The increasingly vibrant Hungarian Jewish community visited by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency earlier this month does not resemble the one visited by JTA only three years ago. Much appears to have dramatically changed for the better in the life of Hungarian Jewry.
In 1985, Hungarian Jews were described as “polarized” between the few religious and the many assimilated, and few Jewish intellectuals had contact with the Jewish community.
Now, formerly alienated Hungarian Jews are engaging in grass-roots cultural and religious study programs.
Three years ago, Ilona Seifert, secretary-general of MIOK the National Association of Hungarian Jews rejected a request by young people for a Jewish summer camp, alleging that parents needed more time with their children.
On this visit, the JTA saw a thriving camp where over 100 Jewish youth spend 10-day periods in a former adult vacation villa, overflowing the dining hall and filling the dormitories three to a room.
Three years ago, there was no Jewish children’s choir, and the adult choir was not presented to the JTA.
This year, the JTA heard both a children’s chorus and the accomplished adult Goldmark Choir, sometimes representing two generations.
Three years ago, people interviewed asked not to be identified. This time, nobody made that request.
During this year’s visit to Hungary enabled through the Emanuel Foundation for Hungarian Culture and sponsored by the Hungarian government through its national tourist board Jewish individuals repeated their joy that world Jewry had come to visit and help them.
JEWS STICK TOGETHER
Istvan Doman, editor of the Hungarian Jewish newspaper Uj Elet, said, “You know, the anti-Semites always accused us of sticking together. But during the Holocaust we were alone. Now we hope that some help will come from the Jews abroad and it will be true what we were accused of!”
Hungarian Jewry’s needs are only partly helped by MIOK through private donations by Hungarian Jews, government matching funds and help from abroad.
Both the Emanuel Foundation and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) say they have helped make a success of the children’s camp, which is located in a magnificent setting at Balatonfured on Lake Balaton.
The camp’s activities, including daily prayer and study sessions, are run by rabbinical students from the Budapest Rabbinical Seminary. In crowded rooms, talleisim and swimsuits are draped over bunks.
Andor Weiss, executive vice president of the Emanuel Foundation, said over 400 children were able to attend the camp this summer because of a donation it received from Ronald Lauder, former U.S. ambassador to Austria, whose mother Estee was born in Hungary.
The JDC has also largely contributed to the camp’s functioning, and is looking for a larger site, according to Ralph Goldman, JDC honorary executive vice president.
NO YIDDISH SPOKEN HERE
An initial goal is to teach Hebrew. One of the major ways in which the Hungarian Jewish community has cut itself off is in its refusal to speak Yiddish, Hebrew or even English. Those who could converse without interpreters were rare.
One way the language disability is being redressed is in the new Hebrew program and major established at the University of Budapest.
The program is run by Dr. Geza Komoroczy, who is also head of the year-old Center for Jewish Studies at the university a joint venture between the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the New York-based Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture.
Komoroczy said the school has dispensed with the usual academic requirements for the class and divided it into three levels, so that no one who wants to learn Hebrew will be dissuaded.
After 20 years of providing grants to scholarly and educational endeavors in Hungary, the Memorial Foundation decided two years ago that it wanted to change its work in Eastern Europe.
“Look, there are new winds blowing,” said executive director Jerry Hochbaum. The foundation wanted to provide new learning material for those outside the establishment who wouldn’t ordinarily be reached.
The foundation provided money to publish three children’s books in Hungarian on Genesis, religion and Jewish history.
The books were all published in July 1987 in Hungary, with government permission. By October, all the books had sold out.
‘I AM A JEW’
A second printing of 3,000 copies of the history and religion books likewise sold out. But, said Hochbaum, “the biggest best-seller was a sociological paper on ‘How I recognized that I am a Jew.'”
The JDC has endowed several Talmudei Torah, which educate about 400 Jewish children. The Anna Frank Gymnasium, a Jewish high school aided by the JDC, has seen its student body increase from nine students in 1983 to 83 registered for September.
The Joint also funds the Rabbinical Seminary in Budapest, the only rabbinical seminary in the Eastern bloc.
On Friday nights, young people — from homes in which they learned no Jewish tradition — gather in large numbers in the seminary’s chapel to listen to discussions begun by Rabbi Yehuda Schweitzer, the director.
After the service, the young people have refreshments while discussing religion and Jewish culture.
Vying for Hungarian Jews’ attention has reached an unprecedented level. Imre Miklos, Hungary’s minister of religion, told visiting World Zionist Organization-Jewish Agency Executive Chairman Simcha Dinitz in Budapest earlier this month, “Now we are ready to compete with you on who will be able to give more assistance to the Jewish community.”
Miklos told Dinitz and Avi Beker, the World Jewish Congress’ Israeli representative, that they had “established a bridge between Hungary, the Jewish people and Israel, and now is the time to start walking across it.”
(Next: Healing Jews In Hungary)
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.
