Truth and/or peace: the political toolkit of the Hungarian Jewish Congress (1868-69) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Jewish Culture and History 21, 3 (2020): 213-225.
This article studies the Hungarian Jewish Congress of 1868–1869 from a European perspective. During the run-up to the Congress, the Jewish press discussed intensely the organizational models found in Jewish history, in modern Jewries abroad, as well as in the minority churches of Hungary. Central European Jews challenged the success narrative that had come to be associated with the Napoleonic Sanhedrin and the central administration of French Jewry. Comparison with other religious unification attempts can teach us about the expectations that were projected onto the effort to control the Hungarian Jewish pluralization processes with the devices of parliamentary democracy. According to JCH policies, there is a 18 months embargo period on uploading articles to open platforms such as academia.edu, but the author may share the text with colleagues in private (wilkec@ceu.edu).
The Congress of 1868-69 and the fragmentation of Hungarian Jewry: a quantitative study
Jewish Culture and History, 2020
ABSTRACT Hungarian Jewry has a reputation for being the most polarized of Jewries. In the popular imagination, a chasm yawned between rabid assimilationists on the one side and equally extreme ultra-Orthodox on the other. This study seeks to throw new light on this polarization. It will be based on a quantitative analysis of voting patterns at the Congress as well as a unique set of statistics that presents data on the relative strength of the various Jewish religious nationwide organizations at the turn of the century.
THE POLITICS OF JEWISH ORTHODOXY: THE CASE OF HUNGARY 1868–1918
Modern Judaism, 2016
In its early days at the turn of the nineteenth century, Jewish Orthodoxy (henceforth: Orthodoxy) was no more than an abstract notion shared by a few European rabbis who dreaded the consequences of modern values, opposed the idea that Jewish children should be taught secular subjects and resisted the introduction of religious reforms. Only a century later, at the beginning of the twentieth century, were two global Orthodox organizations—Ha-Mizrahi and Agudath Israel—established. These were fully-fledged political movements, one of which operated within the frame of the Zionist movement, while the other, although willing to cooperate with the Zionist leadership, never became a part of it. While the link between religion and politics has occupied academia worldwide, the history of the relations between Orthodoxy and politics has gained far less attention. Most available studies address the historical processes and events that occurred after the establishment of the two major Orthodox movements, i.e. during the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries. Only a handful of studies has examined the early stages of the evolution of Orthodoxy’s political forms, and even less attention has been paid to Orthodoxy’s inner politics. Although this article deals with occurrences that took place more than a century ago, many of the political and social issues it discusses are as relevant to Orthodoxy today as they were back then.
2004
The early 1880s were both difficult and extraordinary from the point of view of Hungarian Jewry. Political antisemitism had been present for half a decade, but it became violent and influential during these years, though only for these years. In other words, this was a time of crisis within the ‘Golden Era’ of the Hungarian Jewry, as some researchers of Hungarian Jews call the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy 1867–1918. [1] Besides antisemitism ‘normal’ political debate took place in parliament simultaneously, namely that related to the bill on Jewish–Christian marriages, which was also decisive from a Jewish point of view. The ‘antisemitic wave’ started with the attempts to establish a nation-wide movement, the Central Association of Non-Jewish Hungarians, following the example of Wilhelm Marr’s Antisemitenliga in Germany. [2] This period of virulent antisemitic activity culminated in the events related to the infamous Tiszaeszlár blood libel case, including a series of riot...
Religion Culture Society 5 , 2018
The study examined the question of veneration of the king, confessionalization and state patriotism in the Jewish denominational press before 1944 through the example of the attitude towards the ruler and the authorities of the Jewish communities interpreting themselves in the historical life-world of the diaspora. The life-worlds of the Monarchy experienced on a denominational basis fundamentally determined the experiences, possibilities for action, interpretations, discourse tradition and perspectives of their members. In the case of the Jews the ways in which denominational discourse traditions were shaped and the ways of relating to the broader social environment were influenced by the traditions of Judaism, the possibilities and limitations of the changing society, and by the appearance of modern ideals of nation.
Jewish Lives Under Communism. New Perspectives, 2022
, Hungarian historian Miklós Szabó discussed the problem of prejudice and antisemitism in an interview published on the pages of Hírmondó, the Hungarian samizdat-an illegal under ground journal opposed to the socialist regime. He opined that Hungarian society should react to the so-called Jewish issue in two ways: first, it should not discriminate in any way against those who are or want to be assimilated; second, it has to make it pos si ble for Jews to express their Jewish identity if they wish to do so.1 Szabó correctly noticed that there had been significant changes in the self-definition of Hungary's Jews by the late 1960s. But what exactly did these new Jewish identities encompass, and how should Hungarian society put Szabó's ideas into practice? My study maps the discourses surrounding this shift in identity among Hungary's Jews, the largest Jewish community in East Central Eu rope after the Shoah. After two postwar emigration waves-in 1945-1948 and after the failed revolution of 1956-the Hungarian Jewish Community numbered more than 100,000 people,2 even though the majority were highly assimilated. I argue that the dif erent responses to the "Jewish Question" from among this still sizable Jewish population were not only connected to prob lems of minority politics but were also indicative of key questions about the nature of the future Hungarian democracy and the dif er ent groups within the then-forming Hungarian opposition and proto-parties. Thus, the arguments put forward by the under ground Jewish formations discussed in this chapter engaged in debate not only with the socialist regime but also with its opposition. The "Jewish Question" thus became deeply embedded in the broader structural and ideological po liti cal issues of Hungary.
The Compromise had, among other consequences, the passage of the law granting Jews equal rights with the Hungary’s Christian habitants. Miklós Konrád’s article endeavors to answer the question whether by this time Hungarian political and cultural elites and Jewish intellectuals had reached some kind of agreement regarding the expectations Jews should meet before – or after – being granted equal rights. Konrád tracks the dynamics of Hungarian expectations and Jewish reactions from the early 1840s to 1867. He demonstrates that from the beginning of the emancipation debates, the fundamental expectation set for Jews was that they adopt Hungarian language and declare themselves “Magyars” to strengthen the Hungarian element at the expense of the nationalities. Integrationist Jews fully accepted this condition. However, as far as the most debated issue was concerned, that is the radical reform of Jewish religion, the two sides never reached an agreement. By 1867, Hungarian liberal elite had resigned itself to the fact that with the exception of a tiny minority, Jews would not bargain their religion. Yet in this way an essential disagreement lingered on concerning the degree of the Jews’ acceptable otherness – since this was precisely what the issue of religious reform was about.