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Remnants of the Rumbach Street Synagogue’s Moorish style can still be seen in the building’s Islamic geometries and color schemes. Probably my favorite moment of our guided tour was when one of the docents, who was Israeli, broke out into a traditional Hebrew prayer song. As the warbling cry echoed around the chamber, it sounded like a funeral dirge mourning the loss of all that had once been possible in Budapest’s Jewish Golden Age — the late 19th century, before the World Wars changed everything.

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