One of our guides along the way said that what he admired about Jews was that they builr what they could afford. If the temple was big, the congregants were rich. He was speaking in contrast about the Orthodox churches in Poland and Ukraine, where the town is almost in ruins, but the church is large, elegant, and has a gold dome. The guide felt that the priorities of a people who feed themselves before they put gold on the roof spoke to him.
Well, the community that built this synagogue, also known as the Dohány St. Synagogue (dohány means tobacco in Hungarian, so in Yiddish it is the Tabak-Shul), had some serious cash. It is one of the largest synagogues in the world, even today. It was designed by a Viennese architect, who imported the Moorish turrets that define the temple's skyline from North Africa. It was built in the late 19th century and Herzl was a congregant here. It was spectacularly restored after Russia bowed our of Hungary, and is stunning, in a slightly overwhelming and church-like fashion.
The thing I liked most about the synagogue--apart from the charming gift shop run by Lucy, a woman who still designs ceramic Judaica today, was some of the decorative detail on the outside of the building. It gets lost, overwhelmed by the sheer size of the building, but it is these details that make the final structure special.
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