We are saddened by the death of Róbert Ben Turán, who served as the director of the Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives in Budapest for 15 years, from 1993 to 2008.
His death, at the age of 80, was announced by the museum on its web site, but no details were given.
“He was the one who guided our institution through the changed opportunities of the years following the change of regime, opened the doors of the collection, which previously was forcibly closed to researchers and visitors, and laid the foundations for our current work,” the museum wrote.
Numerous great exhibitions and museum events are linked to his activities; under his directorship, our institution became visible to the world, an institution that is visited by hundreds of thousands of people every year, and whose opinion and professionalism are authoritative in the history of Hungarian Jewry after the change of regime.
The son of Holocaust survivors, Turán was born in Szeged, southeastern Hungary, on May 8, 1945, the day that World War II ended in Europe with the unconditional surrender of Germany. “I consider this symbolic,” he wrote on his web site.
He graduated from the Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1974, and in addition to his role as museum director, he was a playwright, writing under the name Ben Turán.
“I always knew that the whole world is a theater, even when I was the director of the Jewish Museum of Hungary,” he wrote on his web site. “I organized a Chagall exhibition at the Jewish Museum that aroused national interest, a Modigliani and Soutine exhibition, etc. – but I never stopped writing plays.”
One of the exhibitions under Turán’s directorship of the museum was the first exhibition devoted to the prolific architect Lipot Baumhorn, who designed more than a score of synagogues in central Europe.
“As a synagogue builder, Baumhorn ran counter to the ideals of atheist communist society,” he told JHE’s Ruth Ellen Gruber, who wrote an article about the exhibit for the New York Times. “Even the surviving Jewish community in Hungary had little idea of his work and influence.”
Most of Turán’s work involved Jewish themes. In addition to plays he wrote the scenarios for ballets. One of them, a retelling of the Purim story, was performed by the Gyor Ballet Company internationally, including in New York in 2002, and it employed klezmer music.
A review in the New York times described it as an experimental work. “The idea of a non-Jewish dance company creating a piece on a Jewish theme drew some anti-Semitic protests in Hungary. There is also a welcome refusal to remain on a literal plane,” it said. “[…] Mr. Ben Turan’s scenario adds a female angel to tell Esther she must save her people and there is a strong touch when Esther becomes invisible, protected by a heavenly blue light. ”
May his soul be bound up in the bond of life.