Event: Hungary - Budapest

Great Synagogue

When:	Daily; not Sat
Where:	Great Synagogue
Costs:	Ft1200; concessions Ft700
Opening Hours:	Mon-Fri 10am-3pm; Sun 10am-1pm

The Great Synagogue has been restored to its Byzantine onion-domed glory. Theodore Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, was born on the site. A weeping willow monument remembers WW2 casualties from the District VII Jewish Quarter in which it sits.

Budapest's Great Synagogue (also known as the Central Synagogue) is second only to the Temple Emmanuel in New York in size. While too large to heat in winter for services, it is open all year (apart from Saturdays) for visits. Ludwig Förster's Byzantine-Moorish design, with its impressive onion-shaped towers, has been lovingly restored after the sacrilegious damage done by the Nazis.

The synagogue is in the historic Jewish Quarter, where the ghetto used to be towards the end of the Second World War. The National Jewish Museum on the corner is on the site where Theodore Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, was born. Gravestones in the garden indicate the mass grave of the many thousands who starved and froze to death in the ghetto during the winter of 1944. The inverted menorah - a weeping willow - in the courtyard is the Shoah Memorial. Each of the willow leaves commemorates the name of a family murdered by the Nazis.

The extensive and expensive restoration work on the synagogue was finished by 1996 and it now serves the largest Jewish community in Central Europe.