Jewish Revival in Post-Communist Hungary: Expectations and Reality

Abstract

Abstract After the fall of Communism, a general expectation prevailed that a Jewish revival was imminent in Hungary where the numerical estimates tended toward 100,000 people with Jewish parentage and ranging upwards of 150,000 for those of partial Jewish descent. Based on a comparison of data collected during the 1999 and 2016–2017 large scale Jewish population surveys, the article aims to reconsider whether Jewish group identification increased in the decades after the fall of Communism, and how developments in this respect may be related to the functioning of the Jewish institutions in Hungary. The results of the analysis demonstrate that nowadays Jews of the country perceive themselves much more frequently as members of a bounded group and are increasingly open to being identified as Jewish in interactions with their environment than earlier. Yet these changes are less the consequence of a return to traditional religious observance in the framework of the Jewish religious institutions, and more the products of enhanced ethnic consciousness and identification.