The Budapest University of Jewish Studies ( / Jewish Theological Seminary – University of Jewish Studies / ) is a university in Budapest, Hungary. It was opened in 1877, a few decades after the first European rabbinical seminaries had been built in Padua, Metz, Paris and Breslau. Still, it remains the oldest existing institution in the world where rabbis are graduated. History 19th century The growing liberal segment in Hungarian Jewish society, known as Neologs, were interested in secularly-educated clergy and their leaders strove to have a modern seminary. Orthodox Hungarian rabbis were very much against a rabbinical seminary. In order to prevent its establishment in Budapest, they sent a delegation to Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria in Vienna. However, the Emperor was favorable to the rabbinical school and even financed its construction, giving back to the Hungarian Jews the money they had had to pay 30 years before as a war tax after the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. On October 4, 1877, the seminary was opened in József körút. Its first principal was Moses Löb Bloch, who was assisted by David Kaufmann and Wilhelm Bacher. Second World War On March 19, 1944 German troops marched into Budapest (Operation Margarethe). The next day, the rabbinical seminary was confiscated by the Schutzstaffel (SS) and turned into a prison. From there, Adolf Eichmann organized the deportation of thousands of Hungarian Jews and some political detainees into the concentration camps, mainly to Auschwitz. Just in time before the German invasion, the most valuable manuscripts had been brought into an underground safe. Still, an important part of the library was seized by the Nazis. 3000 books were dispatched to Prague, where Eichmann planned the construction of a "Museum of an extinct race" in the former Jewish quarter. Only in the 1980s were the books discovered in the cellar of the Jewish Museum of Prague and brought back to Budapest in 1989. The library remains a source of pride for the university. It is considered one of the most important collection of Jewish theological literature outside Israel. After the war, Communist era Immediately after the defeat of the Nazis, the Rabbinical seminary resumed its activity and was reopened two months before the surrender of Germany. However, the number of students was not sufficient for keeping the gymnasium department. Instead, a pedagogical college was arranged for religion and Hebrew teachers to be graduated. Despite the anti-religious