Jewish Budapest Menuments, Rites, History
- Binding: Paperback
- Publisher: Central European Univ Pr
- Publish date: 05/01/1999
Richly illustrated with wonderfully evocative literary line drawings and photos, there is a lavish, multicoloured section of artwork that enhances the text. Here is a book at once personal and universal. It is about everyday Jewish life, the humor, the pathos, the human condition, which is the same or very similar anywhere in the Diaspora. Every image and incident, every happening is filtered through the strong sensibilities of the key citizens of the city throughout the past few centuries.
The city is itself the central character of this book. The authors write only about those parts where there is a story to tell: glimpses of Hungarian Jewish history. They talk about places where history is still visible, where it can be located, where its traces still exists, where it can be tasted, savored, and surround us as part of life in Budapesttoday.
Jewish Budapest amasses huge amounts of lore about the city, its monuments and relics, its language and scholarship, its cultural heart, and its intellectual core. Jewish Budapest proceeds according to the chronological sequence of the birth of the Jewish quarters in the city, focusing on patterns of settlement and occupation, and demography, and unfolds finally into a vision of the future of Jewish life in this remarkably vibrant, venerable city.
The book includes a section of detailed comments on the illustrations with an explanation of the abbreviations throughout. Also included is a bibliography, an index of personal names, an index of cities and towns, and an index of Budapest street addresses.