten week period in the summer of '44, and 75-80 percent were killed on the day of their arrival.

The museum concludes in a Synagogue, where people sit and reflect, while behind them glass chairs bear the names of victims. I looked toward the ceiling and saw a quote in Hungarian and Hebrew:

Szeresd felebaratodat mint tenmagadat
ואהבת לרעך כמוך
Love your neighbor as yourself

To conclude our stay, we took a beautiful boat ride on the Danube. It wasn't until much later that one of the students reflected on the inappropriateness of this activity. Not many hours ago, we had been reflecting on the dead laying at the bottom of the river, and here we were floating above and forgetting. I thought it was a powerful statement, but also an indication of how life in Budapest has moved on. Remember, this trip is not meant to be a Holocaust oriented trip, but rather one that explores the Jewish communities of Europe, and the modern realities here.

Dinner was back at the Kosher restaurant, where I enjoyed my first goulash, and paid a mint, in Hungarian Forint  Euros, Dollars, whatever. It was expensive, but delicious.

That just about wrapped up our short but packed two-day stay in Budapest. Overall I enjoyed what I got to see but felt like I got nearly no exposure to the real city, as well as the more than 100 thousand Jews currently living here. Not to mention, much of the city was destroyed in the war, so it didn't look like anything really magical. Prague on the other hand is a different story...