Bruce and Leslie 2014: Leaving Budapest Oct 11-13

Sat. Oct 11.

We take in the Parliament Building. This is the Senate chamber.

It all looks like this.

Bruce is sick (food poisoning?), Short day. He sleeps 4 hours +.

We happened on to a very controversial monument just recently erected over great protest. It is the WWII monument. It shows the archangel Gabriel (a symbol of Hungary) attacked by a German eagle. The criticism is that it glosses over Hungary's role in the war and in the holocaust by showing Hungary as a victim just like the Jews. The monument is dedicated to the "victims of the German occupation".

We do not know whether the stuff in front represents participation in the 70 th year remembrance or part of the protest. We deduce that it was placed by Jews because of the stones.

Also, the many shoes may be a reference to the other holocaust monument that we did not see.

As the Russians approached Budapest, the fascist Arrow Cross marched the Jews to the Danube and shot them. Many of these Jews had been protected through the war by papers issued by Wallenberg.

We dined at Strudel. Shared crispy piggy (sic) chops with potato strudels. We took back apple and cherry + cottage cheese strudels. All great.
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Sun. Oct 12 visit to Jewish quarter. This is a hugely popular tourist destinatiom, with long ticket lines.

Hertzl was born in this neighborhood.

Judaism in Hungary

Before the war there were three types of Jewish worship in Budapest. As soon as it was permissible, in the 1870s, each group built a synagogue. First there is the orthodox. About 20% of the Jews today worship there. The interior is distinguished by stained glass skylights:

Worshippers purchased their seats and looked their payer books when not in use.

Floor marble decoration:

Then there is the Neologue. This started as part of the reform movement, ie, it used the "Hamburg rite". The description off the rite is posted at the synagogue:

About 80% worship there. They are much closer to orthodoxy now.

Unusual features include 2 pulpits. The pulpits held translators, as there were both Hungarian and German speaking congregants.

A third group was between these two. Its synagogue is no longe active. It went for an oriental style. The “minarets” are indeed part of a puropose built synagogue.

Restoration of the interior is under way. The interior of the dome is finished.

An engraved banner, now on a paper mockup, states:

The Almighty said the ten commandments in one sentence in order to teach us that the ten commandments are one organic unit and cannot be separated into parts. The first tablet contains the preaches of the faith; the second one the preaches of the ethics. The ethics can (sic) exist without the faith, but in the same way, no Jewry exists without morals.

Behind the neologue cemetery, there is a memorial to the 2200+ Jews that were murdered here by the Hungarian fascists (Arrow Cross) as the Russians were at the city's edge.

There is a name of each leaf of this willow tree sculpture:

And a memorial to Raoul Wallenburg:

There is a museum with Judaica, including a few elaborate bris knives.

Part of the neighborhood has become popular with the younger, hipper set.

We ate lunch at a "ruin pub." Consumed the meat and vegetarian starters and 2 small glasses of wine -- Weniger kekfrankos 2011 and Heimann kadarka 2012. The list was extensive and cost was less than $3 each glass. The wines here are a surprise on the plus side.

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Monday, October 13. Last day here.

We walked down a few blocks of Andressy Ut,, a UNESCO world heritage site. There are now over 1000 of these designations. The currency has become quite inflated.

Anyway, one is supposed to admire the Hungarian secession movement architecture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.