Budapest Xperience

The Great Synagogue in Dohány Street, also known as Dohány Street Synagogue or Tabakgasse Synagogue, is located in Erzsébetváros, the 7th district of Budapest. It is the largest synagogue in Eurasia and the second largest in the world, after the Temple Emanu-El. It seats 3,000 people and is a centre of Neolog Judaism.

The synagogue is 75m long and 27m wide, and was built between 1854 and 1859 in the Moorish Revival style, based chiefly on Moorish models from North Africa and Spain (the Alhambra), according to a plan by German Ludwig Förster, with interior design partly by Frigyes Feszl.

Theodore Herzl’s house of birth was next to the Dohány street Synagogue. In the place of his house stands the Jewish Museum, which holds the Jewish Religious and Historical Collection, built in 1930 in accordance with the synagogue’s architectural style and attached in 1931 to the main building.

Dohány Street itself, a leafy street in the city center, carries strong Holocaust connotations as it constituted the border of the Budapest Ghetto.

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