{"id":264,"date":"2024-08-19T13:22:30","date_gmt":"2024-08-19T12:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jewishbitsandpieces.rennert.org\/?p=264"},"modified":"2024-08-19T20:11:07","modified_gmt":"2024-08-19T19:11:07","slug":"sunday-afternoon-in-szombathely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jewishbitsandpieces.rennert.org\/index.php\/2024\/08\/19\/sunday-afternoon-in-szombathely\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday afternoon in Szombathely"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It is blisteringly hot. Few people on the streets, most coffee houses are closed. On R\u00e1k\u00f3czi Ferenc utca, the main street leading to Batthy\u00e1ny T\u00e9r, a large square where the defunct Neolog<\/em> Synagogue of Szombathely is located, components of wooden huts have been distributed on the sidewalks. This is in preparation to the Hungarian national holiday this coming Tuesday, August 20th.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(R\u00e1k\u00f3czi is a Hungarian national hero who led a rebellion against the Habsburgs at the beginning of the 18th century. When the rebellion failed he fled to Paris where he ran a gambling establishment. He spent his last 18 years in relative comfort in Turkey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Batthy\u00e1ny, on the other hand, is the name of one of the oldest Hungarian families of nobility, typically to be found on the Emperor’s side. Hungarian history is complicated.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Synagogue is used as a concert venue for the adjoining Bart\u00f3k B\u00e9la School of Music and can be visited only by prior appointment. Contact may be made via the Jewish community’s web site https:\/\/www.szombathelyizsidohitkozseg.hu\/ — a domain name apparently aiming at pure obfuscation!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(This is what happens to those magnificent Neolog Synagogues: they are renovated with great effort and turned into music schools, concert venues or museums. Scroll down to what happens to the Orthodox Shuls!)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The next day we returned to Szombathely to visit the Orthodox Shul in Th\u00f6k\u00f6ly Imre utca number 48. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not a museum, it is not a concert hall. Instead it contains a barber shop, a driving school, a kitchen studio, a carpenter and other small shops. Except for the slightly unusual facade there is nothing <\/em>to indicate that this was once a building for worship of the Almighty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I tried the gates to the left and to the right to get a glimpse of the back, and I surrounded most of the block to see if I could reach the back yard. No luck. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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View from the back <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But when I turned to walk back to the car, I suddenly saw this in the distance:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is blisteringly hot. Few people on the streets, most coffee houses are closed. On R\u00e1k\u00f3czi Ferenc utca, the main street leading to Batthy\u00e1ny T\u00e9r, a large square where the defunct Neolog Synagogue of Szombathely is located, components of wooden huts have been distributed on the sidewalks. This is in preparation to the Hungarian national holiday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,4,9],"class_list":["post-264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-10","tag-former-synagogue","tag-hungary","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewishbitsandpieces.rennert.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewishbitsandpieces.rennert.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewishbitsandpieces.rennert.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewishbitsandpieces.rennert.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewishbitsandpieces.rennert.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jewishbitsandpieces.rennert.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":291,"href":"https:\/\/jewishbitsandpieces.rennert.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions\/291"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewishbitsandpieces.rennert.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewishbitsandpieces.rennert.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewishbitsandpieces.rennert.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewishbitsandpieces.rennert.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}