Autodidact, eclectic. A professional non-professional multi-faceted person.

Administrator, analyst, journalist, worker, social worker, limited knowledge in legal matters, handicraftsman, agriculturalist, etc. All on a non-professional level but with certain experience and knowledge. And more. Proletarian, utopian socialist, uneducated, mondian (world-citizen), Esperantist, anarcho-pacifist, moralist and health vegan aimed at fruitarian, naturist and naturalist, naturopathic, green, secular-humanistic rationalist, notJewish since age ten, socio-political human rights & peace multi-activist, responsible freak, loving humans but not masses and mass-mentality, also not individualism. Seeks woman and men who are similar or wish to become alike quickly, who seek one like me candidly, to share everything mutually. Ultimate aim: commune thru stages (or at once if there is utmost consent), to become integrated, integral humans of integrity, thru simple, optimistic, modest, creative, constantly consistent lifestyle.

Katalin Csehek: He was Hungarian and at the age of ten his mom wanted to leave to Israel, and you know how ten yearolds are, he obviously wanted to stay with his friends, but he had to go with the mom. Uri Davis: And then he arrived in Israel as a young, very young man. In Hungary he was a leading figure in the Communist Youth Movement. He had leadership capacities and potential and indeed these were evident in everything he did. Juan Antonio Postigo Martn: He was in a specific moment in Europe after the war, and as a child he was saying he was no longer a Jew, he was refusing religion and feeling connected to Marxism. I remember that he opposed being taken to Israel by his mother because he felt he was a Hungarian Communist Patriot. KC: He arrived in Israel to witness this Jewish religious ceremony, the shechita that opens up the vein of the chicken. And this chicken instead of sitting down and dying slowly it was running around and the ten year-old Toma grabbed the knife of the shochet and cut the neck of the chicken not being able to see it suffer. JAPM: It came very soon when he was in Israel he was working in sacrificing chicken for food and he was doing it
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in a simple and quick way but it wasnt kosher. The kosher way was more related to religion and theoretically a better way, but it caused pain to the animal. He was feeling this is very hypocritical, and he went beyond this in thinking how stupid are ideas about killing animals: the one prescribed by religion or the quick and the less painful way for the animal. But why do we have any need to kill the animal at all. He decided very young to become vegan. Katalin Magdolna Gyetvn: We were sitting on a bench in the street in October I suppose, in central Budapest. I wanted to buy him some bananas in the nearby shop and he prohibited us to enter that shop because it sold so many bad things and he was so firm about buying only in the bio market. He was against cruelty of any kind and he didnt enter a shop or a restaurant or any place that sold bad products.

UD: Well, lets start: auto-didact, I dont think Toma had education beyond secondary school. He graduated from a youth institution called Alonei Itzhak, basically a boarding facility for young men and women. All of his education and definitely all of his pacifist education was obtained on an eclectic and auto-didactic basis. But I dont think that he was properly read. I heard him say that as far as he was concerned if he took a book and read the first chapter and then turned it around and read the conclusion he had a fair idea of what the book was all about and took the next book. So I dont think he was properly read and in this sense eclectic.
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JAPM: He took strong positions sometimes that could be considered as inflexible or dogmatic somehow against rituals, against the far beyond, against mysticism. His interest for a rational approach to life in general was so important for him that to go beyond the superstitious we are doing something it has to be done for some reason we are conscious about, not because it has always been done that way I think that it could be depriving Toma of help or of people who want similar things in practical issues but are on more spiritual or religious paths. It is an important part of his approach which expresses the way he was: of questioning everything and of not just believing things without having experienced or seeing them. KC: He always stood up for the weak, especially for women, he was always ready to stand up and protect the rights of the ones who were suppressed. You know, most people know what is right and what is wrong but very few people are able to stand up for it and sacrifice their own status. And Toma, regardless of political background, regardless of ethical background was able to stand up for what he believed was right. KMG: Toma was a super man, he combined all the good qualities in himself. He was at the same time gentle, very magical, full of love, and yet decisive, yet very very strong in his views, and he could answer every kind of question, he could disprove every kind of doubt.

JAPM: This idea of being a world citizen, a mondian, rejecting to be defined by a country, or by a nation, is a very important idea that reflects an early evolution but that was also more and more firm in his ideas. It has to do with his shock arriving in Israel and seeing that the State of Israel was doing similar things as the Jews had been suffering under the fascist oppression in Europe. This meant that this cannot happen again to anyone on earth not only to you humans but also animals. So he relates this aspect of not wanting this kind of situation to happen again to any human but also not to animals: exploitation, unfair situations and suffering. In fact it is something that goes beyond being internationalist, going beyond nations, the idea in the end in a utopian way is not more close relationships between nations but that nations could be little by little diluted. At the same time in the state he was, the fight was different because it was also about defending the rights of people to be the way they are. The idea of being mondian, its true, most of his life had been devoted to action in a specific place he was living in, Israel/ Palestine, and curiously towards the end of his life after some time spent in United Kingdom and United States, curiously, in spite of this mondian approach, when choosing a place for establishing his ideal commune, he chose to come back to Hungary. KMG: As far as I know he was very very active. He kept letters, and went in the street and he had any kind and every kind of leaflets and posters. He advertised veganism
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as much as he could and he was very active in media as well. He was never tired to go to peace movements, even to Greece. It didnt matter to him where to go or what to do. He was full of energy in spite of his very simple life. KC: Well obviously he was a world citizen, he lived in several countries, he could fly at any moment, when he wanted to fly somewhere he could manage, I dont know how because he somehow did not work, but he was very clever and also needless. His needs were really basic, so he went to the market when the market was closing and he found there left over fruits or vegetables. Before they would have thrown something away he would have bought it for basically nothing. He managed his life in a different way than how we live. So he had different needs, and then he managed to fly wherever he wanted when he wanted to go somewhere because he wanted to meet someone, and that was more important to him than a beautiful bathroom in your house.

UD: Tomas residence, Tomas flat was packed both at the level of principle commitment to recycling and at the level of living as poorly as possible in the Gandhian sense of the term. Toma for instance picked up anything that could be useful of the pavement or the street. He bought his food in the markets, and he went to the market towards the very end just before markets closed and so he could get at ridiculous rates or even free food that in the market would be put away or thrown away because it was just about too ripe or too
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mature to sell the following day. So he had his vegetables and fruits very cheaply and taken from the market before they were disposed of to the rubbish, in the sense of conserving food and not wasting food. So his flats, both in Israel and in Hungary were cluttered cluttered cluttered with anything you could think, whether it was screws or bolts or pieces of cloth or crates that were turned into cabinets, he made his cabinets out of crates. He lived off the street and a very ascetic life. Absolutely full of things, also he was a documentalist and would not throw away any piece of paper so he had archives that he never quite managed to sort out and he was seeking assistants, people to help him sort his archives. He developed a small pacifist library which others rarely used. It was all very very cluttered. One could barely find a path among the heaps of stuff he had in his flat, most of them as I said collected off the street as useful for recycling.

KC: He was ready to go against anything, thats a freak right? That doesnt care what others think, who doesnt care about the regulations and all the symbols and all the rituals and all the habits. He believes in his responsibility that what is right has to be done. I mean right is the good, the basic good, not what we say legally good, but what you feel deep in your heart is good then he would step up and do something.

UD: One reason Toma left Israel for Hungary, he was a dual citizen, Israeli and Hungarian, was indeed his hope to find a plot of land where his agricultural vegan community could physically be located. And he did find such a plot, he purchased a farm and hopefully through the alternative movement in Hungary which was fast developing, develop an intentional community of the kind which was his lifetime ambition. And the same pattern followed him in Hungary, he ended up on his farm totally isolated on his own. KMG: At the time he lived only in Budapest and he planned to create his little farm, farming the great hungarian plain, but it was very very hard for him as many people did not keep their promise, did not join him. We, as a matter of fact never promised to join him, because those times were very hard for us, big family, four children, husband, and we had settled down in a rural town. But of course we tried to help Toma to find the proper place. And actually he found the proper place for the farm and his only problem was to find the people. and in his personal life he had big difficulties as his mates broke off relations with him and psychologically he felt himself a little bit unwell and he found himself a bit lonely that was not good for him. When he moved to the farm from Budapest, we worried about him a lot, because that unfriendly place I suppose it wasnt good for him as he was a social person.
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KC: So he bought a school and then he wanted to create the ideal community, which he advertised. Here there is some piquant detail that i know, that i heard, that Toma was looking for people to participate in the community who would follow certain regulations in their sexual lives, in sharing their partners. And there are too many regulations in the sexual life that usually scares people. And there were lots of people who wanted to register and then to come to the community to cultivate the land and live together. And usually these regulations on sexual life scared them away. UD: An in parallel he was temperamentally, I believe monogamist in his relationships to women, yes, if he fell in love with a woman he fell in love wholly and totally and I dont think he would devote any time to other relationships, not on the basis of puritanism but on the basis of being completely absorbed in the relationship with a woman. But in principle he insisted that in his community sexual relationships would not be monogamous but people would have the right to sleep with whoever they fancied.

JAPM: The idea was... the way to build a better world is to build communities and that they can be a model and can relate and expand and they can really create utopia. They can create a beautiful society in which people love each
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other, in which everydays problems are really solved in an efficient way. Somehow later in his life he decided to devote a life to this, specifically because during his life even if his ideas were more in this utopic, in this building utopia, he engaged himself in many causes that were important, that were urgent, fighting unfair situations. So yeah, he was giving much of himself into all these causes, fighting for them and towards the end of his life, he was like feeling now well I have to concentrate on myself, in what I love most, in my ideas of building utopia. UD: So there was Toma trying to associate around himself a group of people to form a community, a pacifist anarchist vegetarian vegan free loving community and preferably on land that was not contaminated by ethnic cleansing. And the community that he tried to form was of course made of individuals whose values and temperaments overlapped but never of course overlapped completely, that is impossible! And with Toma, Toma found it much more difficult to accept a difference at a level of principle in his immediate proximity than a difference... I... rather than an abstract formulation ill try to be more concrete: so there was a difference at the level of being vegetarian and not vegetarian and subsequently a difference between being a pacifist and no longer a pacifist and yet the friendship survived for a life time, I believe I regarded Toma as my brother and I believe I was among very few of his continuing and strong friends. We were open to each other at almost every level, philosophical, political, personal. The fact that we were that different but not in proximity of a community, as it was clear
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that I am not a candidate to be in Tomas community with these kinds of differences it did not injure our friendship. Our friendship was based on a sentimental proximity, antizionist proximity ....but not on an ideological foundation of, lets say, pacifism or vegetarianism. And Toma was able to accept the difference because it was such a glaring difference from his point of view. Whereas when it came to a difference of being a vegan vegetarian or a vegetarian but not vegan, a pacifist but not an anarchist pacifist, an anarchist but interested in mysticism, that kind of difference within the orbit of an intentional community, Toma found it impossible to accept and the relationship fell apart.

JAPM: This is an important issue... loving humans, but not masses... because... we are individuals, well, we consider ourselves as people, as a group, as a mass, as a religion, as anything: well, this is just an abstraction but its not the real thing. The real thing is that we are individuals and when we talk about creating a better world, this world will be better only and if its better for individuals, somehow. The idea in individualism is about considering myself as the only important individual, somehow. Mass mentality is not considering any individual as important, or maybe only the leaders as important. Loving humans is a different thing. Loving humans is putting the emphasis on relationships, on relationships between humans, equal relationships between humans. We and you, I and you, in a dialogue. Individuals are not centered on themselves but also dont dilute on a
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mass but keep their own features, their own individuality, their own freedom, their own wishes, their own feelings and relate to each other on that basis. UD: Loving humans but not masses and mass mentality, also not individualism. Now, loving humans... that is definitely correct; he also had the particular attraction to loving the female division of humanity, but not masses and not mass mentality, correct, but also not individualism. All that is, how should one put it: the super individualist Toma Sik doesnt like individualism, basically, Its almost funny! Loving humans but not individualism... well, look at yourself dearest Toma!

KMG: And he lived his lonely life, I dont know how many months... two years? yes, I dont know what his life was in Israel but I suppose Hungary disappointed him at that time. Yes I am sure that his life was not too happy and... living in nature which was very nice and he was happy to see his fruit trees and all kinds of vines, but living alone was not his style, absolutely not his style and the winter before I remember he spent all alone in that farm. That winter was especially cruel, with snow and cold weather, and it was very very bad for Toma, I suppose. He told me about his fear, his fear from loneliness, the long dark nights that he couldnt do anything, not even electricity in the farm... So it was a trial time for him but from a spiritual point of view, I suppose Toma took a huge step forward!
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A real, living, serious, honest, responsible, vegan, multilingual, secular-humanist, sustainable EGALITARIAN COMMUNE In rural, vegan-compassionate-agricultural, natural, naturalist, naturopathic, modest-simple life-style; re-using, re-cycling, repairing, reconstructing by low to medium technology, with principled non-academic, non-elitist, practical, scientific approach, creating a new-old culture and humane environment of mutuality and reciprocity on equal footing, a togetherness of LOVE, sharing, partnership in an integral, integrated life based on integrity, reason, commitment & devotion, openness and truthfulness, good & constant communication & information, analysis, criticism and self-criticism, - without hypocritical pseudo-psychologistic non-judgmentality, pluralism, acceptance, dependence, physical & mental expoitation, in brief: without mysticism; a non-isolationist, wider-socially caring-acting society. If you are a strongly motivated, strongly potential, strongly intending implementer (equipped of course with strong philosophy!) please send your personal data, resume, with detailed, principled and practical ideas, expectations, abilities, availability to me.
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This pamphlet is the first publication of the Pacifist Library, an art project by Nathaniel Katz and Valentina Curandi that takes Toma Siks apartment as its inspiration in building a mobile pacifist library constructed entirely from recycled and reused materials and traveling around New York City. One of the activities of the Pacifist Library is the publication of a series of pamphlets on themes related to pacifism, nonviolence, social justice and community building. For more information visit: curandikatz.net

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