Budafok Synagogue, Budapest

סקירה

הסיפור של Budafok Synagogue, Budapest

Budafok lies on the right bank of the Danube south of Buda and today forms part of Budapest's District XXII, Budafok-Tétény. Nagytétény, in the same district, had its own synagogue, which survives as a library and is separate from the building described here. The only source found that names a synagogue in Budafok is Anikó Gazda's gazetteer of Hungarian synagogues and Jewish communities, published in 1991 on the basis of a site survey carried out between 1980 and 1987. Gazda's survey records 373 Jews in Budafok in 1910 and lists two buildings there. The first is classed as a synagogue and marked as demolished, with no construction date or address. The second is described as a prayer house and is also marked as demolished. Gazda estimated her own data to be 80 to 90 per cent accurate. No photograph, plan, postcard, archival record, address or newspaper report of the Budafok synagogue was found in the sources searched for this entry, including the photograph collection of the Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives, the English Wikipedia list of synagogues in Hungary and the district's own website. Its construction date, builder, appearance, site and the date and manner of its demolition therefore remain unknown.

מיקום

Where it stood

Historic: Budafok; street and house number unknown. Today: Budapest XXII, Budafok; placeholder pin at the centre of Budafok (approximate).

פתיחת מפה גדולה ←

הקהילה היהודית

No source read for this entry gives the history of the Jewish community of Budafok. Gazda's survey of 1980-87 records 373 Jews there in 1910 but gives no figures for 1828, 1851 or 1941. When Jews first settled in the town, whether they formed an independent congregation or belonged to a neighbouring one, and which religious trend they followed are all unknown, and no entry on Budafok was found in the Magyar Zsidó Lexikon of 1929. The surrounding area had other Jewish congregations: the Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives holds photographs catalogued under the synagogues of Tétény, Nagytétény and Budatétény, and the former synagogue of Nagytétény survives as a library. How the Budafok community related to these neighbours is not documented in what was read. That Gazda lists both a synagogue and a separate prayer house in Budafok suggests a congregation able to keep more than one place of worship, but nothing more is recorded about it.

אדריכלות ועיצוב

Nothing is known about the architecture of the Budafok synagogue. No photograph, drawing, postcard or plan of it was found, so its size, plan, materials, facade, style and interior arrangement are unknown, as are the names of its architect and builder and the number of seats. Gazda's survey classes the building as a synagogue rather than a prayer room, which suggests a purpose-built or at least separately used building, but it does not describe it. Klein Rudolf's survey of Hungarian synagogues built between 1782 and 1918 and the Budapest synagogue inventory by Brestyánszky may contain a description, but neither was read for this entry. Any statement about its appearance would at present be guesswork, so none is offered here.

החיים בבית הכנסת

No information was found about religious life in the Budafok synagogue. The names of its rabbis, cantors, presidents and other officers, the existence of a school, burial society or women's association, and the rite followed in the building are all unknown. No entry on Budafok was found in the Magyar Zsidó Lexikon of 1929, the usual source for such details, and no newspaper notice, memoir or community record mentioning services, festivals or notable events in the building was located. Today a small Chabad Jewish centre led by Rabbi Chaim Saul Glitsenstein and his wife Mushky serves Jews in Budafok-Tétény, but it is a new foundation and has no documented connection with the pre-war congregation or its building.

הרס

The date and circumstances of the synagogue's destruction are unknown. Anikó Gazda's survey of 1980 to 1987 recorded the building as demolished, together with the town's second house of prayer, which shows only that both were gone by the late 1980s. No source read for this entry shows the synagogue standing after 1945, records damage during the Second World War, or describes a sale, conversion or demolition order. It is therefore not possible to say whether it was destroyed during the war, demolished in the decades after it, or pulled down at some earlier time. No photograph of the site before or after the demolition was found, and no local memoir or newspaper report describing the loss of the building has come to light. Who demolished it is not recorded in any source found.

גורל הקהילה

The fate of the Jews of Budafok during the Holocaust is not described in any source read for this entry. Gazda's survey gives no Jewish population figure for the town in 1941, and no source consulted records how many Jews lived there in 1944, where they were concentrated, when they were deported or where they were taken. The number of victims and the number of survivors are unknown. Randolph Braham's study of the Holocaust in Hungary, which lists the ghettos and entrainment centres of each county, was not consulted and may answer these questions. Whether a congregation re-formed in Budafok after the war is also unknown. Today a small Chabad Jewish centre led by Rabbi Chaim Saul Glitsenstein serves Jews in Budafok-Tétény, but it is a recent foundation with no documented link to the pre-war community or its synagogue.

האתר כיום

The location of the Budafok synagogue has not been identified, so it is not known what stands on its site today. No surviving fragment and no marker are recorded in the sources searched. The map pin for this entry is a placeholder at the centre of Budafok, as given by OpenStreetMap, and must not be read as the synagogue's position. Finding the plot will require old cadastral maps of Budafok, address directories, the local-history collection of District XXII, or the Hungarian Jewish Archives' records of Jewish property in Budafok.

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