The Jewish Minority(?) in Hungary

Abstract

Abstract Judaism of Hungary finds itself at the beginning of the 21st century in an extremely complicated and contradictory situation. Already the question mark in the title indicates the problem formulation of the status of the Hungarian Jews picked out as a central theme for about 150 years. The political turn about 1989 opened unexpectedly new perspectives in the self-realisation and identity of the Hungarian Jews which were perceived, nevertheless, differently. Already in the 19th century, the Jewish minority was split and evolved in the course of the 20th century, in particular subsequently of the Holocaust and the post-war period up to the end of the century, to an exceedingly heterogeneous religious, but also social entity. A renewed turn to the Jewish culture, tradition, and religion is to be noted only after 1990 again, interestingly predominantly in the circle of the Jewish youngsters whose parents had put under taboo, concealed or declined their Jewish identity. The diversity and plurality of the Hungarian Judaism as a result of a long historical and social development in the 21st century can be looked at as a report of its extraordinary vitality; nevertheless, the internal disunity makes it difficult to adopt a unified position towards the stronger and stronger growing Hungarian national rhetoric.