Modern Hungarian Jewish History

Previously unpublished documents tell us that Hungarian Television, then still in its infancy, which began broadcasting in 1957, and its staff were also (personally) affected by the 1967 Arab-Israeli, or Six-Day War. In a series of reports by an informant - the medium of which was not only this centre of mass information, but also the foreign embassies - we can read about the mood prevailing in the institution between June and August 1967 in connection with the war. It is clear from the reports that the television staff were keenly interested in the new war between Israel and the Arab countries, which would end in a great victory for Israel, and that the subject was discussed at work, in private homes and even in the cafeteria.

Jews in a number of disparate possessions at the end of the 17th century came in the course of the 18th century to form a loose Habsburg Jewry due to annexations and increasing state intervention. Covers the demographic, socio-economic, political and religious history of Jews in Bohemia, Moravia, Vienna, Hungary and Galicia-Bukowina during the long 18th century.

I gave this presentation on 3 June, 2014 in Tatabánya at the KPVDSZ Community Centre. The one-day conference under the motto “Tata és
Tatabánya zsidóságának történelmi emlékei/Tata and Tatabánya's Jewish community's historical records” was organized by the Hanna Szenes Hungarian-Israeli Fraternity Association. 2014 was the Hungarian Holocaust Memorial Year. This particular presentation was about the Jewish Labour workers of the Bánhida Power Plant during World War II.

This book was written by Leslie Blau (Blau László). It is a translation of the English "Bonyhad: A Destroyed Community" printed by Blau in 1994 (New York, New York). This translation into Hebrew was edited by Reuven Chaim Klein in 2010. It has yet to be published.ג

Shortly after the separated and infamous ÁVH (Államvédelmi Hatóság - State Security Authority) had come to existence in 1950 an Intelligence Department was also formed within its framework. The unit under the command of Vladimir Farkas immediatley started to despatch agents abroad, which meant that they contrived the immigration of two illegals to Israel. The endeavors came to nothing for the Intelligence Department did not have a permanent station (residency) in Tel-Aviv.

In: Bács Tamás – Dezsó Tamás – Niederreiter Zoltán, eds. 100 év után. Emlékkonferencia a Keleti Népek Ókori Története Tanszék alapításának 100. évfordulóján [Antiqua et Orientalia, 1] (Budapest- ELTE Bölcsészettudományi Kar, 2011), pp. 177–184. ISBN 978-963-312-073-6

ASSIMILATIONIST EXPECTATIONS AND JEWISH RESPONSES UP TO THE EMANCIPATION. The Jews of Hungary were granted equal rights in 1867. By this time, Hungarian political and cultural elites and Jewish intellectuals had been debating the expectations Jews should meet before – or after – being granted equal rights for nearly three decades. Did the two parties reach some kind of agreement in this regard? If they did, what were its terms? Which expectations were Jewish spokesmen ready to meet and which ones did they reject? Unlike earlier scholarship on the Hungarian emancipation debates, the aim of the article is not to expound the views of the most famous participants in the debate, but to track the dynamics of Christian expectations and Jewish reactions to these. The article empirically demonstrates that as far as the crucial question of Jewish otherness was concerned, the two sides never reached an agreement since the overwhelming majority of Hungarian Jews refused to reduce their otherness to the degree that would have satisfied the Christian political and cultural elite.

זיכרונות הונגריים בישראל שעתיד לצאת לאור בסתיו 2019, הוא ספר מסע מיוחד עם תמונות רבות. הוא מציג את הזיכרונות המוחשיים והרוחניים של הקשר ההיסטורי
וחברתי העמוק בין הונגריה לישראל, ואת התרומה של יהדות
הונגריה והולדתה והתפתחותה של המדינה היהודית בפרט.

This paper traces the life-cycle of the midrash-myth that the Israelites in Egypt did not change their name, language, or mode of dress. It addresses the origins of the midrash, its re-emergence in the anti-acculturationist discourse of a specific circle in the early nineteenth century, and its role in the emergence of “Ultra-Orthodoxy”  in 1860s Hungary. It will offer a hypothesis on how and why specifically this obscure midrash caught on in that circle and attempt to explain its adoption by Ultra-Orthodox leaders in the latter part of the century. It will then consider the spread of the meme in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in Hungary and beyond. Finally, it will address how it was absorbed into halakhic culture, considering the rhetorical significance of non-legal material in halakhic writings.

Memoirs written by Holocaust survivors and (in some cases) their testimonies retain a
salience unmatched by other historical sources. This article discusses one such memoir,
Olga Lengyel’s Five Chimneys, alongside her 1998 testimony, aiming to engage with
broader methodological issues relating to the history of the Holocaust, particularly those
about memory, narrative and textuality. Through a detailed discussion of certain moments shaping Olga Lengyel’s personal experience, both pre-and post-arrival in Auschwitz, the article captures the tensions and contradictions characterizing the harrowing story of one woman’s loss of family in the Holocaust.

Márffy Ödön élettársát, Rácz Klárát 1944. december 15-én éjszaka nyilas különítményesek meggyilkolták. Bár minden valószínűség szerint Márffy több ismert festményének is ő volt a modellje, személyéről mostanáig semmit sem lehetett tudni. Korabeli sajtó illetve levéltári adatok alapján kísérletet tettünk a tragikus esemény körülményeinek felidézésre, és Rácz Klára azonosítására.

This book details the history of the Jewish community in the Hungarian town of Bonyhád.It begins in the 18th century and describes the events leading the Holocaust as seen from the eyes of Hungarian Jewry. It then describes various personal stories from the Holocaust. Afterwards, the book describes the re-building of the Jewish community in post-World War Two Communist Hungarian and the eventual decline of the community through emigration.

Ultra-Orthodoxy arose amidst several challenges facing Orthodoxy in mid-19th century Hungary, namely linguistic acculturation, secular schooling, religious reforms and Hungarian nationalism. Dissatisfied by mainstream Orthodox responses and repelled by modern Orthodoxy, these ideologues invented a more potent and radical tradition to meet these challenges. The polemics of Akiva Yosef Schlesinger, Hillel Lichtenstein and Haim Sofer are analyzed.

Történeti monográfiának aligha tekinthető Komoróczy Géza munkája. Monográfiával szemben elvárás, hogy ne csak adatközlésre szorítkozzék, hanem történeti folyamatokat, oksági láncolatokat térképezzen fel és elemezzen, és így tudományosan értelmezhető állításokat tegyen a témáról. E könyv nagy mennyiségű adatot gyűjt össze, arra azonban nem vállalkozik, hogy az összegyűjtött adatokat értelmezve, saját és mások korábbi kutatási eredményeit szintetizálva módszeresen feltárja a magyarországi zsidóság történetének főbb problémáit, és közülük legalább néhányat megoldjon. Komoróczy Géza munkája ehelyett átfogó, bár gyakran elnagyolt vagy pontatlan képet nyújt a magyarországi zsidóság történetéről, mélyreható elemzések, újszerű megközelítések nélkül.

Visiting the graves of the (Hasidic) Rebbes of Bodrogkeresztur, Nagykálló, Olaszliszka, Sátoraljaújhely and other (Hasidic) places of worship are unique manifestations of Jewish popular religiosity in Hungary; these visits are mainly made on the anniversaries of the deaths of the great Rabbis('Yahrzeit).
The literature does not pay much attention to the fact that these customs were still alive during the decades of Socialism, and even after 1957, although to a limited extent, foreigners also took part in these pilgrimages.
The pilgrims were monitored by the State-security, for example, the number plates of cars arriving in Bodrogkeresztúr were recorded and undercover agents tried to decode the public mood. However, this religious custom was still present, albeit in a restricted environment, which is why it survived the period of regime change, only to be revived by religious tourism, which had already been desired.
The increase in the intensity of state security surveillance was not related to religiosity, but to the anti-Zionist state policy that emerged in Eastern Europe after the Six-Day-War, which saw all Jewish organisations as Zionism.

From the Euthanasia Programme to the wholesale and systematic murder of tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews at KZ Auschwitz in 1944, this presentation aims to take a clinical look at the development and deployment of the mechanisms that made murder on such a colossal sale possible. Beginning with an overview of Auschwitz and its complex roles in the Nazi death economy it moves to the lived experience of Hungary's Jews as they fell under the shadow of Nazi German oppression.

Két név, illetve a „neológ zsidóság műveltsége” szerepel e tanulmány címében, mely így első látásra ellentmondásnak tűnik. Két név, illetve az e nevek mögött megbúvó két ember hogy is jeleníthetné meg egy egész közösség, jelen esetünkben a neológ zsidóság műveltségét. Természetesen nem is erről van szó. A címben szereplő Leopold Samuról, illetve Guttmann Irénről elöljáróban csupán az mondható el – legalábbis amint a lexikonok, életrajzi adattárak szűkszavú szócikkeiben megtudható róluk –, hogy a századforduló időszakában előbbi történetírói tevékenységével, míg az utóbbi verseivel hívta fel magára a figyelmet. Igaz, a nevüket leginkább megőrző egykorú, illetve időben közel eső életrajzi lexikonok is inkább műkedvelő történetíróként, illetve költőként emlékeznek meg róluk. Ez azonban nemcsak annak köszönhető, hogy körülményeiket tekintve nem voltak professzionális gyakorlói az általuk művelt műfajnak (így például Leopold Samu gazdasági akadémiát végzett), hanem legalább ilyen fontosnak tűnik előttem, hogy az időben rövidre szabott alkotói pálya nem tette lehetővé számukra a kiteljesedést. Ezért is beszélhetünk esetükben félbetört életpályáról, illetve átmenetinek bizonyuló alkotói időszakról.

[Attention:  The attachments contain correct download links to the accompanying presentation in both pptx and ppsx (presentation & show)]
___________________________________
Jewish Salonika is unique: the most cataclysmic and momentous event in its two thousand year history is its near total obliteration. The year 1943 CE witnessed unfathomable events of human annihilation that took place within the time frame of just a few months. These events have been only superficially researched. Such superficiality is exemplified in the research on the interplay of circumstances and powers that allowed them to take place and the degree and speed to which they occurred. At odds with such feeble research is the existence of documentary evidence demonstrating the bureaucratic efficiency of the perpetrators. Given such documentary evidence, the events of the Holocaust of the Jews of Salonika should be correlated with the history of the Community before and after the destruction. Proceeding in this manner should be done in keeping with the framework of concurrent Hellenic history in particular and European–world history in general. The inquiry partially catalyzing such a correlation is twofold: first, could more human beings have been saved and second, irrespective of the outcome, what was the moral standing of the Society at large? The latter, for objective purposes, can only be deduced by the behavior, attitude, actions, reactions and/or omissions of the non-Jewish community as a whole and as individuals before and after the Holocaust. Deducing as such must occur with cognizance. Mainly, there is difficulty in judging the behavior of bystanders when it is impossible to ascertain how the critic would have behaved under similar circumstances. Mindful of possible ambiguity, the general Holocaust calculus nevertheless has two parts: the first operation states that it takes only a few evil persons to assassinate many. The second operation states that many righteous humans may save, at most, a finite number of fellow beings.

Informed by such evidence and caveats, my objective is to present a glimpse of Jewish Thessaloniki with special emphasis to the Holocaust. This vast topic may be broadly divided into the following subtopics: 1) The history of Jewish Thessaloniki up to the Holocaust, 2) The Holocaust of the Jews of Thessaloniki and 3) The post war aftermath encompassing the current status and future of Jewish Thessaloniki in general and the preservation of the remnants of Sephardic heritage and traditions.

The goal to which I aspire is to provide a sequence of historical events and by so doing, to attempt to stimulate interest in further research. A cursory non-web or web based search lays bare both the surprising little we know, as well as the fact that scholarly or non-scholarly published work, in most instances, employs the repetition of a bare minimum of facts and data. Informed by such a reality, one might be tempted to believe that a particular subject especially that of the annihilation is taboo. Gaps in the historiography of Greece do a disservice both to the remaining Jewish Greeks in particular and the whole Hellenic nation in general. It is encouraging that research has recently accelerated, albeit at a slow pace. These endeavors are nevertheless a welcome step in the right direction. The main reason that research should accelerate at full speed is the inescapable reality of the biological attrition of the ranks of eyewitnesses and Holocaust survivors.3

This study explores the currents that have shaped the historical narrative of the Hungarian Holocaust. It examines scholarly perspectives about the history, as well as the underpinning myths and memories that encouraged a nation to pursue an alliance with Nazi Germany and sacrifice their Jewish citizens for Christian national interests. This case study demonstrates the way Hungarian populous movements usurped national and Christian ideals and manipulated society's collective memories.  It also explores the subsequent forces of national identity that often whitewash society’s responsibility and skew collective remembrances.  Additionally, the examination analyzes three films about the Hungarian Holocaust; Mr. Wallenberg (1990), Sunshine (1999), and Fateless (2005) as contemporary representations of collective memory.  This study argues that collective memories shaped by Christian Nationalism construct barriers that impede Hungarians from thoroughly confronting the history and meanings of the Hungarian Holocaust.  Since the post war period, Hungarians have failed to accept that Christian Nationalism contributed to Hungary’s devastating national history and equally important the Hungarian Holocaust.