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Hope In Hungary
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Seders in the countryside signify the
possibility of a Jewish revival.
MICHAEL J. JORDAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Budapest
t was at Rosh Hashanah last year
at the university that Adam
Balogh first noticed a young
woman wearing a Star of David
around her neck. As leader of the tiny
Szeged branch of the Hungarian Union
of Jewish Students, Balogh, a 19-year-
1d law student, makes it his business to
unite the local Jews. He approached to
ask her if she was indeed Jewish.
Saying that she was, the woman
then admitted that she didn't know
what being Jewish meant. Balogh
invited her to come along to syna-
gogue.
Her response, he said, was: "How
__much does it cost to get in?'"
An extreme case, perhaps. But
one that reveals the sorry state of
Jewry in the Hungarian countryside.
Before the war, three-quarters of the
800,000-strong Jewish community lived
in the provinces; today, just a smattering
of the 100,000 or so Hungarian Jews
reside outside of Budapest, the capital.
So thorough was the Nazi and
JHungarian genocide, so complete the
assimilation and repression of Jewishness
during the communist era that followed,
that now a woman whose own grandfa-
ther had been president of the lively
Nyiregyhaza Jewish community actually
was telling Balogh she thought she had
to pay to pray
'After the war, so many people forgot
they were Jewish," said Balogh. "We
have to remind them of it, and revive
Jewish life."
Thanks to the efforts of Balogh and
others, there's now a glimmer of hope.
Since October, that same woman with
the Star of David has become one of the
most active of Szeged's two dozen stu-
dent members. In December, the Jewish
students' network unveiled its fourth
affiliate in the provinces — the eight-
member Nagykanizsa chapter, which
joins others in Szeged, Pecs and
Debrecen. A fifth chapter may be
founded in Szombathely, a small western
Hungarian city that borders Austria.
The strides made by UJS in the past
year will be capped by a huge Passover
seder in Budapest, which is expected to
draw many young Jews from the coun-
tryside. For those who stay home, com-
munity seders will be held in several
smaller cities.
That there's now a Jewish pulse in the
countryside comes as a great surprise in
Budapest, even among the small core of
young Jewish activists. "I really thought
there weren't any Jews left out there,"
said Janos Ratonyi, 25. "I thought they
were killed in the Holocaust, left the
country, moved to Budapest or com-
pletely gave up being Jewish."
Before the collapse of communism in
1989, Jews in the provinces had an idea
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"So many people
forgot they were
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—
of who else was Jewish, but wouldn't dis-
cuss it publicly. In an oppressive system
that fostered paranoia, Jews had to be
cautious about who to trust and what
information to divulge. "Zionist" was a
frequent accusation against those who
seemed too Jewish.
With so much kept secret from
Jewish children, only recently have they
discovered their Jewishness.
Three years ago, activists in Pecs
sought help to form the first chapter
outside Budapest. Csaba Kurti, 22,
president of the 40-member group,
said leaders "went door to door, asking
older Jews we knew who still went to
synagogue" about their grandchildren,
and where they were.
Even when approached, many of the
young Jews shy away from joining an
openly Jewish group.
"They say they have their Jewish
friends and that's enough," said Gyorgy
Gador, a Budapest native who helped
found the Szeged chapter of the group
while studying in town. "They don't
want to get together with other Jews
where the only reason for doing it is
because they're Jewish."
With the lion's share of foreign
investment, infrastructure projects and
job creation centered on Budapest, little
of it trickles into the countryside. The
future of Jewry in Hungary appears to
be an economic question.
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Source: 1998 Simmons Jewish News Study
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