Walking the Jewish Past? The Effects of Tourism on the Interpretations of Budapest Jewish District
Author(s)
Publication Date
Publisher
Abstract
In this thesis I am analysing how transnational tourism observes, narrates and sells the
historical Jewish District of Budapest, Hungary. This urban space is a landscape of a specific
memory, which has been constructed and shaped by different actors throughout the past half
century. I argue that with the post socialist transformations this urban space became structured
by and around Jewish identity and the experience of the Holocaust. I explore it through the
study of walking tours, which constitute certain practices of place making. I show that the
commoditisation of urban space physically reduces the territory of the District to a number of
streets, which simultaneously turns into a sacred Jewish space for selective memories.
Furthermore, at the same time it becomes an international enterprise with a positive meaning
where new foreign heroes have emerged, nostalgia has been created for an idealised past and
a selective amnesia is imposed for memories related to the Soviet past.
historical Jewish District of Budapest, Hungary. This urban space is a landscape of a specific
memory, which has been constructed and shaped by different actors throughout the past half
century. I argue that with the post socialist transformations this urban space became structured
by and around Jewish identity and the experience of the Holocaust. I explore it through the
study of walking tours, which constitute certain practices of place making. I show that the
commoditisation of urban space physically reduces the territory of the District to a number of
streets, which simultaneously turns into a sacred Jewish space for selective memories.
Furthermore, at the same time it becomes an international enterprise with a positive meaning
where new foreign heroes have emerged, nostalgia has been created for an idealised past and
a selective amnesia is imposed for memories related to the Soviet past.
Topics
Tourism Educational Tours Jewish Neighbourhoods Jewish Heritage Memory Main Topic: Culture and Heritage
Genre
Geographic Coverage
Original Language
Link
Bibliographic Information
Walking the Jewish Past? The Effects of Tourism on the Interpretations of Budapest Jewish District. . 2008: https://archive.jpr.org.uk/object-hun62
