Ruth Ellen Gruber Looks at Contemporary Jewish Cafe Culture in Krakow and Budapest

Ruth Ellen Gruber Looks at Contemporary Jewish Cafe Culture in Krakow and Budapest

by Samuel D. Gruber

In my line of work I hear many of the same remarks over and over. Two common ones are "Jewish culture (or Yiddishkeit) isn't just about synagogues and cemeteries," and "Why care about old monuments where there is no Jewish life." There are many variants on these remarks - and depending on the place, time and my mood (optimistic or frustrated) my replies vary a lot.

My sister and colleague Ruth Ellen Gruber spends much more time in Central and Eastern Europe than I do (she lives part-time in Budapest), so she gets asked these questions more frequently. In several of her articles in recent months she's given some sense of what she sees in non-synagogue/cemetery contemporary Jewish life in two of the liveliest of the region's Jewish cultural centers. These articles are view from the cafes (which for many European Jews are still considered quintessential Jewish institutions) of Krakow and Budapest.

Though the articles are not about the presence, protection or preservation of Jewish monuments per se, it is clear that the presence of the tangible pieces of past Jewish culture - religious and secular - are essential components for defining contemporary Jewish identity and ensuring new developments and creativity in contemporary Jewish life by Jews - and appreciation for Jewish culture by people of other religions and faiths and of non-believers. The physical remains create something recognizable as a Jewish space, and the lives led there are free to develop (or not) some version, new or nostalgic) or Jewish culture.

One cannot predict the cultural results of any effort to save of piece of the past. But one can - with some certainty - predict that some things will not develop - if no effort to remember and preserve the past - including its physical remnants - are made. The preservationists active in the 1990s in Krakow's Kazimierz and Budapest's Seventh District created hte canvas upon which new Jewish activities and interactions now take place.

Ruth's most recently article is from Krakow in Moment Magazine (Jan/Feb 2010):

Scenes from a Krakow Cafe

"It's a sunny morning in early July, and I'm having breakfast at an outdoor cafe table in Kazimierz, the old Jewish quarter of Krakow. I have been sitting at cafes in and around Szeroka Street, the main square of Kazimierz, for nearly 20 years, watching the paradoxical Jewish components of post-communist Poland unfold, and Kazimierz itself evolve from a deserted district of decrepit buildings—some with grooves on their doorposts from missing mezuzahs—into one of Europe's premier Jewish tourist attractions, a fashionable boom town of Jewish-style cafes, trendy pubs, kitschy souvenirs and nostalgic shtetl chic...."

click here to read full story

In December, Ruth had stories in the International Herald Tribune and online New York Times and in Hadassah Magaziune about celebrating Hanukah in Budapest's historic Jewish Seventh District.

A Nod to Budapest’s Future in a Grass-Roots Celebration of Its Past

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Published: December 8, 2009

Night and Day in Jewish Time

by Ruth Ellen Gruber

Hadassah Magazine (December 2009/January 2010 Vol. 91 No. 3)

"With a new wave of cultural hot spots, dance clubs and restaurants catering to them—not to mention the growing numbers of spiritual and religious venues created to assist with questions of faith and identity—for young Jews in Budapest these may be the best days of their lives."

Hungary: Hanukah & Urbanism in the 7th District

Hungary: Hanukah & Urbanism in the 7th District


Ruth Ellen Gruber has an good and instructive piece in the New York Times on the upcoming Hanukah festival in the Seventh (and Sixth) districts of Budapest. First time that this festival has expanded to include more than 30 local businesses, including clubs, pubs and restaurants and well as Jewish institutions.

Read the article here:

A Nod to Budapest’s Future in a Grass-Roots Celebration of Its Past

by Ruth Ellen Gruber

Hungary: Continuing Struggle to Save Budapest's Seventh District

Budapest, Hungary. Kazinczy Street in the 7th District, with Orthodox synagogue. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber, 2000.

Budapest: Continuing Struggle to Save the 7th District
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) Ben Harris of the Jewish Telegraphic agency brings us up to date with a new story on the struggle to preserve some historic and community character in Budapest's Seventh District- the traditional home of much of the city's Jewish population, and the site of much Jewish history and culture. Ever since the fall of Communism 20 years ago, the District has been the target of development - much of it badly planned and short sighted. The destruction of the historic character of the District is estimated as high as 40%. The area is prized by office and condo developers especially because of its immediacy to the center of Budapest.

While many of the well-known synagogues in the areas have been restored, much of the urban fabric - including great apartment blocks - has been altered, or entirely replaced be new construction. Apart from its Jewish past, the area's urban and cultural role in Budapest has been much like that of New York's Upper West Side, and similar to the Upper West Side, change has come quickly after decades of relative architectural and social stability.

You can read the article here:

Coalition fights real estate development in Budapest’s Jewish quarter by Ben Harris • November 24, 2009

Ruth Ellen Gruber has followed the changes in the District over two decades. She comments on her blog about Ben Harris' article, and on some of the changes. You can read a JTA story by Ruth about the topic from 2004 here.

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.