THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS 40 Friday, May 22, 1981 , Future Doubtful for Hungarian Jews Despite Rich Communal Life By ROCHELLE SAIDEL-WOLK BUDAPEST (JTA) — "You will convince yourse- lves during your short visit to Budapest that Hunga- rian Jewry is clinging to its traditions in a true Jewish spirit," Ilona Seifert, Secretary-General of the Central Board for Hunga- rian Jews (WOK), said in her welcome to members of a United Jewish Appeal- American Jewish Press Association mission. After observing the Budapest Jewish commu- nity's various institutions for a week, this correspon- dent concurs with Seifert's remark. Every traditional reli- gious necessity is available celebrate your birthday at itifTeCk RESTAURANT • DINNER AND CAKE FREE • Call For Further Details 643-8865 Somerset Mall Troy CHINA GATE NOW SERVES COCKTAILS PINE LAKE MALL 4343 ORCHARD LAKE RD. BET. LONG LAKE & LONE PINE 851-5540 MON.-THURS. 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. FRI. & SAT. 11 a.m. to 12 Mid. SUN. & HOLIDAYS, 12 noon to 11 p.m. LUNCHEON SPECIALS COMPLETE CARRY-OUT AVAILABLE to the Jews of Budapest; 30 synagogues and prayer houses, rabbis, Talmud To- rahs, and a Jewish high school; a. ritual, slaughter house and 12 kosher butch- ers; a salami plant, winery and matza factory; an old age home and (mainly geriatric) hospital; a kosher restaurant and kitchen to provide meals for the poor; a mohel, mikva and burial society; social welfare pro- grams; a semi-monthly newspaper, choir, libraries and museum; and the only rabbinical seminary behind the Iron Curtain. Hungarian Jews today have a richer communal life than any other Jewish community in Eastern Europe. The number of Jews in Hungary today is not known, because census by religion is illegal. MIOK and the American Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) claim the Jewish population is 80,000 to 100,000, with 80 percent re- siding in BUdapest, the cap- ital. According to a reliable source, the number of prac- ticing Jews in Hungary is probably closer to 15,000. Many of the others, counted as Jews by MIOK and JDC, are atheist-Communists of Jewish descent who no longer have connections with the Jewish commu- nity. Some 15,000 people pay taxes to the Jewish community, and this same number of seats is filled in the synagogues of Hungary on Yom Kippur, the source revealed. MIOK officials were not forthcoming with statistics or demographic data, except in the most general terms. Although asked several times the number of chil- dren in Talmud Torahs, they would not offer an es- timate. They were also re- luctant to provide a break- down of the Jewish popula- tion according to age, or the annual birth and death rates. "Our small children are the children of our chil- VOTED NO. 1 SQUARE. PIZZA Detroit News Detroit Free Press By AAA Motor News Carry-out Mming Buddy's Pizza locale No. 1 11125 CONANT, Cr. McNichols Carry-Out Duly locale 14156 E. 12 Mile, Marra, 892-9001 777-3400 ki■■••■-•■■ ••• locale No. 2 8100 Old 13 Mile Rd. 1 MIL E. 'la Dyke, 1 Mi.'s. 13 Mile 574-9200 kasssssossssssag SKORPIOS GREEK DINING the most delicious, delectable dining north of Greektown k..) fit 29121 Northwestern Highway at 12 Mile Rd. in the Franklin Plaza 357-3544 Eg- rZ,1 357-4067 OPEN EVERY DAY 11 A.M. - 1 A.M. MSSSSSOSSSSOSO .18 The 3,000-seat Dohany Street Synagogue in Budapest, built in 1854, is Europe's largest synagogue. dren, thus the second generation after the war," Seifert said. "This proves that we have passed the crises, we have a Jewish future. We have children who know the Sh'ma." She added that the work of a young Orthodox mohel, trained in London, "keeps him so busy that he has very lit- tle free time." But there are 2,000 deaths per year and only some 100 births, a knowledgeable source estimated. By 1940, there were 800,000 Jews living in Hungary; 600,000 perished toward the end of the Holocaust, despite efforts by Hungarian Jewish emis- saries to enlist the aid of the Allies and the Jewish Agency. Most of the victims lived outside Budapest. Beginning in the spring of 1944, regularly scheduled transports of Jews left for Auschwitz from the coun- tryside. Only because the Red Army surrounded Budapest in January, 1945 before the Nazis could liq- uidate the ghetto, were 70,000 of the 100,000 Jews there saved. Although the Hungarian Jews were the last to be murdered in the Holocaust, they were the first to fall victim to official 20th Cen- tury anti-Semitism. Soon after Admiral Nicholas Horthy began his regime in 1919, he passed a numerus clausus law restricting the enrollment of Jewish stu- dents at universities to the percentage of Jews in the general population. Jews have lived in Hungary for more than 1,700 years. A Third Cen- tury tombstone in the Budapest Jewish Museum proves that Jews lived in the area earlier than ethnic Hun- garians, according to Dr. Ilona Benoshovsky, curator. In the 12th Cen- tury, the Arpad kings •welcomed the commer- cial aid of the Jews and a Jewish community set- tled in Buda, now part of Budapest. In the 18th Century, with a massive migration of Jews from Moravia and Polish Galicia, Hungary became the seat of important Jewish religious, educa- tional and welfare in- ' stitutions. When Hungary became an independent kingdom in 1867, Jews were granted complete political equality. Judaism became "a legally recognized religion" accord- ing to the Reception Law of 1896, and Jews made sig- nificant contributions to Hungarian cultural and economic life until World War I. The MIOK coordinates most of the Jewish activities and institutions in Hungary and is the national body which speaks for all Hunga- rian Jews and also conveys official government policies on religious affairs to all Jews, has 300 elected mem- bers who elect a 47-member governing council. Perhaps the most impor- tant Jewish institution in Hungary is the Jewish Theological Seminary in Budapest, the only one in Eastern Europe. The semi- nary not only trains rabbin- ical students from Hungary, but also from other Soviet Bloc countries. There are currently four Soviet stu- dents, one from Czechos- lovakia and two from Bul- garia. Sandor Rabbi Scheiber, head of the seminary, is Hungary's leading scholar and his- torian. He is an expert on the rare volumes in the Jewish library housed in the seminary, and also on the Kaufman collection in the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. (The Kaufman collec- tion contains illuminated Hebrew manuscripts dat- ing back to the 13th Cen- tury.) The Chief Rabbi of Hun- gary, Laszlo Salgo, was elected to Parliament in 1980. He is a government emissary to the community and a community emissary to the government. "The Minister of Religion has a permanent connection with our leaders and knows about our problems," he said. According to the Deputy Minister of the State Office of Church Affairs, there is a "good understanding be- tween the churches and the socialists . . . The relation- ship between church and state is satisfactory here. Religious people are not persecuted under socialism." This echoed Seifert's statement that "the relationship between our state and our religion is a very good one, and both our state and our religion strive to cultivate the same." , To assess the future of Judaism in Hungary, it is necessary to evaluate what incentives and inspiration the community can offer to children and young people who stay within "the fold." In Hungary, Judaism is linked with the sorrow of the Holocaust, but the joy of Israel is officially denied to the children (and adults). While Israel provides a basis for lively and exciting curricula in Western He- brew schools and day Budapest's central kosher kichen, funded in part by the Joint Distribution Committee, prepares 25,000 meals each year which are distributed at 10 different sites. schools, the children of as much as it does th' Hungary learn pre-Israel Jewish community.) "heder-type" lessons. Will the Jewish children On the day of our visit, of Hungary choose to re- in addition to the aleph- main in the community, or bes (in Ashkenazi), the is the future of Hungarian students were discussing Jewry doomed? MIOK offi- Tu b'Shevat. But they cials spoke of the future could not learn of the ac- glowingly, but knowledge- complishments of Israeli able individuals admitted pioneers, the work of the privately that the future is Jewish National Fund, or grim. the agricultural products of modern Israel. Nor could they experience the AJCongress Ad joy of purchasing trees, Questions planted in their names in Israel. What can Tu Budget Policy b'Shevat mean to them? NEW YORK — Charging The holiday, like the that the Reagan Adminis- Jewish religion, becomes tration's budget-cutting a sterile anachronism. There are no youth proposals give "little reason groups with a cultural or for confidence that there ethnic Jewish approach to will be equality of sacrifice," augment Talmud Torah the American Jewish Con- education Such groups are gress, in an ad in the New , illegal, according to a reli- York Times, called on the able source. Nor are there "community of conscience" any independent Jewish to protect "the great social legislation of the last half leaders to serve as mentors century, press the fight for for Hungary's Jewish social justice and defend the youth. The community most vulnerable in our leadership is paid by the society." state. In a Communist athetist The statement, which country dedicated to the ul- was adopted by the AJCon- timate disappearance of all gress at its annual meeting religion, it is of no advan- last month, urges that a tage to belong to any reli- "fellowship of commitment gious group — especially a and action" be formed by small minority such as like-minded groups and in- Judaism. While Hungary dividuals to ensure that -tolerates all religions, there "legitimate efforts to reduce is subtle pressure away government's growth and to from religious affiliation. alter the balance between Many Jews. in Hungary Washington and the states today are not part of the are not used as a smokesc- Jewish community, and reen to abdicate govern- consider themselves ment's policy to advance the "Communists of Jewish de- public welfare and defend scent." the public good."- "The government has come to the conclusion that religion can be co-opted into Asiatic Relations their plan, so that religion JERUSALEM (ZINS) — will die naturally over a Israel maintains diplomatic long period of time," an ex- ties with most Asiatic pert on Hungary explained. countries. It has embassies "If the churches are de- in Japan, the Philippines, prived of real political Singapore, Burma, Thai- power, they are not danger- land and Nepal, a consulate ous. The government.uses a in Bombay, India and mai ,' strategy of co-opting the tains relations with Sout ,.._ churches, while allowing Korea. freedom of religion." Israel also has economic This theory seemed ties with Indonesia, Sri borne out by the fact that Lanka and Taiwan. no member of the Jewish community is a high gov- ernment official. Jews Named to Post NEW YORK — Washing- who are not members of the community, however, ton attorney Melvin Rishe do hold such positions. was recently named the (The exception is Chief Washington counsel of Rabbi Laszlo Salgo, who Agudath Israel of America is a member of Parlia- as part of the Orthodox ment. His dual capacity Jewish organization's new seems to benefit the state office in the nation's capitol.