Greetings
Iván Fischer
The Budapest Festival Orchestra is visiting towns and cities where abandoned synagogues stand between the houses. People once prayed amongst their walls, but today the deserted buildings usually serve a di erent function. Some are storehouses, some exhibition halls, a few have been beautifully restored but others are run-down. In the hundreds of Hungarian synagogues in the country there are only occasional services performed here and there, after the extermination of the vast majority of the Jewish population in 1944.
But Christian and Jewish people used to live side-by-side in peace. Their children played together, attended the same schools. Neighbours greeted each other, they would chat together, they knew one another as they were part of one community. Today the memory of the Jewish citizens is preserved only in the cemeteries and the still-standing synagogues.
Let us become acquainted with the memory and everyday goings-on of our one-time neighbours. Let music bring peace, understanding, tolerance and respect into our hearts.
Iván Fischer
Music Director, Budapest Festival Orchestra
Slomó Köves
“Rhythm creates unity…”
It is not only the still vibrant Jewish religious and cultural life in Budapest that recalls the long history of the Hungarian Jews, but also the neglected Jewish architectural heritage in a number of towns across Hungary. We will visit three of the dozens of abandoned synagogues of particular architectural worth. These three synagogues, which serve as a memory of the destroyed communities, were used for other, profane purposes. Their fate is also symbolic of Hungary’s sad history during the 70 years following the Holocaust. Then, almost all of the rural Jewish communities were exterminated, and life has not since returned to the synagogues of the towns and villages in the country. May at least music sound in them, a 30-minute concert, offered as a gift to locals. Let Jews and non-Jews attend, let them bring memories they are willing to share, let them recollect how Jews and Christians used to live together when these silent halls were still filled with life. Talks after the concerts concern not only the Holocaust as a sum of facts, but the losses as well. Because a lack of understanding, ignorance, will lead to new catastrophes.
And if we want to prevent them, we need more than talk. We also need music. As Yehudi Menuhin put it: “Music creates order out of chaos: for rhythm imposes unanimity upon the divergent,… and harmony imposes compatibility upon the incongruous.”
The venues, the synagogues serve visibility, and bring closer what is mysterious, or frighteningly unfamiliar, helping to dispel ignorance, prejudices and misunderstanding.
Slomó Köves
Chief Rabbi of the Unified Hungarian Jewish Congregation (UHJC)