The year 2022 marks the 10^th anniversary of Jewish Heritage Europe, and we will be celebrating it throughout the year with special content.

The theme of JHE’s 10^th birthday celebrations is the “Anniversary of Anniversaries” — that is, using JHE’s own anniversary to feature other significant or symbolic anniversaries related to Jewish heritage that also take place this year.

Here’s the first article in the series, highlighting the 150^th anniversary of the dedication of one of Budapest’s stunning synagogues: the Rumbach street synagogue. We retrace the history of this marvelous building, which was recently reopened to the public after a fullscale restoration.

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The Rumbach St. Synagogue, Budapest — 150th anniversary

(JHE) — Located in the heart of downtown Budapest, the Moorish-style Rumbach street synagogue is one of three magnificent synagogues that form a so-called “Jewish triangle” anchoring the city’s Seventh District, once the city’s main Jewish quarter.

With its striped façade, two slim turrets, and unusual domed, octagonal sanctuary, the Rumbach was an early work by the noted Viennese architect Otto Wagner. It was inaugurated at Rosh Hashanah, 1872.

Sold to the state by the Jewish community in 1988, the synagogue complex changed hands several times and long languished in semi-derelict condition following partial reconstruction in the late 1980s/early 1990s that was left unfinished for lack of funds. It was returned to Jewish ownership in 2006.

The synagogue reopened in June 2021 following an award-winning, €10 million renovation, fully funded by the state, that was carried out in  2017-2019 and entailed the conversion of the synagogue and its entire building complex into a multi-purpose arts, culture, prayer, and education center.

Origin and Style

The Rumbach was Otto Wagner’s first major work. The Vienna-based architect, who went on to become a founder of the Secessionist movement, was only 27 when he won a design competition for the building in 1868. His elaborate, Moorish-style design employed a modern, light iron structure.

Wagner, who was not Jewish, had worked in the studio of the Vienna-based architect Ludwig von Förster, who had designed Budapest’s grand, Moorish-style main synagogue on Dohány st in the 1850s and also designed the Leopoldstädter Temple in Vienna and the synagogue in Miskolc, northeastern Hungary.

Construction on the Rumbach began in May 1870. Though the ceremonial opening took place during the High Holidays in 1872, work was not fully completed until a year later. The synagogue complex also included Jewish schools and the rabbi’s apartment.

The Rumbach Synagogue represents a marvelous example of the Moorish style, with a tripartite, horizontally striped façade, whose two turrets at the edges of the taller central section resemble minarets.

The domed octagonal prayer hall is richly decorated with Moorish style geometric figures and arabesques in red, blue, and gold, recalling the Alhambra in Spain – and also oriental carpets.  

A women’s gallery circles the sanctuary on seven sides; slim, highly decorated gilded pillars support the gallery and tall arches above it.

Light streams through stained-glass windows on each outer wall. The Ark is located in a rectangular annex opposite the main entrance, with the Bimah, in orthodox style, in at the center of the hall.

The “Jewish Triangle”

The Rumbach synagogue anchors Budapest’s downtown  7^thdistrict along with two other major synagogues: the monumental Dohany street synagogue — the biggest synagogue in Europe, serving the Neolog, or Hungarian reform, Jewish community; and the Kazinczy street synagogue built in 1912-13 and serving the traditional orthodox community.

The Rumbach was conceived of and built during a turbulent time for Hungarian Jewry. Internal conflicts led to an official religious schism in 1868-69. Jews formally split into two main oganizational communities: Orthodox, strictly adhering to traditional observance; and Neolog, the Hungarian version of European Reform Judaism. A much smaller grouping, whose members became known as Status Quo Ante congregations, affiliated with neither but generally followed traditional orthodox practice.

The Rumbach synagogue was commissioned and built by Orthodox Jews. Following the schism, the congregation maintained orthodox practice, but was not formally affiliated either with the official Orthodox stream or with Status Quo. Administratively it came under the Neolog Budapest community umbrella.

It was thus Status Quo Ante in practice, and is usually described as a Status Quo synagogue, although the congregation did not formally join that stream.

The Restoration 

The synagogue was damaged during World War II. It also was used as a collection point for thousands of Jewish refugees who were deported in 1941 and massacred in Kamianets-Podilskyi in Ukraine. A dwindling congregation still prayed there for some years after the war; in 1979, the roof partially collapsed.

In 1988, a year before the ouster of the communist regime, the Jewish community sold the synagogue to the state-run Alba Regia State Construction Company, which became a private company after the collapse of the regime. It carried out some restoration work but ran out of funds in 1991 and soon went bankrupt. The synagogue was then bought by a state-run organization that managed public assets. The state restituted the synagogue to the Jewish community in 2006, through a real estate exchange.

A fullscale restoration was carried out in 2017-2019, with the 3.2 billion Forint (€10 million) costs fully covered by the Hungarian state.

On JHE, we followed the work, with on-site reports in 2018 and in 2019.

The renovation entailed the complete rebuilding and/or replacement of both structural and decorative elements in the richly ornate, octagonal sanctuary. These included the chandeliers, wall paintings and wood-paneled ceiling.

 A replica of the destroyed ark was created using plaster, glass, and gold and installed in its original place.

And the sanctuary now features a retractable bimah that can rise from beneath the flooring for use during religious services and retract below when the space is used for a concert or cultural event. 

 

In addition to offices and a café, the restored complex includes a permanent exhibition centered on the experience of Hungarian Jews through the history of a Hungarian Jewish family, the Politzers. 

The Hungarian National Committee of ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) presented its annual restoration award to the Rumbach project in April 2020. 

To Learn More…

Read about the Moorish-style decoration of then Rumbach in:

From Animal to Arabesque – Reconsidering Geometric Surfaces in Islamic Revival Synagogues 1830–1906, PhD Dissertation by Riva Arnold, University of Zurich (2019/21)
Here are some books where you can find out more (in English) about the history and architecture of the Rumbach St. Synagogue:

Frojimovics, K., Komoróczy, G., Pusztai, V., Strbik, A. (1999). Jewish Budapest. Monuments, Rites, History. Amsterdam University Press.

Klein, R. (2017). Synagogues in Hungary 1782–1918. Terc Kiado (Distributed by Ceu Press).

Krinsky, C. H. (1987). Synagogues of Europe: Architecture, History, Meaning. MIT Press.

Valley, E. (1999). Great Jewish Cities of Central and Eastern Europe: A Travel Guide & Resource Book to Prague, Warsaw, Cracow & Budapest. Jason Aronson, Inc.