66 Photo of the Interior of the Synagogue in Mád
Mád, 1937
Enlarged black and white photo
Collected by Aladár Fürst, 1938
In the 1930s, the museum staff started to list the Jewish monuments in Hungary and also collected the photographs taken of them. Manó Pollák, architect, collected photographs for his historical monograph on the architecture of synagogues in Hungary, but his work remained unpublished. The picture of the Mád Synagogue was taken by a staff member of the museum, Aladár Fürst in 1937. The Mád Synagogue was built in 1795 and it is one of the oldest examples of synagogues in Hungary. Its structure and interior furnishing is typical of an 18th century synagogue supported by four columns that divide the interior into a nine-sectioned vaulted space. The central field is elevated, which is where the bimah is, a podium from which the Torah is read. According to local tradition, the Jewish community itself carved and transported the stones and built the synagogue from them.