SINAI HOSPITAL
HUNGARY page 73
Sinai Hospital
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology
is pleased to welcome
David M. Magyar, D.O.
Maria F. Hayes, M.D.
Gary R. Jones, M.D.
specialists in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility
Center for Reproductive Medicine
Northwestern Professional Pavilion
29255 Northwestern Hwy., Suite 106
Southfield, Michigan 48034
•
•
•
Services include:
infertility assessment and treatment
Endometriosis/Laser Therapy
in vitro fertilization (IVF and GIFT)
To make an appointment, please call between the hours of
8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday
(810) 356-8827.
The Community Is Invited
To Meet And Hear
Play the market
right and you
could lose it all.
HARRY ZVI HURWITZ
Israel Author of
"Begin: A Portrait"
Sunday, November 13th • 7:00 p.m.
at the
Jewish Book Fair
Jewish Community Center
West Bloomfield
HARRY HURWITZ served as Advisor on
Diaspora Jewish Affairs to former Israeli
Prime Ministers MENACHEM BEGIN z" 1
and YITZHAK SHAMIR
r
Sponsored by:
Zionist Organization of America
of Metropolitan Detroit
The Bright Idea:
9
Give a Gift Subscription THE JEWISH NEWS
You could lose things
like extra weight. High
blood pressure. And high
blood cholesterol levels.
The very things that con-
tribute to heart attack and
stroke.
All you have to do is in-
vest wisely at the super-
market.
Buy more in the fresh
produce, pasta, breads
and cereals sections. And
purchase fish, poultry and
lean meats instead of fatty
or processed meats.
Switch to low-fat dairy
products and margarine.
And check the nutritional
listings on food labels.
In short, be selective
about how you play this
market. Because no mat-
ter how much you lose,
you've got a lot to win.
WE'RE FIGHTING FOR
YOUR LIFE
American Heart
Association
ian texts lined one wall. Pictures
of Israel lined another. I asked
the rabbi how the Communists'
departure affected the Jewish
community.
"(It) means freedom and
democracy for all Hungarians,"
he said. "And even more so for the
Jews. Now we can rebuild our
community and ensure the future
of Hungarian Jewry."
I learned that in the past four
years four new Jewish schools
have enrolled hundreds of Jew-
ish students. The rabbinical sem-
inary, which during the
Communists had only 30 stu-
dents, is training more than 60
future rabbis.
Rabbi Frolich painted a rosy
picture of Jewish renaissance.
The departure of the Commu-
nists had opened freedoms that
before were lacking, thus allow-
ing for unfettered expression of
Jewish religion and culture.
A few days later, I met Erno
Lazarovitz, director of foreign re-
lations for the Jewish communi-
ty. A former professor of
philosophy and well-known jour-
nalist, Dr. Lazarovitz is a re-
spected man in the Hungarian
Jewish community and routine-
ly gives interviews to people cu-
rious about Hungarian Jewry.
"Under the Communists," he
explained, "students from Jew-
ish schools were not accepted at
the university because they could
not be good Communists. Now,
that has changed. Students are
free to attend Jewish grade
schools and high schools with no
fear of matriculatory discrimi-
hation on the university level."
Dr: Lazarovitz_ said the in-
creased enrollment in Jewish
schools makes "certain that Jew-
ish life and religion will continue
in Hungary."
"Will it?" I wondered.
According to statistics from
Rabbi Frolich and Dr. Lazarovitz,
between 150,000 and 200,000
Jews live in Hungary. Perhaps
half that number, Dr. Lazarovitz
says, are openly, actively Jewish.
A significant number lost their
Jewish connection during the
Communist era.
To get a true sense of the Jew-
- ish situation, I knew I had to talk
with a typical family whose mem.
bers, unlike the rabbi and Dr.
Lazarovitz, did not occupy posi-
tions of leadership.
The next week, I met a man
named Erno Laszlo at the syna-
gogue during Saturday services.
He invited me for Shabbat din-
ner with his family the next Fri-
day night. I gladly accepted.
Mr. Laszlo, an engineer, his
wife Mayla, and their daughters,
Anya and Sarah, live in a small
but comfortable apartment in a
leafy section of Buda. They attend
the Dohany Street Synagogue
across the Danube in Pest be-
cause, as Mr. Laszlo explained,
his father was bar mitzvah there.
Sarah, a brown-haired girl of
12, recited the Kiddush in Hun-
garian-accented Hebrew. Al-
though neither Mr. Lazslo nor his
wife speak or understand He-
brew, they followed along hum-
ming the melody.
That dinner changed my way
of thinking about Eastern Eu-
rope. Until then, the region still
seemed a place fixed firmly in the
past, a smoldering wasteland
strewn with blood and corpses.
That Shabbat dinner opened my
eyes to a new dimension in Jew-
ish history.
After dinner, Mr. Lazslo spoke
of his decision to enroll his daugh-
ters in a Jewish school and his at-
tempts to rekindle his own
dormant Judaism.
"When I was growing up," he
said, referring to the early days
of the Communist occupation,
"very few Jews went to syna-
gogue or did anything to be Jew-
ish. It wasn't against the law,
officially, but it was discouraged.
Many people, like my father,
feared that they might lose their
jobs if they were Jews in public.
So my father kept being a Jew
and teaching me and my sister
— but only in secret."
Mr. Lazslo pointed to a worn-
out, tarnished menorah on a
shelf.
"That was my father's," he
said. "He kept such things to re-
The departure of the
Communists opens
freedoms.
mind us, and himself, of who we
were."
But young Erno attended pub-
lic school and most of his friends
were either gentile or Jews with
no knowledge of their roots. Erno
lost interest in Judaism, but his
father never stopped reminding
him.
"My father survived the Nazis,
you see, and so he could never for-
get. Even though for a long time
I never did anything Jewish, I
think that because of my father
I put my daughters in a Jewish
school," he said. "Now, they teach
me."
During my last days in Bu-
dapest, it struck me that Hun-
garian Jews are experiencing
something that they have never
before encountered: the ability to
choose to live as Jews in a free so-
ciety. Before and during the Holo-
caust, being Jewish was not a
matter of choice. Jews were Jews,
and the government considered
them undesirable. Many simply
let their roots decay. Now, in an
age of budding political freedom,
many people feel the stirrings of
long muted Jewish feelings.
But freedom allows for choice,
and many families choose to ig-
nore, or simply cannot resurrect,
their Jewish past. Like so many .
Jews elsewhere, some Hungari-