HUNGARY – Series of concerts draw attention to empty Synagogues

Three synagogues in the Hungarian provinces — in Mád, Keszthely and Albertirsa – served as the venue for special free concerts last month by the Budapest Festival Orchestra. The concerts were part of a community concert series project “in order to raise awareness of Jewish heritage and to educate local communities of the diversity that was once prevalent throughout Hungary.” After the Holocaust, which killed about 500.000 of Hungary’s 800.000 Jews, many synagogues in the countryside were left abandoned, falling in disrepair.

The tour was initiated by the orchestra’s music director, world renowned conductor Iván Fischer. Fischer said the concerts in the former synagogues will continue, as “there are still a lot of abandoned synagogues in Hungary and a lot of righteous people fond of music and interested in the history of the Jews.”

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Interior of restored Mád synagogue. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber