An extensive — and it is hoped growing — new online resource on Hungarian synagogues has been recently launched.
Called synagogues.hu it amounts to a sort of virtual museum on Hungarian synagogue architecture — and in fact was organized by a group of scholars working as the Hungarian Virtual Jewish Museum Association. They include architectural historian Rudolf Klein, the author of an encyclopedic book on Hungarian synagogues; the director of the Hungarian Jewish Archives Zsuzanna Toronyi, and Central Europe University Jewish Studies Prof. Michael Miller.
The site provides historical and architectural information, pictures, old postcards, maps and other material on several dozens of synagogues around Hungary (and across its borders into neighboring countries). It also provides links to web sites, if the synagogue in question has a web site.
The site can be searched, and the database can be browsed by date of construction, photo, or name of the town or country (but so far, not all synagogues in Hungary have been loaded into the database).
Visit the Hungarian Synagogues web site
The broader aims of the Association are:
— to build a database of the visual and material heritage of the Hungarian Jewry;
— to maintain an internet site for publishing all information concerning this heritage;
— to help the source-communities care for preserve their buildings, cemeteries, objects and documents;
— to disseminate contents of Hungarian Jewish visual culture not yet published;
— to make essential publications on the topics covered by the association aviable to the wider public;
— to generate a network of scholars, students and others interested in the material and visual heritage of the Hungarian Jews;
— to participate in all the European, Israeli and American associations with similar agendas.