The VII district of Budapest, Erzsébetváros (Elizabeth Town), known internationally as the Jewish Quarter, is one of the most historically layered urban areas in Central Europe. Before the Second World War, Budapest was home to one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe, and this district was its heart. The community was devastated by the Holocaust. Hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews were murdered, most of them deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in the summer of 1944. The neighbourhood that survived retains both the architectural character of the pre-war community and the specific quality of a place shaped by catastrophic loss and subsequent rebuild.
Today the VII district is also the centre of Budapest’s ruin bar scene and one of the city’s most vibrant daytime and evening neighbourhoods. The combination of historical weight and contemporary cultural vitality is one of the distinctive qualities of the neighbourhood.
The Great Synagogue (Dohány Utca Zsinagóga)
The Dohány Street Synagogue is the largest synagogue in Europe and the second-largest in the world, exceeded only by Temple Emanu-El in New York. Built between 1854 and 1859, the synagogue seats 3,000 people. The architect, Ludwig Förster, designed it in a Moorish Revival style that was used for several major European synagogues in the 19th century as a way of emphasising the Eastern Mediterranean origins of Jewish religious tradition while participating in the architectural language of the era. The twin onion domes visible from Károly körút are among the most recognisable landmarks in the city.
The synagogue is the centre of the Budapest Jewish Museum complex (Zsidó Múzeum), which includes the synagogue itself, the Jewish Museum in the adjacent building, the Raoul Wallenberg Memorial Park (a garden memorial to the Swedish diplomat who saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews in 1944), and the Heroes’ Temple (Hősök Temploma) built in the early 20th century.
Entry and visiting: Tickets are available at the entrance or in advance online, and guided tours in English have been offered. Check the official site for current hours, closures for Jewish holidays and prices. The interior of the main synagogue, with its organ gallery (Franz Liszt played the organ here) and the mixed Orthodox-Neolog religious architecture, is genuinely extraordinary. Allow 1.5 to 2 hours for the full museum complex.
The Holocaust Memorial: Shoes on the Danube Bank
One of the most affecting Holocaust memorials in Europe is not in the Jewish Quarter but on the Pest bank of the Danube near the Parliament Building: 60 pairs of iron shoes set in the cobblestones at the river’s edge. The shoes commemorate the Jewish victims who were shot at the Danube’s edge by Arrow Cross militiamen in 1944 and 1945, their bodies falling into the river. The film director Can Togay and the sculptor Gyula Pauer created the memorial, which opened in 2005. Each pair of shoes is cast from a specific period type, men’s dress shoes, women’s heels, children’s shoes.
This memorial should be visited in addition to the synagogue; the two sites together communicate the scope of what happened in this city in a way that neither does alone.
The Neighbourhood Beyond the Synagogue
The VII district around the synagogue has a specific street-level character: delicatessens, kosher restaurants, Jewish cultural institutions, and the patisseries and cafés that represent the surviving commercial life of a neighbourhood that was once one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe.
Kazinczy utca and the surrounding streets are the heart of this daytime character as well as the evening ruin bar scene. The Fröhlich Cukrászda on Dob utca is one of Budapest’s best Jewish bakeries; the flódni (a layered pastry with poppy seeds, walnut, and plum jam) is a specifically Budapest Jewish pastry tradition. Macesz Bistró is a well-known contemporary Jewish-Hungarian restaurant in the neighbourhood, but check that it is still open.
Related: Budapest Hub | Ruin Bars Guide | Thermal Baths | Plan Your Trip