Géza Komoróczy, History of the Jews in Hungary, vol.

I: From the
Middle Ages until 1849, pp. 1230; vol. II: From 1849 until the
Present, pp. 1213; photos

The Jews rarely come up in the books on the history of Hungary, and when
mentioned, they are usually referred to as foreigners: merchants,
manufacturers or landowners who paid a lot for their coat of arms.
Historians tend to pay more attention to those assimilated, striving for full
adaptation, or to the revolutionary who want to overturn the old order, and
not to people who lived their lives as Jews and remained loyal to tradition.
This book surveys nearly thousand years of the history of the Jews in
Hungary, almost as long a period as the history of Hungarian tribes after
they came to the Carpathian basin from the steppe in South-Russia. The
immigration of Jews to Hungary was a similar conquest of homeland, only
in many steps or waves. They felt at home in
Hungary.
The history of Jews in Hungary came to pass, it
is too obvious, within the historical borders of the
Hungarian state and society. Beside Buda (Ofen),
Óbuda (Alt-Ofen), Pest and the villages in present
Hungarian countryside, cities like Pozsony
(Pressburg / Bratislava) or Munkács (Mukačevo),
Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia), Rohonc (Rechnitz),
Kismarton (Eisenstadt), Magyar-Brod (Ungarisch-
Brod / Uherský Brod) in Moravia or Brody in
Galicia also have a part in the book. These cities,
towns and villages mark the borders of the history
of Jews in Hungary.
The Jews living in Hungary always took part in
the life European Jewish (Ashkenazi) world, were
closely connected to it by family relationship, commercial contact,
intellectual and ritual relation. Events and developments of the Jewish
community in Hungary were interconnected with those in Austria, Moravia,
Germany, Poland – and in the Middle East, since the Holy Land was always
on the spiritual horizont of the Jews in Hungary.
The Jewish people, spread and deeply rooted all over the world, has a
branch in Hungary. There was for centuries an unmistakable Jewish
component in Hungarian society, in the bourgeois civilization of the nation.
This book describes this very duality: the cosmopolitan connection of the
Jews and their constructive participation in the Hungarian society. The
persecutions and chances of survival, the wrong accomodation and
successful adaptation, the false decisions and successes in integration.

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 In books on Jewish history, the lachrymose tone often prevails, Jewish
history appears as a continuous line of persecutions and sufferings – and
they have suffered and were persecuted, indeed, but, on the other hand, they
were successful merchants, members of the learned citizenry, ingenious
financiers who rescued the country from an economic collapse, industrialists
and investors, engineers, artisans and workmen. Jewish survival and the
significant contribution of Jews to the development of Hungary is a splendid
success story.
From a Jewish point of view, this book also sheds a different light on
some moments in Hungarian history. From the 17th century on, there were
three shining periods in the history of the country, and pride and historical
consciousness of the nation rests on the memory of these, namely on the
insurrections against the Habsburgs around 1700, on the revolution and war
of independence in 1848/49 and the uprising against
communism and the Soviets in 1956. In all three,
there were uncontrolled atrocities against Jews. The
mounted Kuruc rebels of Count Thököly––
hastening to Vienna to help the Turks in the siege of
the city––slaughtered hundred-odd Jews in the
Moravian city of Uherský-Brod (1683), and the
irregulars of Prince Rákóczi plundered travelling
Jewish merchants according to his instructions
(1703–1711). In 1848/49, right after the days of the
revolution, violent anti-Jewish riots broke out in
Pressburg, Pest and elsewhere, in order to prevent
Jews from joining the national guards. And in 1956,
the uprising proclaiming anti-communism turned
directly against Jews in some places, following the
odd allegiation that these two are the same. Singular
times, but ordinary events of Hungarian history, still
not to be compared with the brutality of ghettoization, deportation, killings
in 1944. The true history should not overlook the dark spots of history. It
has to take into account that in the 19th century it was the Jewish burgeoise
who––besides liberal nobility––made a push to get the frames of the feudal
society break down.
During the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy, no Hungarian government
in power would have tolerated antisemitism. For the politicians in the
administration it was a firm principle that Jewish citizens were in all respect
equal to other citizens of the country. In contrast to that, starting from
1918/19, there has been no government that had not issued anti-Jewish laws
or other restrictive measures. There was no government that had not
tolerated, supported or even stirred popular disposition towards the Jews.

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That had not endeavoured for solving social tensions or achieving goals of
national economy on the count of Jewish property (Aryanization,
nationalization, repartition of landed property).
The detailed narrative in this History of the Jews in Hungary is
based on original sources, wherever possible on Jewish sources.
*
The author, Géza Komoróczy (1937) has taught at the Eötvös Loránd
University, Budapest, since 1962, now being a professor emeritus. He
established the Center of Jewish Studies at the Hungarian Academy of
Sciences (1987) and the Chair for Assyriology and Hebrew Studies at
the University. His History of the Jews in Hungary was published in
Hungarian in Pozsony (Bratislava, Slovakia) in 2012, and won the Prize
of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1913).
*
From the Rewievs:
“A sad, yet elevating reading. Before all, it strengthens. Right now, Hungary is
on the brink of ruin. But this book cannot be crushed. It cannot be banned,
supressed, paralysed, this book is invincible, like every true book. This book is
naturally a Hungarian book. A scholarly overview of Hungarian history, with
Jewish eyes. An integrated history of Jews and Hungarians.” (Iván Bacher, writer)

“Readers of these thick volumes are captured by a rare experience of the

wonderful and fascinating narrative and of the encyclopedic details. The book
covers eleven centuries of history, and the author, when presenting Jews living in
Hungary, always takes into consideration that the seat of their life was in all
periods the European scene. In our days, there is no similar work neither in
Hungarian nor in international historiography. The monumental book testifies
about the successful survival of Jewish people and communities extending over
centuries, and about their tragic decline in the cataclysms of the 20th century.”
(Antal Örkény, professor, social historian)