Explore Budapest’s Jewish heritage on guided city walks and cemetery tours in 2026—Újlipótváros, Óbuda, Salgótarjáni Street, and Szentendre—blending architecture, history, memory, and community. Discounts and kosher treats included.
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Stetl Jewish City Walks are back in 2026 with guided, on-foot journeys through living neighborhoods, silent cemeteries, and riverside quarters that carry the layered story of Hungary’s Jewish communities. These walks don’t just point out facades and street names; they weave in lives, memories, and everyday textures—past and present—across Budapest and beyond.
2026.02.22. (Sunday) – Újlipótváros, known to insiders as Lipócia, is Pest’s incomparable Danube-side district, still a defining space for Budapest’s Jewish life. With eyes open, its secrets come into view. This walk through Jewish memory in Lipócia summons the figures who shaped the 19th and 20th centuries—intellectuals, bourgeois citizens, entrepreneurs, and politicians—while confronting modern Hungary’s devastating turns as well as its dignified, uplifting moments. It charts Budapest’s rapid post-1873 growth, the making of Újlipótváros, and more than 150 years of daily life here—especially Jewish daily life. The route ends in the present, literally, inside ZSILIP, the community hub. Participants get 20% off at Brooklyn Bagel. Guide: historian Csaba Katona of the National Archives of Hungary. Meeting point: at Rabbi József Schweitzer’s memorial plaque (1136 Budapest, Hegedűs Gyula Street 3). City: Budapest.
2026.03.01. 10:00 – Architectural Walk in the Closed Jewish Cemetery: Tracing Crypts and Tombs. Explore Béla Lajta’s near-sculptural memorials, spot the turul bird guarding statesman Vilmos Vázsonyi’s resting place, and learn Israelite burial customs and rules inside the Salgótarjáni Street Jewish Cemetery—long closed to active burials. Who was laid to rest here, and since when has the cemetery been out of use? Your guides have the answers. Beyond the usual theology-architecture-history blend, literature steps in: scriptural texts meet belles-lettres. Guides: Dr. László Negyela with architectural journalist Dávid Zubreczki. Venue: Salgótarjáni Street Jewish Cemetery (1086 Budapest, Salgótarjáni Street 6). City: Budapest.
2026.03.01. 11:30 – Architectural Walk in the Closed Jewish Cemetery: Tracing Crypts and Tombs. A second session with the same rich focus on funerary law and design. Guides: Dr. László Negyela with Dávid Zubreczki. Photography and audio recording may be made and used on the organizer’s website and social media. Venue: Salgótarjáni Street Jewish Cemetery (1086 Budapest, Salgótarjáni Street 6). Price: 5,500 HUF; with Haver Card: 4,950 HUF. City: Budapest.
2026.03.29. – In Óbuda stands the capital’s oldest still-functioning synagogue, once on Jewish Street, today’s Lajos Street, a breath from the Danube. Artifacts and reliable records map the once-thriving quarter, but to grasp the microcosm that the Buda district has carried since the 14th century, lace up and follow a great guide through a cultural and culinary ramble. Guide: historian Csaba Katona, National Archives of Hungary. The Óbuda Synagogue welcomes participants with true kosher flódni. Meeting point: in front of Pastrami (corner of Nagyszombat Street and Lajos Street), 1036 Budapest, Lajos Street 93–99. Price: 5,000 HUF; with Haver Card: 4,500 HUF. City: Budapest.
2026.04.19. – Back to Újlipótváros, the Danube-hugging quarter where Jewish Budapest still hums. This walk revisits its Jewish imprints and the people who shaped modern Hungary across the 19th and 20th centuries—intellectuals, citizens, entrepreneurs, politicians—balancing national tragedies with moments of uplift. It traces post-1873 Budapest’s pace, Újlipótváros’s formation, and everyday life over the last century and a half. The tour once again finishes at ZSILIP, with a 20% discount at Brooklyn Bagel for walkers. Guide: historian Csaba Katona. Meeting point: Rabbi József Schweitzer’s memorial plaque (1136 Budapest, Hegedűs Gyula Street 3). Price: 5,000 HUF; with Haver Card: 4,500 HUF. City: Budapest.
2026.04.26. – Return to Salgótarjáni Street Cemetery to uncover Béla Lajta’s sculptural memorials, the turul at Vilmos Vázsonyi’s grave, and the rituals and laws of Israelite burials. Who came here, and when did use cease? Guide: Dr. László Negyela. Photography and audio recording may be made for web and social channels. Venue: Salgótarjáni Street Jewish Cemetery (1086 Budapest, Salgótarjáni Street 6). Price: 3,500 HUF. City: Budapest.
2026.05.10. – Szentendre is the City of Painters—and with a few exceptions, the city of Jewish painters, too. But that’s only the surface. This is also where poet Miklós Radnóti performed forced labor, and where Jewish families once lived and traded on the main square. The walk moves from past to present with guide János Vajda, stopping at:
– Kossuth Street–Deim Square: homes of Jewish families and their stories
– Courtyard of the Ferenczy Museum: plaque to Radnóti’s forced labor
– Petőfi Street: former Jewish school and prayer house
– Dumtsa Street: Lajos Vajda memorial plaque—Jewish visual artists in Szentendre’s art life
– Main Square: Jewish shops, family histories, Stolpersteine
– Szántó Memorial and Prayer House: local Jewish history exhibition, Holocaust memorial plaque
– Zsidóház Szentendre: 10–15 minute talk by Rabbi Mendy Myers
At Cháj Café, walkers are welcomed with refreshing lemonade (approx. 8.45 oz). Meeting point: Szentendre HÉV terminus, 2000 Szentendre. Guide: János Vajda. Price: 4,000 HUF; with Haver Card: 3,600 HUF.
2026.05.31. – Tracing Crypts and Tombs in Salgótarjáni Street’s closed cemetery once more, with Béla Lajta’s extraordinary monuments as centerpieces. Learn Israelite funerary customs, pause by Vázsonyi’s turul-topped tomb, and hear from Dr. László Negyela alongside Zorán Vukoszávlyev, architect and associate professor at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, whose research focuses on sacred architecture. Price: 5,500 HUF; with Haver Card: 5,060 HUF. Venue: Salgótarjáni Street Jewish Cemetery (1086 Budapest, Salgótarjáni Street 6). City: Budapest.
Organizers reserve the right to change dates and programs. Some events may be photographed or recorded for use on websites and social media.
