We were told by a Jew in Budapest, that there is no true number of the amount of Jews living in Budapest or Hungary as a whole, because many are still to afraid to admit it/feel free enough to "own" it. Sad.

kenav...probably true, but the museum uses the number 80,000. Suffice it to say that Budapest is by far the largest Jewish community among the Romanian, Polish, Bulgarian, former Yugoslavian, and Czech and Slovakian communities (usually those referred to as Eastern Europe). Robert Turan of the Museum docent staff claims that for the past 20 years more and more Jews "came out"..
hence the number of 80,000 is widely accepted. There are even a small number as elected officals in the Hungarian Parliament. In Romania, there are less than 10,000 remaining, and I last visited there in 2005. In my 1994 book "Withered Roots", I cover all of these "remnant" communities to which I have traveled extensively since 1980.
Stu T.

What a great thread - thanks to all who contributed!

I enjoyed the Museum of Fine Arts. While it had some lovely pieces, it is not, in my opinion, quite on par with the Louvre, the Uffizi, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery in London, the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, the Kuntshistorisches Museum in Vienna or even the Gemaldegalerie in Berlin. Nevertheless, I still think it worth a visit if you like art.

My vote for best museum is House of Terror. The museum itself is great, and its fascinating to be touring it with people who actually lived through some of these regimes.

Info on my Budapest trip: http://patrinadoestheglobe.blogspot.com/

Budapest and her museums are now memories and photographs. I would have to agree that I found the House of Terror to be its most significant museum. Actually Budapest is not much of a museum town and I found more of interest walking the streets or exploring the neighborhoods. I remember walking the streets in the north side of Buda and found crumbling old Art Nouveau mansions now converted to multifamily dwellings. To see the laundry hanging out to dry from wonderfully exotic Nouveau windows reveled what Budapest is all about.

For those fascinated by the topic, Tony Judt has some interesting things to say about the House of Terror in his book <u>PostWar: A History of Europe since 1945</u> (pp. 827-828).