So after some nervousness about arriving in Budapest we got there. We were only spending one day there so we had to cram everything in very quickly. We toured an old church that was this sprawling structure with turrets and courtyards and we spent some time walking around the downtown. The evening we spent there we got to meet some Hungarian young adults (twenty somethings) who shared their experience of being Jewish in Budapest. It’s not so good, you cannot say you’re Jewish or wear a Star of David for fear of inciting violence against you. That’s scary, coming from Israel and from the U.S where there is no fear about saying you’re Jewish, it’s really weird to think that it’s something you have to hide, and not be able to publicly declare. I know that they’re not ashamed of their Judaism, it’s still weird for me to try and comprehend.
The next day in Budapest, which we spent before heading to Prague we did the Jewish thing. We saw the Holocaust memorials, and saw the synagogue, that is not used so regularly, although on the High Holy Days it is filled with thousands of people. We also visited a Jewish School in Budapest.
The Synagoguge
The school, which teaches Hebrew and Jewish history, has a majority of students who are in fact not Jewish. The interactions between the two groups was a little bit difficult so it was hard to understand the reasons behind the non-Jews attending the school. After the school we went to see an incredible Holocaust Memorial. Along this one spot on the river Danube there are these cast iron shoes that remember all of the people who were killed and their bodies thrown into the river. There are hundreds of shoes, of all shapes and sizes, and rocks and flowers sticking out of them.
The Memorial
From Budapest we drove to Prague, with an hour stop for dinner in Bratislava, Slovakia. We finally arrived in Prague at about 2 in the morning, and after a confusion over which hotel we were supposed to going to, and a twenty five minute wait outside the right hotel, we finally got in, and went to sleep.
The next day in Prague was devoted to seeing the Jewish sites. Prague has a complex of Jewish Historical Museums, it includes one actual museum, several synagogues, a historic cemetery, and one Holocaust Memorial. The Museum wasn't all that interesting, at this point in the year the Jewish museums blend together a bit, so this one wasn't all that special. The Holocaust memorial was quite incredible, it was in an old synagogue and it was walls and walls of name, after name after name, of all the Jews from Prague and that died in Prague.
Holocaust Memorial
The cemetery was also incredible, it has been around since the 1400's and there's so many people buried there that at some point they ran out of space, so they started putting bodies, one on top of another. At the most concentrated point there are twelve layers of graves, and it's estimated that there are 100,000 people buried there.
The Cemetery; A small portion of the many gravestones
The rest of the synagogues were old looking, although they all had incredible thought put into their design and decoration.
We spent Shabbat in Prague, we went to services on Friday night at the Spanish Synagogue and the services were led by a Czech man, and the community there were mostly tourists. The next morning we went to another synagogue, called the Jerusalem synagogue, but the women sat in the back behind a big sheet and couldn't really hear or see, so we didn't stay there for to long.
While in Prague we went on Several walking tours. One on Friday night, and we say the city lit up at night, which was quite beautiful, especially along the river. The Charles Bridge (i think that's the name of it) is this huge pedestrian bridge that was really lit up and beautiful. The other walking tour was during the day, and that more historic sites, although we returned to the same bridge and saw a really peculiar site. It was Jesus on the cross with Hebrew words written in an arc above him (קדש קדש, קדש, and the continuation of the prayer). The legend goes that Jewish man defaced a previous image of Jesus and was ordered to pay for a new one, the entire Jewish community stood behind him, and so they left their mark on the statue.
The Statue
Walking Tour Views
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