Critics slam Hungary’s main Jewish group

By Balint Molnar · November 30, 1999

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BUDAPEST, July 5 (JTA) — Fifteen years ago, the fall of communism in Eastern Europe ushered in an era of rejuvenation for Hungarian Jews, with new schools, youth organizations, growing synagogues and mounting confidence. But the heady optimism of the early 1990s seems to have waned. Today, many prominent Hungarian Jews believe the Jewish community has become religiously and culturally stagnant. “We did witness a time of revival in Jewish life during the early 1990s, but that subsided around 1994,” said Gabor Szanto, editor in chief of the Jewish political and cultural monthly Szombat, or Shabbat. “Those who are active in the community are getting older, and young people are not attracted to what the community offers them,” he said. Estimates of Hungary’s Jewish population run from 54,000 to 130,000. About 90 percent live in the capital, Budapest, and the vast majority is secular. Assessing the reasons for the sense of stagnation, critics point not only to the lingering effects of the Holocaust and several decades of Communist rule but also to the Alliance of Hungarian Jewish Communities, an umbrella body that they call undemocratic and monopolistic. “This is a centralized system, which in reality only represents a fraction of Hungarian Jews but controls most of the money,” said Ferenc Olti, a former vice president of the alliance and a board member of the European Council of Jewish Communities. Olti created a stir in 2002 when he called for the resignation of Gusztav Zoltai, the alliance’s executive director. In the end, it was Olti who was booted from the organization. Olti said the alliance represents only about 5,000 to 6,000 dues-paying members. That means that about 95 percent of Hungarian Jews are not part of organized Jewish life, he said. Zoltai, who has been at the helm of the alliance for 12 years, denies that the alliance is providing poor leadership and said that, in any case, reforms are in the works. In April, the alliance adopted a new constitution at the urging of the group’s new chairman, Andras Heisler, who was elected on a reformist platform. “The new constitution includes many changes that will have significant effects on the future of the Jewish community,” Heisler said. The new constitution creates a more structured and transparent organization when it comes to decision making procedures and financial management, he said. “The new system is also more democratic, as it delegates some of the decision making from the management to the elected leadership,” he said. “By involving non-member organizations we are also cautiously opening toward a wider segment of the Jewish community." Zoltai too emphasized the importance of engaging other Jewish organizations. “One of the most important changes is the option for non-members to have delegates participating in our assembly meetings. They now have consultational rights, but of course they cannot vote,” he said. The Alliance of Hungarian Jewish Communities is the sole representative of Hungarian Jews vis-a-vis the government, which provides it with $15 million annually. The alliance provides funding to synagogues and employs most rabbis. The new constitution addresses some of these issues as well, Heisler said. “Now the election of rabbis is back to the hands of congregations and it’s not done anymore from the headquarters,” he says. But critics are leveling other charges as well. In the March edition of his magazine, Szanto accused the community’s leadership of fostering an atmosphere of fear and suspicion among ordinary Jews by constantly evoking the specter of the Holocaust in their public statements. “Most of their statements make it appear as if Jews were in continuous danger in Hungary, while in reality the number of those harboring real ill will toward Jews is no more than 10 to 15 percent — the same as elsewhere in Europe,” he wrote. After the fall of communism, Hungary recognized four “historical churches” — the Catholic, Reformist and Evangelical Churches, and the Alliance of Hungarian Jewish Communities, which became the official representative body of Hungarian Jewry. “There is a need to revisit the current system,” Olti said. “The Jewish community is different; it is more diverse." He noted that the alliance does not accept Reform Jews or Chabad-Lubavitch Jews as members, and just a small segment of Conservative Jews. Zoltai says the alliance represents only the Orthodox community because the Reform movement does not accept halachah, or Jewish law, which serves as the basis for membership in the alliance. He explained that Chabad is excluded from the alliance because “they do not operate as a congregation but rather as an association." Szanto and Olti expressed skepticism about the recent revision of the constitution. “The changes are cosmetic,” Szanto said. Heisler disagreed with the critics. Of course the alliance “defines itself as a religious body, and it is also a fact that most religious Jews in Hungary belong to the older generation,” he said. “But the continuous development of our schools and our university, plus our support for various youth groups, shows that we do try to engage younger people as well. People who say that the new constitution does not bring significant changes probably did not read it and continue to build their criticism on their own stereotypes." There have been some efforts to create communal Jewish life outside the bounds of the organizational mold. One such initiative is the Hillel Educational and Youth Center Foundation, led by Linda Ban. Ban said that criticizing the community’s official leadership is not a constructive way forward. “My top priority is ensuring the future of Hungarian Jewry, which can only be achieved through education,” she said. “First, we have to make young people understand that being Jewish does not necessarily equal living by strict religious rules. Yes, I do teach them about religious practice and tradition, but I never try to make them feel as if I expected that they actually lead their lives by them.” Ban herself is observant. Through her experience with outreach and education programs, Ban said, she concluded that Hungary’s religious Jews will keep declining in number as older Jews die. “The overwhelming majority of young Jews in Hungary have little or no interest in practicing religion. They are, however, very interested in finding a Jewish partner for themselves,” she said. With that in mind, Ban recently started a Jewish singles club. She also runs outreach programs at schools, where she tries to engage young, unaffiliated Jewish students. “This is also a form of community building,” she said. “Unfortunately, people feel inhibited and even ashamed for not being familiar with traditions and not knowing their roots.” Ban says she neither asks for nor receives financial assistance from the Alliance of Hungarian Jewish Communities. “If somebody wants to help the Jewish community,” she said, they can do so without the alliance “any day of the year." But critics like Szanto and Olti say that a more open community organization, a more democratic approach to the distribution of government funds and better private fund raising are key to getting Hungarian Jews interested in Jewish communal life.

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Critics slam Hungary’s main Jewish group

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