Evangelist Billy Graham, reporting on his first crusade in an East European country, told a press conference here last Thursday that he was informed in Budapest by Hungarian Jewish leaders that Hungarian Jews had a “substantial” degree of freedom to worship, to produce and acquire Jewish scriptures and prayer books and to go to the synagogue.
Graham also said that, in his meetings with Chief Rabbi Laszlo Salgo of Hungary and Rabbi Alexander Scheiber, president of the Jewish Theological Seminary of Hungary, and other Jewish leaders, he learned something “most Christians simply do not know–that more than 400,000 Jews in Hungary were murdered by the Nazis.” He said it was his impression that on a per capita basis, the Jews of Hungary had suffered more grievously than any other community in Hungary during the Nazi period.
He said he had two meetings with the Hungarian Jewish leaders, one at Salgo’s synagogue and one arranged by the United States Ambassador at the American Embassy in Budapest.
In response to a question, Graham said he was told there was no real problem of anti-Semitism in Hungary, that because of the tremendous suffering of the Jews under the Nazis there was a “genuine desire” on the part of the government and leadership to compensate the surviving 80,000 to 100,000 Jews for their wartime suffering.
FINDS LITTLE DESIRE TO EMIGRATE
The evangelist also said he was told by the Hungarian Jewish leaders that they felt comfortable and secure in Hungary and there was little desire to emigrate to Israel or to leave Hungary for any other country.
Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum, director of interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Committee, who took part in the press conference at Graham’s invitation said the evangelist visited Hungary at the invitation of the Hungarian Baptist Council of Churches with the consent and approval of the Hungarian government.
Graham reported that leaders of Christian communities from every East European country came to Budapest to meet him. He said he had been invited in Budapest by a delegation of Soviet Baptist leaders to make a similar visit to the Soviet Union. Graham said he told the Soviet Christian leaders that one of his conditions for such a visit would be that he would have the some opportunity to meet with Jewish leaders in the Soviet Union that he had with Hungarian Jewish leaders. Tanenbaum said Graham told him that he would make this a condition for acceptance of invitations in every case where the country of invitation has a Jewish community.
CONFERRED WITH TANENBAUM PRIOR TO VISIT
Tanenbaum told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that before Graham accepted the invitation to visit Hungary, he asked Tanenbaum whether it would help or hurt the Jews of Hungary if he sought to meet with them. Tanenbaum responded that he advised Graham to seek meetings with the Hungarian Jewish leaders in the spirit of paying his respects and expressing his feelings of solidarity with the Jewish people and Israel.
The rabbi added he had prepared letters of in production for Graham to the Hungarian Jewish leaders, in which he cited the evangelist’s support for Israel and Jewry and that Graham had assured him it was not his intention to make evangelistic appeals to the Jewish of Hungary. Tanenbaum wrote: “You may rest assured that Dr. Graham is deeply respectful of Judaism and the Jewish people and will not seek in any way to evangelize in the Jewish community” during his visit.
LOVE, AFFECTION FOR JEWS AND ISRAEL
Graham said there was “a spirit of tremendous love and respect that characterized every aspect” of his two meetings with the Hungarian Jewish leaders. He said he expressed his “deep love and affection for the Jewish people and for Israel” and that “the response was one of very great emotion and there were tears on that occasion, including my own tears.
After the press conference, Graham and Tanenbaum discussed the European visit, as well as Graham’s scheduled address at a meeting of the executive council of the AJ Committee in Atlanta on Oct. 28. The rabbi said Graham indicated he did not expect the invitation from the Soviet Baptists to materialize for “some time,” commenting that the trip to Hungary involved a five-year wait.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
