‘a Little Israel’ in Budapest

In the midst of this Socialist capital of almost two million people, there is a corner that Hungarian Jews call “a little Israel,” where Jewish ritual and tradition has been preserved in its entirety despite the various upheavals affecting this country in recent years. At 35 Akacfa Street, in the heart of the former Jewish ghetto of the war years, Budapest’s last Jewish restaurant continues to thrive with the support and management of the Orthodox Jewish community.

With room for 100 people, the atmosphere is always crowded and convivial–while maintaining a strictly Orthodox atmosphere and tradition. Beef, stuffed cabbage, duck, goose–all strictly kosher–are served with kosher wine to the restaurant’s regular Jewish patrons as well as numerous visitors from other countries, particularly the United States.

Many of the regular patrons wear the Orthodox Jewish dress and as one recent visitor to the restaurant described it, “It is almost as if you had left Hungary and found yourself suddenly in Israel.” After dinner, the guests are Invited to stay on for singing and the reciting of ritual Jewish sayings. Prices at the restaurant are high by Hungarian standards–about $2 for a meal. However, many of those who come here are invited by and paid for by the Jewish community.

Not far from this restaurant stands Hungary’s largest synagogue, largest in all of Eastern Europe, and next to that, the Jewish cemetery where many of the 500,000 Hungarian Jews who were ‘deported and killed during World War H are buried. Mrs. Vilmost Weisz, manager of the restaurant, recalled that a number of foreign visitors to the restaurant, in making a ceremonial visit to the cemetery, told her they had discovered the names of their long-lost relatives. There are about 100,000 Jews in Hungary today, compared with approximately 600,000 before World War II.