The Jewish Quarter: the back story

About The Jewish Quarter: the back story

By the ULTIMATE Budapest Editorial Team

Erzsébetváros, District VII, grew in the 19th century as the heart of Jewish Budapest, with three great synagogues, kosher shops and busy courtyards. It suffered terribly in the Second World War, and today it is both a place of memory and the city’s most vibrant quarter.

A quarter in Pest

In the 19th century, Jewish families settled just outside Pest’s old city wall, and the district grew into a thriving quarter of shops, workshops, schools and synagogues.

Three synagogues

The Dohány Street Synagogue, completed in 1859, is the largest in Europe. The Rumbach Street Synagogue, designed by Otto Wagner in Moorish style, was restored in 2021, and the Orthodox Kazinczy Street Synagogue of 1913 is an Art Nouveau gem.

Three great synagogues stand within a few minutes’ walk of each other.

The war years

In 1944 the district was enclosed as the Budapest ghetto, and many thousands died. The memorial garden of the Dohány Synagogue, with its silver weeping willow, remembers the victims.

Today

The quarter is now Budapest’s liveliest: ruin bars in old courtyards, Gozsdu udvar, street art, design shops and some of the city’s best restaurants, alongside kosher bakeries and the synagogues.

Our advice: visit the Dohány Street Synagogue in the morning, walk to the Rumbach and Kazinczy synagogues, have lunch on Kazinczy utca, and come back in the evening for the ruin bars. Dress modestly in the synagogues.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with The Jewish Quarter: the back story before you go.