Schism, Sectarianism and Jewish Denominationalism: Hungarian Jewry in a Comparative Perspective

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Schism, Sectarianism and Jewish Denominationalism: Hungarian Jewry in a Comparative Perspective

Veranstalter
Central European University (Jewish Studies), Budapest, Hungary, in cooperation with Bar Ilan University (Graduate Program in Contemporary Jewry and Faculty of Jewish Studies), Ramat Gan, Israel, and the Institut für die Geschichte der deutschen Juden, Hamburg, Germany
Veranstaltungsort
Central European University, 1051 Budapest, Nador utca 9, Hungary
Ort
Budapest
Land
Hungary
Vom - Bis
13.10.2009 - 15.10.2009
Website
http://www.ceu.hu/jewishstudies
Von
Dagmar Wienrich, Institut für die Geschichte der deutschen Juden

In A House Divided: Orthodoxy and Schism in Nineteenth-Century Central European Jewry (Hebrew, 1995; English 1998), Jacob Katz examined the links between Jewish separatism in Hungary and Germany, placing the Hungarian Jewish schism (1868-71) in a wider European context. By the 1860s, Hungarian Jewry was deeply divided along ideological lines, with the Neolog movement supporting cultural integration and moderate religious reform, and the Orthodox movement steadfastly opposing the outlook and lifestyle of their acculturated counterparts. The official split occurred in the aftermath of the state-sponsored “Jewish Congress” (1868-69), which aimed to establish a single, unified organization for the recently-emancipated Jews of Hungary, but instead, led to the institutionalization of the Neolog-Orthodox split. From 1871 onward, the Hungarian government recognized two separate national Jewish organizations, and each local Jewish community was expected to join either the Neolog or Orthodox one. While most communities did as expected, some chose to ignore the split by identifying with the pre-Congress status quo (status quo ante). Henceforce, Hungarian Jewry was divided into three groups: Neolog, Orthodox and Status Quo Ante.

The tripartite division remained one of the defining features of Hungarian Jewry until the middle of the twentieth century, leaving its mark on Hungarian Orthodoxy, in particular. Until the Congress, a significant Hungarian Orthodox faction expressed positive attitudes toward certain aspects of European culture. Unlike Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch of Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, who wanted to hermetically separate Orthodox and non-Orthodox institutions, these Hungarian Orthodox moderates sought political compromises that would allow for Hungarian communal unity. The Ultra-Orthodox were rather marginal to the Congress, but they helped push the center Orthodox further to the right, and closer to the separatist ideology, which was predicated on the demonization of all aspects of modern culture and the exclusion of other Orthodox Jews who sought to minimize the conflict with non-Jewish culture and non-Orthodox Jews.

Hungarian Jewry was officially reunified in 1950, under pressure from the communist regime, but the Orthodox ideology of separation continues to play a role in contemporary Jewish life in Israel, North America, and even post-communist Hungary. Neology remains the largest Jewish denomination in contemporary Hungary, but even this movement is often defined in opposition to Orthodoxy, with little scholarly focus on its distinct institutional, theological and halakhic traditions.

The aim of the conference is to serve as a platform for exploring fresh approaches and addressing less well-known aspects of the initial nineteenth century Hungarian conflicts. As such, it will advance further the burgeoning field of research into Hungarian Orthodoxy that has emerged in the last two decades. At the same time, it is hoped that the focus on the formative events will serve to reinvigorate the examination of the liberal Jewish ideologies and political profiles that have received limited attention in the recent past. The legacy of this framework, as already pointed out, has extended both chronologically and geographically beyond the nineteenth century Hungarian milieu.

Programm

Tuesday, October 13

6:00 p.m. – 6:15 p.m. Opening Remarks
Michael L. Miller (CEU, Hungary)

6:15 p.m. – 7:15 p.m. Keynote Address

Michael Silber (Hebrew University, Israel): Was the Hungarian Jewish Schism Inevitable?

Wednesday, October 14

10:00-10:10: Welcome
Andreas Braemer (Institute for the History of German Jews, Hamburg)

10:10 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Session 1 Schism and Education

Carsten Wilke (CEU, Hungary):
Orthodoxy's Stronghold: The Educational Policies of the Pressburg Yeshiva and Their Bearing on the Hungarian Jewish Schism

Mirjam Thulin (Simon-Dubnow-Institut, Leipzig): The Controversies over the Rabbinical Seminary in Budapest

Victor Karady (CEU, Hungary): The Imprint of Religious Divisions on Schooling Strategies in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1850-1914

1:30 p.m – 2:45 p.m.
Impact of the Schism on Religious Practice

Shlomo Spitzer (Bar-Ilan University, Israel): The Schism in Hungary and Its Influence on Halakhah

Maoz Kahane (Hebrew University, Israel): Hungarian- Jewish Hasidic Society after the Schism: the Dual Meaning of an Enclave Society

3:15 p.m. – 4:45 p.m.
Session 3 The Sounds and Sites of Schism

Rudolf Klein (St. Stephen University, Hungary): The Architecture of Schism: Neolog and Orthodox Synagogues in Historical Hungary

Judit Frigyesi (Bar-Ilan University, Israel): Neolog and Orthodox: Music as the Fundamental Expression of Contrasting Attitudes

5:15 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Session 4 The Jewish Congress: Reverberations Abroad
Moderator:

Andreas Braemer (Institute for the History of German Jews, Hamburg): The 'Jewish Congress' in Hungary - German Responses and Reactions

Rachel Manekin (University of Maryland, USA): The Schism that Never Happened: the Case of Galicia

Yeshayahu Balog (University of Tübingen, Germany):
Koppel Reich and Samson Raphael Hirsch. A Comparative Perspective

Thursday, October 15

10:00 a.m. – 11:30 p.m.
Session 4 Separatism and Nazi Rule in Europe

Guy Miron (Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, Israel)
Emancipation Reconsidered: Hungarian Jewish Orthodoxy and the Jewish Laws, 1938-1944

Isaac Hershkovitz (Bar-Ilan University and Yad Vashem, Israel)
The Rise of Nazi Germany and Hungarian Jewish Life: Reconsiderations of Hungarian Orthodox Separatism in the 1930s

1:00 p.m. – 2:45 p.m.
Session 5 Unification and Division in the Twentieth Century

Michael L. Miller (CEU, Hungary): A House Reunited? Communist Unification of Hungarian Jewry after the Shoah

Alice Freifeld (University of Florida, Gainesville)
Displaced Hungarian Jewish Identity, 1945-48

András Kovács (CEU, Hungary): Neolog and Orthodox Jewish Identities in Post-Communist Hungary

3:15 p.m. – 5:45 p.m.
Session 6 Hungarian Separatism in the New World

Adam S. Ferziger (Bar-Ilan University, Israel): Debating Hungarian Separatism in the New World: The Hirschenson-Greenwald Exchange of 1927-28

Marc Shapiro (University of Scranton, USA): Hungarian Ultra-Orthodoxy and its Post-World War II Halakhic Legacy: The Case of Rabbi Menashe Klein

David Myers (UCLA, USA): Hungarian Orthodoxy in the New World:
Religion and Politics in Kiryas Joel, New York

Matthias Morgenstern (University of Tübingen, Germany): ‘Ungarn’ in New York, Berlin and Jerusalem - Remarks on the History of Hungarian Orthodoxy in the Jewish World

6:15 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Closing Reflections and Final Discussion: The Legacy of the Schism
Moderator: Adam S. Ferziger (Bar-Ilan University, Israel)

Kontakt

Dagmar Wienrich

Institut für die Geschichte der deutschen Juden

igdj@public.uni-hamburg.de

http://www.ceu.hu/jewishstudies
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