leaving budapest...

going to prague in the morning.

spent mid-day sunday at the jewish synagogue - biggest one in the world, 2nd biggest in terms of seating (first being Temple Emmanuel in New York). The tour guide told us about what happened to the synagogue during the second world war. though it wasn't bombed, buildings not too far away were, which caused the stained glass to break, and for rain and snow to come into the synagogue. nazi officials used the benches for fire, but surprisingly left a lot of the torah scrolls in tact. they put cots for soldiers in the sanctuary...and at other points stuffed hordes of jews in there before taking them to auschwitz and other concentration camps in neighboring countries. there is a cemetary on the synagogue grounds, which runs directly counter to jewish tradition, but it is the burial grounds for some 5,000 jewish people who perished in the ghetto (modern day Jewish quarter). The last winter of wwii was the coldest of the war, and when the soviets liberated budapest, jewish survivors and some soviet soldiers buried the bodies there: 1) because there was a raging typhus epidemic, and the sooner the bodies were buried the quicker they could mitigate it, and 2) because roads were destroyed, they were extremely low on fuel, and so it would have been impossible in terms of resources and infrastructure to transport the bodies elsewhere. behind the synagogue there are a few memorials. one is a metallic tree of life, and embedded in the sculpture is another meaning - if you flip it upside down, it is a menorah, and the branches stemming out of the tree, can be perceived as light. at the end of the metallic strands are tags bearing the names of thousands of jews who died in the holocaust - one strand = one jewish name. another memorial commemorates those non-jews who helped save jewish lives. four pillars are marked with their names, and they look inward on to a stone in the ground engraved with Raoul Wallenberg's name, a non-Jew who saved tens of thousands of Jewish lives during the war. next to this memorial is a stained glass piece that depicts flames, commemorating those who were cremated during the war - something else that runs directly counter to jewish tradition, as jews are traditionally buried, not cremated. within the flames, a serpent winds its way to the top right. it represents fascism.

the synagogue interestingly enough, was built in the 1850's, and even then was not an orthodox synagogue, as there are multiple sets of organs in the synagogue, and these were used on yom kippur, and shabbat (musical instruments are not played in orthodox synagogues during these days). franz liszt and others played concerts in the synagogues, and apparently they had christian people playing the organs during the high holidays and shabbat.

something else i found interesting, the whole church-state thing. first of all, the government pays for the electricity, the salaries of the rabbi and cantors, and others who work in the synagogue. this is apparently so that no one has to buy tickets to attend services (as is typically the case in many synagogues). *but* there is no national census taken of religious groups, because here, it is apparently rude, and very politically incorrect (especially given the history) to ask someone their religion, but perfectly alright to ask them how much they make an hour.

then i went to the jewish museum, also on the synagogue compound. really incredibly heart-wrenching exhibit on the uprising of the warsaw ghetto, supplemented by photographs taken by someone who had press access and was able to take 4 rolls of film before the SS made him stop.

after all of that, i darted off to the ludwig museum (the contemporary art museum), 3 bridges south. 2 temporary exhibitions there were so so, but there was a really cool one about a bosnian conceptual artist from the 60's/70's who was interested in authorship and the idea of shifting conceptions of celebrity/passerby in the public space.

....

don't remember what i did after that...think i went somewhere for drinks and food on an outside square...was still reading Free Culture (which i'm done with now, and it's awesome)...

spent the rest of the week ambling about, reading, doing research on digital libraries, and law firms....dorian (my roommate) and i cooked dinner and drank a bottle of cheap white tokaji every night this week (;))) , since the food here sucks to put it mildly...;)

leaving for prague in like 8 hours.
puszi (kiss in hungarian - haha!)
amie