Jewish Hungarian Orthodoxy: Piety and Zealotry

 


Jewish Hungarian Orthodoxy: Piety and Zealotry (Routledge, 2024) by Menachem Keren-Kratz

Reviewed by Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein (Rachack Review)

Like the terms Poland and Lithuania, Hungary in the Jewish historical consciousness is not coterminous with Hungary in the geo-political sense, but rather encompasses a much vaster area than is included in the country known as Hungary. The Hungarian Jewish community of modern times began in earnest in the 1700s, with Jews flocking to the Kingdom of Hungary from many different directions. But as they developed, the Jewish communities in the different parts of Greater Hungary had different flavors: Northwest Hungary (closer to the city of Pressburg, now known as Bratislava) comprised mostly of Jews from Germany. These non-Hasidic Orthodox Jews — whom the author calls “Ashkenazim” in line with the pre-Holocaust nomenclature — followed the lead of Rabbi Moshe Sofer (the Chasam Sofer), who served as the Chief Rabbi and Rosh Yeshiva at Mattersdorf (in modern-day Austria) before assuming the mantle in Pressburg. These Jews differed from the mostly Hasidic communities in the northeast, which were comprised of Jews who mainly came from Galicia. Finally, the Jews in Southern Hungary were more accultured, and that region served as the bastion of the Neolog Jewish community, but was also home to a relatively-small number of Orthodox Jews and communities.

Menachem Keren-Kratz’s Jewish Hungarian Orthodoxy: Piety and Zealotry tackles the complex make-up of Orthodox Judaism within the historical boundaries of "Greater Hungary.” To understand the topic of this book, one must be familiar with the kehillah system that dominated Europe, whereby Jews belonged to semi-autonomous communal organizations to which they paid dues and from whom they received religious and civil services. A crucial development occurred in the mid-19th century, when Austro-Hungarian policy in Hungary allowed for multiple kehillot in one locale. In Neolog-dominated areas, Orthodox Jews often seceded from the official kehillah to form strictly traditional communities adhering to Halacha. Communities refusing alignment with either the Orthodox or Neolog were deemed "Status Quo," and were often ostracized by Extreme Orthodox groups.

This book thus explores the intricate, often fractious relationships and surprising alliances between these communities — Orthodox, Neolog, and Status Quo — both pre-WWI within Greater Hungary and post-WWI after Hungarian Jewry was fractured across new national borders. For example, following the first World War, Maramureș and the rest of Transylvania became part of Romania, Slovakia and the Carpathian Ruthenia became part of Czechoslovakia, the Burgenland became part of Austria, and other pieces of Greater Hungary were annexed to Italy and the newly-created Yugoslavia. Keren-Kratz also details the umbrella organizations representing these communities to the government and notes the frequent disconnect between a kehillah's official stance and the personal practices of its representatives. For example, he made note of the phenomenon of non-observant Jews serving as officials in the Orthodox community.

But more than that, Keren-Kratz focuses on intra-Orthodox conflicts: the friction between non-Hasidic "Ashkenazim" and Hasidim; disputes between Orthodox and Status Quo-affiliated Jews; and even Hasidic secessions forming "Sephardi" communities (called so because the Hasidim pray a kabbalistically-infused form of the Ashkenazi rite known as Nusach Sefard, which is somewhat similar to the Sephardic tradition).

Zionism was another major flashpoint. While Orthodox Jews obviously shunned secular Zionism, pragmatic arrangements with Mizrachi (Religious Zionists) sometimes occurred. Agudas Yisrael, originally non-Zionist but supportive of religious settlement in Palestine, held the mainstream anti-Zionist position pre-1948. Yet, Extreme Orthodox groups in Hungary even rejected Agudah itself as too accommodating. The book tracks how communities navigated this issue, with pragmatism sometimes overriding ideology and — as the author argues was the case regarding the Holocaust — ideology sometimes prevailing over practicality.

The difference between Orthodox Judaism and Neolog Judaism centered on whether one was willing to undertake to continue observing halacha as Jews had traditionally done since time immemorial. While there were always heretical Jews or deviants, Neolog was like a Reform Judaism in its rejection of halacha as an officially binding concept. That essentially made them a non-nomian, and sometimes even an antinomian, movement. The reviewer observes that while the author frames Orthodoxy's rejection of Neolog as innovative, the true novelty lies in a Jewish community officially abandoning traditional Jewish practice yet stubbornly claiming a Jewish identity. Orthodoxy, apart from its necessary response to this new phenomenon, simply maintained the age-old Jewish way of life.

Although one of the common requirements of Orthodox communities was affirming fealty to the dictates of Shulchan Aruch, this book overlooks the nuance that many individuals and rabbis within Neolog communities also remained personally observant (to varying degrees). Non-Hungarian parallels to this sort of traditional Jewish observance that was still in tune with secular (in this case, Hungarian) culture can be seen in German Neo-Orthodoxy (à la Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch) or contemporary Modern Orthodoxy, which are totally halachically observant but suffused with (German/American) culture. This stands in stark contrast with the contemporary Reform or Conservative movements that have essentially jettisoned the notion of halacha altogether.

In that vein, the author could have stressed how even in one family, brothers might have been affiliated with different communities, even if their personal level of religiosity were more or less the same. For example, Rabbi Yaakov Koppel Reich served as the Orthodox rabbi of Budapest, while his brother Rabbi Chaim Yehuda Reich was the rabbi of the Neolog community in Bonyhad. Similarly, Rabbi Moshe Blau was a leader of the Agudas Yisrael movement in Jerusalem, while his brother Rabbi Amram Blau was a co-founder of Neturei Karta in Jerusalem. [Speaking of Neturei Karta, this reviewer feels that the author gave too much prominence and weight to a group of organizations that at best represent a handful of families and individuals, most of whom suffer from mental illness. Moreover, that group is not necessary a Hungarian Jewish phenomenon, as Rabbi Amram Blau’s co-founder, Rabbi Aharon Katzenellenbogen, was actually of Litivsh extraction.]

The narrative presented by this book provides accounts of prominent Hungarian rabbis and their activities — for example, it talks about Rabbi Moshe Schick of Chust (who was an “Ashkenazi” Jew who served as the rabbi of a community in Northeast Hungary), Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Dushinsky (rabbinic leader of the Orthodox community in Galanta, before he made aliyah and became the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem), and Rabbi Chaim Elazar Shapiro of Munkács (an anti-Zionist rabbi who was an important Talmudic scholar and Hassidic Master). The book also gives special attention to the illustrious Teitelbaum dynasty from Sighet/Satmar. They came on to the scene in the late 1700s when Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum (author of Yismach Moshe) assumed the rabbinate of Ujhely, and reached their peak with their most famous descendant Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum of Satmar in the late 1900s. In offering these accounts, the author analyzes the political dynamics governing inter-communal relations before and after the post-WWI territorial dismemberment and the rabbis’ roles in those dynamics.

The author presents this history by synthesizing information from many secondary (scholarly) sources, as well as original research from primary sources (through contemporaneous Hungarian Jewish press). These sources are copiously referenced in the endnotes after each chapter. The author focuses more on the political and polemic aspects of this history, but not so much about the ideas. Thus, the book's strength lies in its political and polemical history.

To that end, even though the author discusses the rabbis much, he rarely cites their own works and what they said about their own positions (although the book’s conclusion chapter is somewhat of an exception to this). This reviewer sees it as a significant methodological flaw to not engage with those primary sources written by the rabbis themselves. Engaging with the rabbinic writings themselves could have helped shed light on the nuances of the exact positions taken by those very rabbis it discusses (e.g., Rabbi Moshe Sofer, Rabbi Moshe Schick, Rabi Shaul Bruch, Rabbi Chaim Elazar Shapiro, the Teitelbaums, Rabbi Yekusiel Yehuda Halberstam of Cluj, etc…). These sources, addressing issues like separation from Neolog communities, educational policies, and ideology, are crucial for understanding the rabbis' own positions and motivations. For example, Halachic responsa literature from Hungary deals with questions like to what extent Orthodox Jews ought to separate from Neolog (and Status Quo) Jews, inasmuch as whether, for example, they would need to build a separate mikveh. As this book makes clear, the question of general education was a flashpoint issue, but the author fails to notice that Rabbi Moshe Sofer — the hero of Hungarian Jewry — himself already wrote about when studying the maths and sciences (beyond what it is required for understanding Torah) is appropriate.

It is probably because of this oversight that Keren-Kratz sometimes oversimplifies ideological differences. For instance, he reduces the Orthodox-Neolog schism primarily to disputes over secular education and the knowledge of foreign languages, with the more hardline Orthodox rejecting such liberal educational policies and the Neolog pushing for such policies. While relevant, especially in certain regions, this characterization does not capture the full theological, cultural, and halachic depth of the divide. No doubt the author addresses these issues in greater details in his numerous other articles and books on the subject of Hungarian Orthodoxy, but these issues were not fully fleshed out in this work.

There are also minor historical inaccuracies or misstatements peppered throughout the book. For some quick examples, despite what the book records: Rabbi Bengis’ personal name was Zelig Reuven (not Reuven Zelig), Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman was not from Brisk, Gateshead is not a city, and an eiruv is not symbolic. The author also confuses rabbinic ordination with rabbinic appointment over a certain jurisdiction, but that is just a matter of semantics.

The author frequently speculates, particularly about the motives behind the actions of organizations and rabbis. These unsupported assertions, especially concerning Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum's supposed political maneuverings/machinations and the motivations behind his moves, are often identifiable by the absence of endnotes or references. Despite sometimes presenting the author’s own opinion as facts, in general, this book is otherwise a reliable work of historical research and should serve as an important resource for future research.

Most of the political moves and community-building detailed in his book was unfortunately rendered moot by the Holocaust, which quickly devastated Hungarian Jewry in a few months in 1944, destroying almost everything that was built. After the war, some Orthodox and Neolog communities were re-established in Hungary, but they never achieved the same glory as pre-war Hungarian Jews, which were but a shell of themselves.

The final chapters of this book discuss how some of what was found amongst Hungarian Jewry was transplanted abroad — mainly, to New York, Israel, England, and Belgium, but also to Montreal, Melbourne, Los Angeles, and elsewhere. The truth is that the discussion in the contemporary context is largely irrelevant because the kehillah structure has all but disappeared nowadays. To that end, contemporary Orthodox Jews tend, for example, to pray in whatever Orthodox synagogue happens to be most convenient for them, regardless of ideology. For instance, when the contemporary Satmar Rebbes vacation in Palm Springs, California, they have no qualms about praying in a Chabad synagogue, despite the wide ideological gaps between Satmar and Chabad.

This book is very personal to me because all four of my grandparents are from Greater Hungary and were native Hungarian speakers. My paternal grandfather was from Munkács in the northeast, my paternal grandmother was from Bonyhád in the south, and my mother’s parents were from the Galanta area near Pressburg. Despite my lifelong interest in Hungarian Orthodoxy, I gained significant new understandings of the complex political dynamics within and between Hungarian Orthodox Jewish communities. While the book provides valuable historical research, particularly on communal politics, its avoidance of primary rabbinic sources and occasional oversimplifications represent missed opportunities for a deeper exploration of the "Piety and Zealotry" promised in its title. Ultimately, Keren-Kratz provides a crucial, detailed map of Hungarian Orthodoxy's fractious political landscape, offering profound insights that helped me contextualize my own family's diverse roots within this complex world.