Publication and Video: Laszlo Regos Photographed Dohany Synagogue in Budapest

Budapest, Hungary. Dohany Street Synagogue, ceiling detail. Photo: Courtesy of Laszlo Regos.

Publication and Video: Laszlo Regos Photographed Dohany Synagogue in Budapest
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) Anniversaries are the occasion for celebration, commemoration and publications. The 150th anniversary of the Dohany Street Synagogue in Budapest is no exception, and following last months celebrations, there is a new publication of ravishing photographs of the building by Hungarian-born American photographer Laszlo Regos.

The book, published by the Hungarian publisher Alexandra, was just presented in Hungary and I have not yet seen a copy, but Laszlo has posted a beautiful video presentation of many of the images, accompanied by a sound track of Kol Nidre sung by the late Sandor Kovacs, the chief cantor of the Dohany Street Synagogue. Regos is an accomplished commercial and architectural photographer based in Detroit, Michigan. His previous book The Opera House (Pecs: Alexandra, 2006) documented the Budapest Opera House, designed by Miklos Ybl, and opened in 1884. Regos also contributed many superb photographs of American synagogues to Synagogue Architecture in America by Henry Stolzman (Images Publishing, 2006)

Laslzo has been working on the Dohany book for as long as I have known him. He told me about his commitment to photographing the building, "I gave my soul. It took me eight years to do it." Because of his emotional attachment to the building he did not approach it "just as an architectural photographer," though his skill is evident in the photographs.

For more about Regos and his work you can see my review of his 2004 New York exhibition.

This is the second recent book about the Dohany Synagogue. Rudolph Klein published a book last year. For those interested in a deeper history of the Jewish and Budapest context in which the synagogue project was conceived and realized, and the vicissitudes of the building over its 150 years, I also recommend the essential work Jewish Budapest: Monuments, Rites, History, edited by Geza Komorockzy (Budapest: Central European University, 1999)

Europe: Anniversaries of Budapest and Sofia Synagogues Celebrated

Budapest, Hungary. The Dohany Street Synagogue restored. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber, 2005.

Budapest, Hungary. Before and after pictures of the Dohany facade.
Photos: Samuel D. Gruber 1989 and 2005.

Europe: Anniversaries of Budapest and Sofia Synagogues Celebrated

Ruth Ellen Gruber has written for the JTA about the Dohany Street Synagogue in Budapest and the Great Synagogue in Sofia on the occasion of gala celebrations of their respective anniversaries. The Dohany Street Synagogue celebrates its 150th birthday, and the Great synagogue in Sofia is 100 years old. Rudolph Klein, who recently published a new book about the Dohany has supplied photos of the ceremony. Click here for Ruth's blog and Klein's and pictures.

Here are some additional pictures from from my archive taken in July 1991 when the restoration was just getting underway.



At that time it wasn't clear how much work had to be done and who would pay for it. Eventually the Hungarian government picked up most of the tab - probably close to $10 million dollars. When others claim credit, don't believe it. Give credit where credit is due! At the time I think this was the largest government commitment to a Jewish heritage restoration project ever...even more than the Dutch donation to the restoration of the Esnoga (to which many foundations and individuals also contributed). The Sofia synagogue had a harder time getting money. But eventually it too, has been successful. Both capital cities now boast splendid religious, cultural and ceremonial centers.

Sofia, Bulgaria. Great Synagogue. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber, 2006.

In Budapest, attention now turns to the Rumbach Street Synagogue. Restoration of the important Otto Wagner designed Moorish-style synagogue was interrupted in the early 1990s. Now the Hungarian Jewish Community has prepared an ambitious plan for the building, including the creation of new and expanded Jewish Museum and educational center. I'll write more on this later this fall.

New Book by Rudolf Klein on Dohany Synagogue in Budapest

New Book by Rudolf Klein on Dohany Synagogue in Budapest
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) I have received a copy of recently published The Great Synagogue of Budapest by architectural historian Rudolf Klein (Budapest: TERC, ISBN 978 963 9535 82 4). To my knowledge, this is the first monograph about the Dohany Street Synagogue, Europe's largest active synagogue building. Klein presents the Dohany, designed by Ludwig von Forster, as an exciting building in its style and technology, not just as an architectural dinosaur famous for its size and nothing else. His excellent photos support his claims.

Much of the book is a social or cultural history of the sophisticated but competitive Jewish world of 19th century Austria-Hungary. The commissioning, planning and presenting of the Dohany Street Synagogue was a grand cultural gesture (much more than a religious one) by Budapest's Jews in their uneasy relationship with Vienna. In this climate, and in the 19th-century world of arhcitecture andd the decorative arts, Klein explores the role and meaning of the Dohany's applied decoration of exotic orientalism. He sees the Dohany as the forerunner to the innovative and offbeat Hungarian architecture of the earler 20th century practitioners of Sezession and Jugundstil design, culminating in the work of Bela Lajta. Anyone interested in 19th century and Hungarian synagogues will want to read this book.

Knowing Rudi Klein, and having enjoyed lively discussions with him about the restoration of historic synagogues, I wish he had also included a final chapter or two on the meaning of the Dohany Synagogue in Budapest today for Jews - and non-Jews - and also something about the process - political, economic, practical and aesthetic about the restoration of the great building. The Dohany today is one of Europe's "flagship" synagogues because of it size, elegance, continued use, and because of the attention lavished on its refurbishment. That is a story the remains to be told.