The Congress of 1868-69 and the fragmentation of Hungarian Jewry: a quantitative study

ABSTRACT

Hungarian Jewry has a reputation for being the most polarized of Jewries. In the popular imagination, a chasm yawned between rabid assimilationists on the one side and equally extreme ultra-Orthodox on the other. This study seeks to throw new light on this polarization. It will be based on a quantitative analysis of voting patterns at the Congress as well as a unique set of statistics that presents data on the relative strength of the various Jewish religious nationwide organizations at the turn of the century.

KEYWORD:

• Orthodox
• Neolog
• Hungary
• quantitative analysis of religious trends

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Tamás Turán for his many helpful suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Hungary was blessed by a highly professional statistical office and its willingness to report religious affiliation created an unusually rich database on all aspects of Hungarian Jewry. This has been mined in numerous studies by Victor Karády, see, “Religious divisions, socio-economic stratification and the modernization of Hungarian Jewry after the emancipation,” Jews in the Hungarian Economy, 1760–1945, ed. Michael K. Silber (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1992), 161–84 and idem, The Jews of Europe in the Modern Era: A Socio-Historical Outline (Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2004). Some of the relevant data are also documented in Michael K. Silber, ‘Budapest’ and ‘Hungary until 1918,’ in The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, ed. Gershon Hundert, 2 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 260–74 and 770–82.

2. Above all Jacob Katz, A House Divided. Orthodoxy and Schism in Nineteenth-Century Central European Jewry, trans. by Ziporah Brody (Hanover, N. H. and London: University Press of New England, 1998); Salo Baron, “Freedom and Constraint in the Jewish Community: A Historic Episode,” Essays and Studies in Memory of Linda R. Miller, ed. Israel Davidson (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1938), 9–23; Rachel Manekin, ‘The Growth and Development of Jewish Orthodoxy in Galicia: The Machsike Hadas Society, 1867–1883’ (Hebrew), (PhD dissertation, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, 2000); Benjamin Brown, ‘’As Swords Within the Body of the Nation’: The Opposition of Eastern European Rabbis to the Idea of Separate Communities’ (Hebrew), in Yosef Da’at. Studies in Modern History in Honor of Yosef Salmon, ed. Yossi Goldstein (Beer Sheva: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2010), 215–44. On the role of the state in fashioning the various Jewries in general, see the essays in Pierre Birnbaum and Ira Katznelson, eds., Paths of Emancipation: Jews, States and Citizenship (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1995).

3. Michael K. Silber, “The Emergence of Ultra-Orthodoxy: the Invention of a Tradition,” in The Uses of Tradition: Jewish Continuity in the Modern Era, ed. Jack Wertheimer (New York – Jerusalem: Jewish Theological Seminary, distributed by Harvard U. Press, 1992), 23–84; David H. Ellenson, Rabbi Esriel Hildesheimer and the Creation of Modern Jewish Orthodoxy (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Pr., 1990); Adam S. Ferziger, “Religious Zealotry and Religious Law: Rethinking Conflict and Coexistence,” Journal of Religion 84 (2004): 48–77. Brief biographies of the some of leading personalities who took part in the Congress and behind the scenes can be found in the following entries in The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe: Hildesheimer, Esriel; Hirschler, Ignác; Holländer, Leó; Kohn, Sámuel; Lichtenstein, Hillel; Löw, Leopold; Löw, Yirmiyahu; Schick, Mosheh; Schlesinger, Akiva Yosef; Sofer, Avraham Shemu’el Binyamin; Sofer, Ḥayim.

4. For an earlier quantitative study of a religious tendency, see Michael K. Silber, “The Social Composition of the Pest Radical Reform Society (Genossenschaft für Reform im Judenthum), 1848–1853,” Jewish Social Studies1 (1995): 99–128.

5. Nathanel Katzburg, “Ha-Congress ha-Yehudi be-Ungariah 1868–1869,” Areshet 4 (1966): 322–67 provides an exhaustive bibliography of the Congress; the sources on elections appear on 341–4.

6. On the terminology see, Tamás Turán, “Ortodox, neológ: a magyar zsidó valláspártok elnevezéseinek történetéről” [Orthodox, Neolog: The Designation of the Hungarian Jewish Religious Parties], Regio 24, no. 3 (2016): 5–37.

7. For instance “Verzeichniss der ungarisch-israelitischen Kongreß-Deputirten,” Die Neuzeit 8, no. 47 (November 27, 1868): 568–9 provides a good, though not comprehensive list. Pál Tencer, Album (Pest, 1869) and Fried[rich] Liebig, Photographien aus dem ung. isr. Congresse (Wien: Herzfeld und Bauer, 1869) provide short characterizations of the deputies. Tencer tended toward the moderate Neologs, Liebig, a bit further to his right.

8. Israel Hildesheimer, Ausführlicher Rechenschafts-Bericht der umstehend namhaft gemachten, zu einer Partei gegliederten 35 Mitglieder des ungarischen israelitischen Congresses (Prag: Senders und Brandeis, 1869), ii lists 35. Jacob Katz was puzzled by the absence Sigmund Krauss and Israel Grün, two of the most active Orthodox publicists, from the list. See A House Divided, 158. In fact, the back-cover, missing from many editions, corrected the list, adding the two (and removing one).

9. The list of those who walked out appears in Az 1868. Deczember 10-dikére összehivott izraelita egyetemes gyülés naplója (in what follows: Napló) (Pest, 1869), session xviii (February 5, 1869): 9–10. The outcome of the votes on the majority proposal at the same session appears ibid., 27–8.

10. Napló (Pest, 1869), session xix (February 8, 1869): 37–8.

11. “Dr. Hirsch Rafael a magyarországi zsidók pártmozgalmairól” [Dr. Raphael Hirsch on Hungarian Jewish Party Movements], Magyar Zsidó 3 (February 14, 1869): 74. Hirsch is always accorded the honorific of a doctorate in the weekly.

12. Four deputies who had abstained from the vote would have enabled the pro-compomise amendment group to attain a majority: Samuel Kohn, the initiator of the amendment; Markus Hirsch, the middle of the road rabbi of Óbuda and future rabbi of the Orthodox community in Hamburg; and Eisler and Grün, two members of the Hildesheimer faction. Their reticence is puzzling.

13. One of the most divisive issues at the Congress was whether the Shulchan Aruch should be mentioned at the beginning of the organization statutes as the basis of Jewish community life. ‘Neolog moderate’ in this chart designates those deputies whose general voting patterns (or other indicators) placed them unequivocally into the Neolog camp, yet who supported the compromise formula on the debate on the Shulchan Aruch question. I restrict the appellation ‘moderates’ here only to their performance at the Congress. There were surprising shifts in the years after the Congress, perhaps none more dramatic than that of R. Jeremiah Löw, the undisputed head of the walkout Orthodox, who refused to join the nationwide Orthodox organization, and opted for Status Quo Ante. See Katz, A House Divided, 196–7.

14. Magyar Statisztikai Évkönyv, n.s. 5 (1897): 366–7. I shared the summary total for Hungary with Victor Karády, “Religious divisions, socio-economic stratification and the modernization of Hungarian Jewry,” 163, which presents a slightly different table.

15. For a differing assessment by two historians of the relative strength of the camps by locating the orientation of the various Hungarian communities over time and giving weight to the Jewish population in the locale, see Gyula Zeke, “Szakadás után …: Adalékok a magyarországi zsidóság felekezeti irányzatainak társadalomtörténetéhez (1868–1949)” [After the Rupture …: Contributions to the Social History of the Denominational Trends of Hungarian Jewry (1868–1949)], in Hét évtized a hazai zsidóság életében [Seven Decades in the Life of Hungarian Jewry], eds. Pál Horváth et al., 2 vols. (Budapest: MTA Filozófiai Intézet, 1990), vol. 1, 145–61; Kinga Frojimovics, “The threefold path: From the split to the forced unification,” in In the Land of Hagar; the Jews of Hungary – History, Society and Culture, ed. Anna Szalai (Tel-Aviv: Beth Hatefutsoth, 2002), 102–11. Map on 107, table on 109; idem, Szétszakadt történelem: Zsidó vallási irányzatok Magyarországon 1868–1950 [Rent Apart History: Jewish Religious Trends in Hungary 1868–1950] (Budapest: Balassi Kiadó, 2008); idem, Neológ (kongresszusi) és status quo ante rabbik Magyarországon 1869-től napjainkig: Archontológia (Az anyahitközségek rendjében) [Neolog (Congress-) and Status Quo Ante Rabbis in Hungary from 1869 to Our Times: Archontology (In the sequence of the communities)] (Budapest MTA Judaisztikai Kutatóközpont, 2006).

16. In the first year of the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary, five Hungarian students compromised one-quarter of the student body. See Jahres-Bericht des Berlin Rabbiner-Seminars für das orthodoxe Judentum pro 5634 (Berlin 1874), 65. For a list of 81 students who attended over the course of the seminary’s existence see Gábor Lengyel, “Moderne Rabbinerausbildung in Deutschland und Ungarn: Ungarische Hörer in den deutschen Rabbinerseminaren (1854–1938),” (PhD dissertation, Jewish Theological Seminary – University of Jewish Studies, 2011), 166–8, 172–4.

17. Mordechai Breuer, Modernity within Tradition: The Social History of Orthodox Jewry in Imperial Germany (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), 247.

18. Carsten L. Wilke, “From Talmud Torah to Oriental Studies: Itineraries of Rabbinical Students in Hungary,” in Modern Jewish Scholarship in Hungary: The “Science of Judaism” between East and West, eds. Carsten L. Wilke and Tamás Turán (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2016), 75–98, here 79. The statistic is derived from the two volumes of the Biographisches Handbuch der Rabbiner (München: K.G. Saur, 2004), by Carsten Wilke and Katrin Jansen. Surprisingly, neither Goitein nor Nobel are mentioned.

19. Hermann Schwab, The History of Orthodox Jewry in Germany (London: Mitre Press, 1950), 120; Alan L. Mittleman, The Politics of Torah: The Jewish Political Tradition and the Founding of Agudat Israel (Albany, NY: State University of New York, 1996), 127; David Ellenson, “Gemeindeorthodoxie in Weimar Germany: The Approaches of Nehemiah Anton Nobel and Isak Unna,” in In Search of Jewish Community: Jewish Identities in Germany and Austria, 1918–1933, eds. Michael Brenner and Derek Penslar (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999), 36–55, here 45.

20. The Eastern delegates explained that Orthodoxy meant something quiet different in the Russian context. See Silber, “Orthodoxy,” in The YIVO Encyclopedia, 1292–7, here 1297.

21. For portraits of these men, see Moshe Davis, The Emergence of Conservative Judaism: The Historical School in 19th Century America (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1963).

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Michael K. Silber

Michael K. Silber is the Cardinal Franz Koenig Senior Lecturer emeritus in Austrian Studies, Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he directed the Andrew and Pearl Rosenfeld Project for the History of the Jews in Hungary and the Habsburg Empire. He also served as the Chairman of the Executive of the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People for a decade. He has also taught at Harvard, Stanford and Yale universities.