Jews first settled in Hungary in the 13th century, settling mainly in the city of Buda. In 1526 the Ottoman Empire occupied Hungary and as result many Jews moved from other parts of the empire to Hungary. Thus, Buda was one of the very few places during the medieval period where Ashkenazim (those who originally settled here) and Sephardim (from the Ottoman Empire) lived side by side.
The small Sephardic shul still exists and while it was not in use for many years it has for the past five years or so been “converted” to a Chabad shul.
Amongst the 17th century members of the Ashkenazic community was the family of the Chacham Tzvi[1] who was raised there, as his grandfather Rav Ephraim Hakohen served as its rabbi. The Chacham Tzvi’s father was a dedicated Sabbatian. Fascinatingly, it was the Chacham Tzvi who was the leading opponent of Sabbateanism, going after anyone suspected of such with a vengeance. While the son did not follow in the ways of the father, the grandson, Rav Yaakov Emden continued his father’s campaign seeking to literally destroy anyone with a whiff Sabbatian tendencies, leading to one of the most tragic disputes in Jewish history known as the Emden-Eybeschutz controversy. Its impact still reverberates today and this dispute permanently lowered the status of the rabbinate amongst the masses.
The much larger Ashkenazic synagogue was destroyed during the Austrian invasion of 1686 when most of the city's Jews were massacred, including the wife and daughter of the Chacham Tzvi. Some 29 bodies laid buried under the rubble and were discovered only in 1968 during excavations of the area.
During the 18th century there was mass Jewish immigration to Hungary. The Habsburg dynasty, who ruled much of Central Europe for some 700 years, passed a law that only the eldest Jewish child was allowed to marry. That law did not apply in Hungary and hence the great increase in numbers. The Jewish population increased even further after the 1772 partition of Poland when Galicia became part of the Habsburg Empire. In 1867 Jews were granted full equality making it an attractive place to reside. Jewish life flourished in Hungary and Jews felt very much at home. The observant Jews primality lived in the Eastern and rural areas of Hungary which was the home base of many Chassidic groups including Satmar and Pupa.
In 1873 the city of Pest to the east of the Danube river and that of Buda to the west – along with the city of Obuda - merged to form the city of Budapest. The Jews of Budapest were less observant than those of the rural and eastern areas of Hungary, and there was great levels of acculturation and assimilation.
By the early 20th century some 60% of doctors, lawyers and merchants in Budapest were Jewish. Not surprisingly this great success led to a pushback and in 1920 Hungary became the first modern European county to reverse rights given to the Jews and impose anti-Jewish laws. Quotas were introduced so that the Jews who were 6% of the population would now be 6% of the students in medical school.
This was minor compared to the what would follow during the Holocaust. The horrors of the Holocaust are, if it's possible to say such a thing, more tragic in Hungary. The Nazis ym”s occupied Hungary in March of 1944. Had they arrived later or the war ended a bit earlier hundreds of thousands would have been spared. Up to the occupation the Jews felt quite safe despite the rumours and more that were well-known about what had befallen others.
It is because the Germans were losing the war that the Nazis invaded, afraid Hungary, which had allied itself with Germany, would switch sides to the Allies. They had done so in great part because they were promised that they could recover much of the territory lost in World War 1, another example of how the First World War laid the foundation for the Second. In some 55 days – from May 15 to July 9 1944 some 600,000 Jews were deported to Auschwitz. This was the fastest rate of killing during the Holocaust.
Yet because the Nazis occupied Hungary so late in the war many were spared. The Nazis never had the “opportunity” to begin deportations from Budapest, though a ghetto was set up in the Jewish quarter in November 1944.
That does not mean Jews in Budapest were safe. Aligned with the Nazis ym's, the Arrow Cross massacred thousands, some 20,000 of whom were lined up along the Danube river, told to take their shoes off and shot into the Danube. Today the memorial along the Danube consists of sixty pairs of sculptured shoes.
Many more would have been killed had it not been for the efforts of two Chasidei Umot Haolam, righteous amongst the Gentiles. All are familiar with Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who through his safe houses – which by law were considered Swedish territory, something the Nazis generally respected – and “false” papers, saved thousands upon thousands of Jewish lives. Much less well known is his “partner” Carl Lutz, the Swiss Vice-Consul in Budapest who is credited with saving over 60,000 Jews! Unlike Wallenberg, who after the war entered the Russian embassy and was never heard from again, Lutz lived until 1975.
With no deportations and so many saved in Budapest, perhaps as many as 150,000 Jews remained in Hungary after the war. Living under Communist rule Jewish religious life was quite minimal. Many managed to escape during the 1956 revolution and the fall of the Iron Curtain some 35 years ago has allowed Jews to freely practice their faith.
Yet most Jews here have little interest in religion. Assimilation is rampant and even today some 90% of Jews intermarry. Yet at the same time there is much Jewish life. Within a 10-minute walk of our hotel – in the heart of Jewish quarter and the old ghetto - are seven kosher restaurants, five shuls (that I know of), a kosher supermarket, a kosher bakery, and a mikva, more Jewish infrastructure than within ten minutes of my home in Toronto. While many of these cater to the many tourists, there is much catering the local community.
There are no fewer are 16 functioning shuls in Budapest. While few attempt to have a minyan every day or even every shabbat the three shuls we attended on shabbat had between them some 200 local Hungarians. Furthermore, there are some 30 Chabad Shluchim throughout the country, five Jewish schools in Budapest and depending on how one counts upwards of 100,000 Jews in Hungary. What was lost is beyond tragic but we Jews see hope where others despair. I end with a beautiful quote by Arthur Koestler, Hungarian-born Jewish author and journalist, found on the walls on Jewish museum in Budapest, that gives expression to the resilience of the Jewish people.
“There is no other example in history of a community which has been chased round the globe quite as much, which has survived its own death as a nation by two thousand years, and which, in between autos-da-fé and gas chambers, kept praying at the proper season for rain to fall in a country on which they have never set eyes, and drinking toasts to “Next year in Jerusalem” during the same astronomical stretch of time, with the same untiring trust in the super-natural.”
[1] While the title Chacham implies that he was of Sephardic descent, he was as Ashkenazi as they come, as indicated by his full name Tzvi Askennzai. The title chacham comes from his time spent in Constantinople and reflects the great respect afforded him by the Sephardic community.
Two of his views that would no doubt find much favour amongst many moderns is his ruling that all those present in Israel for Yom Tov should keep but one day, regardless of where they may live, and his desire to repeal the Ashkenazic custom of not eating kitniyot on Pesach.