5/15/26 From The Danube to The Frankel Synagogue

 5/15/26-- From The Danube to The Frankel Synagogue

A great day spent exploring Budapest was bookended by two extraordinary Jewish moments. This morning we visited the solemn “Shoes on the Danube” Memorial and this evening we celebrated Shabbat at The Frankel Synagogue. 

During the winter of 1944-1945, the Hungarian Arrow Cross Regime enthusiastically undertook and effort to rid Hungary of her Jews. With unrelenting barbarism and cruelty they built ghettos, coordinated death marches, figured out how to deport 12,000 Jews daily by cattle car, and also bloodied the waters of the Danube River by dragging Jews there, forcing them to remove their shoes, tying them together, and then firing only enough bullets to force the still living along with the just murdered victims into the Danube where those that were still alive would freeze or drown, whichever came first. The number of Jews murdered in this fashion during the horrible winter of 19441945 is somewhere between 5,000-20,000. A stark and powerful memorial, bronzed shoes, humbly marks one of the many embankments where this atrocity occurred. Not lost on those who visit is the fact that these murders took place in plain sight. The Danube is lined with government buildings, cafes, apartments, and even the Presidential Palace of Budapest. While there are many stories of righteous gentiles and miraculous survival, it is a solemn and tragic site. 

After a day of wandering, chocolate making, shopping, and Hungary’s finest Mexican food for lunch, we crossed the Danube into Buda (as opposed to Pest), so that we could visit The Frankel Synagogue for Shabbat. We were greeted by members of their youth group who quickly engaged our kids in a series of fun icebreaking activities. Prior to services we hung out in their BBYO themed youth lounge. There we lit Shabbat candles, ate challah, and hung out. While Shabbat services were a bit hard to follow due to the blend of Hungarian and Hebrew, the many side conversations taking place in the congregation, and the general novelty of the experience, I am confident the overall impression was deeply moving and unforgettable. Here we were, in Budapest, at a Shabbat service, listening to a sermon in Hungarian, watching young children play on the bimah before receiving a Shabbat blessing and a sweet treat, sharing names for the Mishbeirach healing prayer, singing Oseh Shalom and so much more. As was the case last year, we were treated to a true cantorial performance from the synagogue’s cantor. Take a moment to imagine the most iconically Jewish singing voice imaginable. That’s the cantor of The Frenkel Synagogue. His voice transports you into the Jewish past, back to a time when pious Jews truly felt that it was the cantor’s job to lift all of our communal prayers up to the throne of God on High. The combination of the cantor’s voice, the murmuring of the congregation, the creaking of the ancient wooden pews, when all taken together, it felt so deeply and sincerely Jewish. And while there was much about The Frenkel Synagogue that felt unfamiliar to our kids, there was so much more that felt familiar--  Shabbat candles, Challah, blessing children, Hebrew words, BBYO posters, Kippot, the Shema, prayer books. Here we are, halfway around the world, in a place where most of us have never been. And yet somehow we are at home. Our kids may not be able to articulate that, but they felt it for sure.

5/14/26-- Budapest, Layer by Layer

 5/14/26 Budapest, Layer by Layer

It’s easy to fall in love with Budapest. The people are interesting and, for the most part, friendly. Many of them have dogs and, as sometimes happens, look perfectly matched with their canine companions. Residents and tourists alike race around the streets of Budapest in every which way, filling the cafes, crowding the intersections, and participating in the energetic spirit of the city. Neighbors oscillate between wide and impressive boulevards and small and inviting alleyways. There are bookstores, record stores, vintage clothing boutiques, and an endless amount of cafes proudly serving both traditional Hungarian food and every type of cuisine imaginable. There are people of all ages out and about, including many young adults and teens. Even though Prague can boast the likes of Franz Kafka, it’s easy to see why Budapest has the most celebrated literary tradition, including a 2025 Nobel Prize winning author. There’s something literary and intellectual in the vibe here. Unsurprisingly, Budapest is the favored city among our 8th graders. 

Budapest’s charming and lively vibe helps make sense of one of the great questions that Jewish visitor to this city must ask: Why did the Jews stay? Why, when Hungary was an ally of Germany during the 2nd World War, did the Jews stay? Why did they stay when antisemitic laws were passed beginning in the 1930s? Why did they stay when the first deportation of Jews from Hungary didn’t begin until the very late date of May 1944 and the horrors of Auschwitz were not entirely unknown? As Agi, our local Jewish tour guide explained: It’s home. The Jews of Budapest love their city. The same reasons that kept them here and led to more than 430,000 being deported and killed beginning in May 1944 are the reasons why Budapest is one of the most vibrant and thriving Jewish communities of Europe today, with more than 120,000 Jews. The Hungarian Jewish community was, and is, a proud and accomplished Jewish community that feels deeply connected to their home country and city. 

There’s no greater physical symbol of the pride and love that Hungarian Jews feel for Budapest than the Dohany Synagogue. This impressive synagogue is the 6th largest in the world. Massive construction continued on the synagogue as late as 1930, when the rising tide of fascism was already beginning to sweep over Europe. Sitting in the wooden pews of the Dohany Synagogue, we heard all about the Jewish community, including what I’ve shared here. Sadly, on the very same grounds as the synagogue, there are mass graves for Jews that perished in the Budapest Ghetto during WWII. It is against Jewish law to have a cemetery on the same grounds as a synagogue, but it is an even greater violation of Jewish law to exhume bodies for reburial unless absolutely necessary. For that reason, the mass graves remain in the courtyard that was originally intended to have a beautiful reflecting pool. 

Today’s lunch and dinner were, once again, Pizur style. Pizur is quickly becoming a favorite Hebrew word among our 8th graders so be prepared for them to request Pizur style meals back home. As a reminder, Pizur means spreading out and having free choice. After Pizur 1 (lunch) and before Pizur 2 (dinner), we did some fabulous shopping and also rode a beautiful Ferris Wheel. In between our shopping and Ferris Wheel we did something very special: we visited the Budapest Jewish Community Center (JCC). 

Located in a decent sized property on one of Budapest’s main boulevards, the JCC keeps a relatively low profile while offering an incredible array of programming. We didn’t visit the JCC last year, so it was a new experience for all of us. During our hour there we met with a group of elderly adults. This wasn’t just any group, it was their informal singing group. They sang for us and, even more notably, with us. The song selection ranged from Hativkah to George Gershwin to a Hungarian version of Leonard Cohen’s Halleluyah. We sang in Hebrew and in Yiddish and eventually went from singing to dancing. To sing and dance with these elderly Jews was an unforgettable joy. Where else in the world can two groups of people meet across such differences: age, language, nationality… and unite in an even stronger bond of faith, tradition, culture, and heritage? It was, as we say at Davis, a Kol Yisrael moment. Meeting some of Budapest’s elderly Jewish community in such a joyful and authentic fashion was the perfect balm to a morning spent bearing witness to the devastating impact of the Holocaust on this city and country. 

One additional special moment from today needs to be mentioned. Ron, one of our wonderful Israel tour guides, is the only child of two Hungarian Holocaust survivors. While at Terezin he shared the story of his father, the only one to survive when his family was quickly and unexpectedly deported from a small Hungarian town to Auschwitz. Today he told his “mama’s” story and his grandma’s story. His mama’s biological father, a Jew, was essentially sent to his death when the Hungarian army sent him and others like him to clear mine fields on behalf of the army, without any protective gear. Meanwhile, her much beloved step father was killed right in front of her eyes when a stray bullet entered their Budapest apartment in 1956 during a prolonged street battle that was part of the Communist occupation of Budapest at that time. After losing her step father, Ron’s mama made Aliyah to Israel, leaving behind her own mother and all she had ever known here in Budapest. We were deeply moved to hear Ron’s family story. Hearing his story was a reminder that, as Jews, our lives are often deeply intertwined with the more general cadences of human history, for better or worse. 

So far, Budapest has grown only more beloved with each layer that we uncover. Tomorrow we will uncover additional layers of Budapest, some charming and some heartbreaking. It will be meaningful to join with our 8th graders in making sense of this city that is, in so many ways, a microcosm of the world itself: so wonderful and so heartbreaking. But on days like today, I think we can cling in good conscience to the wonderfulness of it all and allow ourselves to say that it was a great day.

5/13/26- Budapest Calls

 5/13/26 - Budapest Calls 

We’re all settling in to our final accommodations of the trip-- the D8 Hotel in Budapest. It’s heartwarming that our guides are shocked at how awesome our hotel is both in terms of comfort and convenience. It’s right in the heart of town (Pest, that is), but it’s also nice and quiet. A win! 

Last year we discovered that Budapest offers a level of excitement that sustains us through the final days of our itinerary. Prague is charming, mysterious, and “Central European” from end to end. Bratislava is sleepy, quaint, still a bit mysterious, and really feels off the beaten path. Budapest feels like Paris, like New York City, like Tokyo. It feels like an international destination that’s simultaneously extremely cosmopolitan but also steeped in its own culture. Our kids seem to know what to do with a city like Budapest and they’re eager to get to do it. 

Before leaving Bratislava we visited the last operational synagogue in the city. We met with Rabbi Misha Kapustin, a dynamic and memorable figure. He helped us understand Bratislava’s rich Jewish history (among other things, it is home to one of the first great “Ultra Orthodox” rabbis who gave birth to what we now call Haredi and/or Hasidic Judaism), as well as Bratislava’s more humble Jewish present (10,000-15,000 Jews in the entire country). Rabbi Kapustin is not from Bratislava originally, but rather fled from Ukraine as a political refugee with his wife and two young children in 2014. 

A traffic jam that was eerily similar to last year at the same exact stretch of highway slowed our arrival to Budapest, so we headed straight to lunch at a delicious restaurant in the Jewish Quarter called Mazal Tov. As they have at all meals, the kids dug in. We’ve had zero complaints and much enthusiasm for the local cuisines, even though they’re different from what we know from Atlanta. Knowing that food is an expression of culture, it’s great to see them trying local dishes and reporting back with enthusiasm. Simple roast chicken, chicken thighs in mustard sauce, schnitzel, goat cheese with dried fruits, spetzel with goulash… the list goes on. After lunch we met our local guides, visited Heroes Square and learned more about Hungarian history than we thought imaginable, checked into the hotel to freshen up, and headed back to the Jewish Quarter for dinner. At dinner we had the top floor of a lovely restaurant to ourselves. The kids enjoyed cashing in drink vouchers for fun lemonade and assorted soft drinks, as well as having a private space to relax and enjoy more local cuisine. You’ll be hearing more about Jewish Hungary and the Jewish Quarter tomorrow. We spent so much time there today because it’s the hippest part of time and we are nothing if not hip. 

The coming days will be busy as we cover alot of ground and a wide array of topics, some happy some difficult, some Jewish some not. We’ll have some shopping time, some hanging out time, some time meeting members of the Jewish community of Budapest and much more. We’ll do our best to take each experience on its individual merits and make the most of every moment.