Two medical facilities here are offering completely disparate services to Jews, and while the difference between the two hospitals is vast, the inspiration they provide ailing Jews is unifying.
One is the Jewish Nursing Home, built in 1914, the sole remaining Jewish hospital of four that once belonged to the Jewish community here.
In another part of Budapest, in an unadorned seven-story building, children from all over the world come to learn to stand, to walk, and to function at a level previously thought impossible.
The 200-bed nursing home is not a sufficient facility to serve the aging Jewish population, all of whom are Holocaust survivors.
But there is hope. The hospital has received funds from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee for construction of a new wing to accommodate 50 new beds.
The Emanuel Foundation for Hungarian Culture, which has also indicated its desire to support the hospital, sponsored a visit to the facility in early July.
The hospital’s director, Dr. Andras Losonci, led the tour, showing the hospital’s apparent needs to an entourage that included Simcha Dinitz, chairman of the World Zionist Organization-Jewish Agency Executive.
HOME’S DIRE NEEDS
Losonci is both director of the hospital and president of MIOK (the National Association of Hungarian Jews). the official Jewish community body. With two hats tipping precariously from his head as he runs from one obligation to another, Losonci tries his best wherever he goes to impress on his listeners the nursing home’s dire need.
Losonci said the money will cover construction expenses, but that afterward the hospital will still need all the basics, from Band-Aids and equipment to beds, robes and medical personnel. At present, said Losonci, eight doctors care for the 200 patients.
Ralph Goldman, JDC honorary executive vice president, said the hospital’s needs beyond building the wing will be met by the JDC as they arise.
However, Losonci appeared very worried that the aging inhabitants will not have their needs met in the short time that many of them have.
Meanwhile, across town, the Peto Institute — formally known as the Andras Peto State Institute for the Motor Disabled, Conductors College — was established after World War II by a Jewish doctor who believed in miracles.
Dr. Andras Peto felt sure that children with motor dysfunction could overcome disabilities.
Peto’s form of therapy is unique, yet simple. Known as Conductive Education, this therapy employs only one teacher-therapist, called a “conductor,” for each step of the therapeutic process, in lieu of a string of specialists.
The method works. Udi Leon of Jerusalem said Israeli doctors had told him that his son, Yoel, who has cerebral palsy, would always need a wheelchair.
Yoel first came to Peto in February 1987, unable to move his legs. Now Yoel stands for short periods of time.
Talia Kushnir, 9, of Jerusalem, has cerebral palsy, but her mother, Joanna, is optimistic that Talia will be walking.
Ma’ayan and Ayelet Chazut, 6-year-old twins, weren’t previously able to walk. In Israel, Ma’ayan was diagnosed as unable to write. She learned to write in Hebrew in Hungary.
A study of independent functioning among Peto’s graduates shows 85 percent able to learn or work, and 60 percent functioning unaided.
SEVENTY PERCENT SUCCESS
Leon also made an astonishing claim, that the Peto Institute has a 70 percent success rate with children born with spina bifida, the disease remembered for the legal case of the infant girl “Baby Doe,” and the right to withhold feeding her because she would “never be anything more than a vegetable.”
Leon said that spina bifida children leave Peto walking and functioning. His assertions about Conductive Education have been corroborated by written testimony from Israeli experts, of whom several visited Peto in October 1987.
Professor Reuven Feuerstein of Bar-Ilan University and the Hadassah-WIZO-Canada Research Institute wrote, “I am now more than ever convinced that the results obtained through this method are not only significant, but they bear great promise.”
The result of Feuerstein’s letter and others from Israeli medical and education experts resulted first in the planning of an Israeli home in Budapest to house the children and families, as well as a long-sighted, permanent solution: to bring Conductive Education back to Israel.
They call the group the Association for Advancement of Conductive Education in Israel, known in Israel simply as Kadima. Their specific intentions are to instruct skilled Israeli personnel in Budapest in a four-year training period, while Israeli children continue their learning process.
SPECIAL COMMITMENT
Peto’s director, Dr. Maria Hari, told Kadima of a special commitment to help introduce Conductive Education in Israel, “in keeping with the expressed interest of its founder, Dr. Andras Peto, himself a Jew.”
Hungarian authorities approved the Israeli training program although other countries offered more financially remunerative proposals.
Israeli authorities have also approved the program, and recommended 25 percent funding from government sources.
Kadima said that the Jewish Agency and the Joint Distribution Committee are in the final stages of adopting the training program, which will initially comprise 10 students.
Kadima intends to send more children beginning this September, but estimates it needs at least $80,000 more funding.
Several foundations have committed to helping the institute, including the Emanuel Foundation and P.E.F. Israel Endowment Funds. Inc, both located in New York.
The Kadima logo on the group’s letterhead begins with a child in a wheelchair and ends with a running child. Leon said this was not merely wishful thinking.
“Almost all the children who came here have made incredible improvement,” he said. “You cannot change the physical problem, but you can teach how to cope with it.”
(Next: The Most Beautiful Synagogue)
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
