Behind the Headlines the Jews of Hungary

— “You will convince yourselves during your short visit to Budapest that Hungarian Jewry is clinging to its traditions in a true Jewish spirit,” Ilona Seifert, Secretary-General of the Central Board for Hungarian Jews (MIOK), said in her welcome to members of a United Jewish Appeal-American Jewish Press Association mission.

After observing the Budapest Jewish community’s various institutions for a week, this correspondent concurs with Seifert’s remark.

Every traditional religious necessity is available to the Jews of Budapest; 30 synagogues and prayer houses, rabbis, Talmud Torahs, and a Jewish high school; a ritual slaughter house and 12 kosher butchers; a salami plant, winery and matzoh factory; an old age home and (mainly geriatric) hospital; a kosher restaurant and kitchen to provide meals for the poor; a mohel, mikveh and burial society; social welfare programs; a semimonthly newspaper, choir, libraries and museum; and the only rabbinical seminary behind the Iron Curtain.

Hungarian Jews today have a richer communal life than any other Jewish community in Eastern Europe.

DEMOGRAPHIC DATA NOT EASILY AVAILABLE

The number of Jews in Hungary today is not known, because census by religion is illegal. MIOK and the American Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) claim the Jewish population is 80,000 to 100,000, with 10 percent residing in Budapest, the capital.

(After 25 years of indirect aid, in January, 1980, JDC signed a contract with the Hungarian State Department for Church Affairs and the Jewish community to officially provide funds for social welfare. Their 1980 budget was $1 million, and JDC anticipates the same amount for 1981.)

According to a reliable source, the number of practicing Jews in Hungary is probably closer to 15,000. Many of the others, counted as Jews by MIOK and JDC, are atheist-Communists of Jewish descent who no longer have connections with the Jewish community. Some 15,000 people pay taxes to the Jewish community, and this same number of seats is filled in the synagogues of Hungary on Yom Kippur, the source revealed.

MIOK officials were not forthcoming with statistics or demographic data, except in the most general terms. Although asked several times the number of children in Talmud Torahs, they would not even offer an estimate. They were also reluctant to provide a breakdown of the Jewish population according to age, or the annual birth and death rates.

“Our small children are the children of our children, thus the second generation after the war,” Seifert said. “This proves that we have passed the crises, we have a Jewish future. We have children who know the Sh’ma.” She added that the work of a young Orthodox mohel, trained in London, “keeps him so busy that he has very little free time.” But there are 2,000 deaths per year and only some 100 births, a knowledgeable source estimated.

Whatever the population, the center of Hungarian Jewish life is Budapest. Other Jews also live throughout the country in 185 towns and villages. In Szeged, Miskolc, Debrecen, Gyor and Pec, there are communities of several hundred Jews. Szeged is the site of one of the most magnificent synagogues in the world.

THE DECIMATION OF HUNGARY’S JEWS

By 1940, there were 800,000 Jews living in Hungary; 600,000 perished toward the end of the Holocaust, despite efforts by Hungarian Jewish emissaries to enlist the aid of the Allies and the Jewish Agency. Most of the victims lived outside Budapest.

Beginning in the Spring of 1944, regularly scheduled transports of Jews left for Auschwitz from the countryside. Only because the Red Army surrounded Budapest in January, 1945 before the Nazis could liquidate the ghetto, were 70,000 of the 100,000 Jews there saved.

Although the Hungarian Jews were the last to be murdered in the Holocaust, they were the first to fall victim to official 20th Century anti-Semitism. Soon after Admiral Nicholas Horthy began his regime in 1919, he passed a numerus clausus law restricting the enrollment of Jewish students at universities to the percentage of Jews in the general population.

JEWS LIVED IN HUNGARY OVER 1700 YEARS

Jews have lived in Hungary for more than 1700 years. A 3rd Century tombstone in the Budapest Jewish Museum proves that Jews lived in the area earlier than ethnic Hungarians, according to Dr. Ilona Benoshovsky, curator. In the 12th Century, the Arpod kings welcomed the commercial aid of the Jews and a Jewish community settled in Buda, now part of Budapest. In the 18th century, with a massive migration of Jews from Moravia and Polish Galicia, Hungary became the seat of important Jewish religious, educational and welfare institutions.

When Hungary became an independent kingdom in 1867, Jews were granted complete political equality. Judaism became “a legally recognized religion” according to the Reception Law of 1896, and Jews made significant contributions to Hungarian cultural and economic life until World War 1.

After the war, shifting political tides deteriorated the position of the Hungarian Jews. When the Austro-Hungarian monarchy collapsed in 1918, the National Council of the short-lived republic included 14 Jews. This government was overthrown by a Bolshevik regime led by Bela Kun, a renegade Jew.

At the time, the Jews were considered the only sizeable minority disturbing Hungarian ethnic homgeneity. Horthy’s counter-revolution was, for the next two years, accompanied by violent anti-Semitism, including “white glove” murders and pogroms. During the Nazi occupation of Hungary, Horthy stayed on as the nominal regent, cooperating with the Quisling Cabinet.

Tomorrow: Part Two