On Friday we had a private tour of the history of Budapest (Jewish and not Jewish).
We learned so much!!! The tour guide was great and she had a really interesting family story. Both of her parents are holocaust survivors. The guide’s name is Agi, which is apparently a very common Jewish Hungarian/Budapestian name.
We saw Heroes Square, drove by the shoes on the Danube memorial, saw the Vajdahunyad complex, saw multiple holocaust memorials, saw the outside of the parliament building (which is GIANT and gorgeous), and walked around the Jewish quarter.
Before World War II, there were about 800,000 Jews in Hungary. 600,000 died or were murdered during the war. Now, there are about 100,000 Jews in Budapest, and approximately 10% of them are affiliated.
The ghettos in Budapest were the only ghettos to be liberated and not liquidated.
There is a unique branch of Judaism called Neolog in Hungary and areas that once were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In Neolog, there is an organ playing on Shabbat, the dvar Torah is said in Hungarian and not Yiddish, people wear more Hungarian and less distinctively Jewish clothes, there is separate seating but not usually a mechitza (wall or curtain), often there is a mixed gender choir, and they moved the bima to the front instead of being in the middle.
Hungary, specifically Budapest, has a very rich Jewish history, and we had an excellent guide explain part of it to us.
-Naomi
Heroes Square
The parliment building 
One of over 30 shuls in the Jewish quarter 
The Dohany Synagogue
The Weeping Willow (a memorial for Jews who died in the holocaust in Hungary)