Three thoughts on the Jewish World

I gave a presentation the other night to a leadership group in Boston. We talked about the Jewish world and some of the mission-locations they’d visited and discussed. Cuba, Hungary, Argentina and Ukraine.

And yes, every situation is different. But still … there were three themes that looked “the same” for me.

First, everywhere you go, it’s always the vulnerable who suffer first and hardest. Doesn’t matter where. Whenever there’s trouble, or conflict, or crisis. Could be in Israel, or Ukraine or any number of places.

Second, exit strategies and phase downs aren’t linear processes. We talked about how the Joint is phasing down in certain programs and countries. But we also talked about a readiness to scale back up, if the need arises or the economics worsen.

And third, communities change not just in quantity but also in quality. When a community consolidates (say, into major cities) that may look like a “shrinkage.” But if the end result of that transition is where we can build leadership programs, JCCs, Sunday Schools and other immersive experiences … then it's not the same thing. When communities consolidate geographically we're looking at economies of scale. When it's easier to build these programs because we have more density and easier logistics.

And that's a positive.

Szarvas and Memory

I loved this piece ... so eloquent and so compelling ...

Finding the Alte Heim

Pessy Katz - Times of Israel 

January 19, 2014

I found the alte heim — the old home — in the Hungarian countryside, right along the Koros River, this past summer. I did not know that I was looking for the alte heim, I no longer even believed it had ever existed as it does in the romanticized collective memory of the Hassidic community in which I was raised. But then I found it, more complex and vibrant than a Hassidic girl could ever have dreamed it to be, at Camp Szarvas, an international Jewish camp in Hungary.

Growing up in the Satmar Hassidic community in Boro Park, my world was enclosed but I was lovingly provided with everything I needed to grow into a modest, poised young woman who would marry a good learned man and build an ultra-Orthodox home that in my young imagination was always filled with a gleaming chandelier, pious sons and daughters that would carry on the traditions, and sounds of Yiddish wafting through the air mixing with the delicious aroma of freshly made kokos (babka).

Indeed, I knew from a young age that the sign of a talented hassidic balabusta (housewife) is the stuffed cabbage she lovingly prepares twice every year, once for Simchat Torah and once for Purim. I would watch my aunt as, on every Friday in the winter time, she would roast gesztenye (chestnuts) to serve after Shabbat dinner when her husband and sons would sit around the table and sing beautiful Shabbat melodies. My paternal grandmother would prepare large pans of rakott krumpli (potato casserole) for my aunts, uncles and many little cousins as a special treat for the yearly Chanukah party she would host, and my maternal grandmother would remind us at every bris, engagement party or other special occasion to praise her for standing over the stove to prepare hundreds of beautifully thin palacsinta (crepes) which she served filled with cheese, cocoa or nuts.

Long before I knew how to prepare these foods, they created the pattern of Shabbat and Jewish holidays through which our year revolved around in Boro Park. To me they became the representation of love, warmth and special Judaism. I knew that these foods and rituals were tied to the alte heim, much as everything we did was encouraged to be. We were at turns inspired and admonished to emulate the actions, clothes and emunah p’shuta (simple faith) of our not-too-distant ancestors back in Europe. Thus, even in our modern-day Hassidic lives in America, the alte heim, with the images our teachers would invoke of women in head-scarves knotted under their chins and somber men bringing freshly slaughtered chickens home for their wives to salt and kosher was very distant but also very real. It lived in our collective memory and in our aspirations of the insular Orthodox utopia we sought valiantly to recreate right here in New York City.

But as I grew older, I came to understand that insularity does not make one more virtuous, that piety as a woman did not have to be measured by what I wear, and that a broad education may be full of spiritual pit-falls but is also filled with joy. Though surrounded with love and food, I learnt that I could expand my experience as a woman, and as a religious woman, beyond the Hassidic community in ways richer and more meaningful than I had previously been allowed.

My pursuit of intellectual independence and greater religious expression as a woman – whether it was receiving a college education, completing political internships, or becoming an active participant in progressive Orthodox institutions – was from the beginning coupled with the desire to maintain not just a loyalty to halakha but the purity of the joyous traditions with which I was raised. I knew early on that this challenge would by no means be a simple one, that of trying to mesh traditions so rooted in a specific and enclosed world with a reality that strives for open-ness and intellectual honesty. But then, this past summer, this challenge found reprieve in the most unexpected, yet beautiful, of places.

It was while completing a year-long fellowship in Israel that I first visited Budapest. In Budapest the stuffed cabbage of Simchat Torah was sumptuously displayed in the Christmas markets; the many foods of my childhood literally filled the streets. The language I had heard only through the mutterings of my elderly bacsi’s (uncles) andneni’s (aunts), which we all delighted in, was now all around me, spoken by young and old in bars and in museums, and the humor and the sensitivities of the people in this foreign European country were intimately familiar to me. I knew after that first visit that I had to return and indeed, when I did this past summer as a staff member at Camp Szarvas, in the south of Hungary, I understood why. Camp Szarvas was my past and future melded in one perfect place in the present.

Every summer, 1,500 campers from over 25 different countries participate in Camp Szarvas, sponsored by the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.  Under the clear Hungarian sky and searing sun, my days at Camp Szarvas with Jewish teenagers from all over the world, were filled with international sports competitions, art projects, peulot (educational activities), bonfires, talent shows and of course, as every Szarvas-er will tell you, the iconic wandering Jew, who led many educational and entertaining activities throughout each two-week long session. I was fascinated and delighted to see how in its unique, dynamic and joyous way Camp Szarvas allows each participant, whether Hungarian, American, or Latvian, to live and choose their own Jewish identity, while ensuring the possibility of finding community.

As a staff member for the Szarvas Fellowships, the American cohort at Camp Szarvas, it was a constant thrill to be able to facilitate these experiences for my campers. But one morning at camp I could not contain my enthusiasm and joy when we walked in from morning mifkad (line-up session) and I noticed the breakfast set on the tables. My campers looked on in confused amusement as I exclaimed excitedly over the bowls of steaming hot tejberizs. This special oatmeal broth, I explained, was the same breakfast that had previously been served to me only at the Hassidic girls’ camp I attended for eight consecutive summers in the Catskills, in New York. This food, to me, evoked warmth and Judaism and sincerity. It conveyed home.

At home now at Camp Szarvas, however, I sang and danced with people from all over the world, discussed ideas and thoughts, wore what I wanted, and explored Jewish identities, preferences, meanings and affiliations freely, as I once could have only imagined. And most thrilling of all, I could not only bond with them over our shared love of palacsinta (crepes), but I could share who I was, as a woman, as an American, as a Jew, as a Hungarian, and as a fellow human being, along with everyone else at the camp. And I knew this experience of open-ness, of sharing and of joy was shared every day by each of campers and the staff from all over the world there with me.

Somewhere along the way, between learning the camp cheers of Bulgarians and of Romanians, between facilitating discussions about the role of Israel in the lives of Jews worldwide and between dancing to Yaakov Shwekey’s v’hee sh’umdah and to Hava Nagila, my image of the alte heim began shifting. At Camp Szarvas, with the familiar foods and personalities around me, I knew that the alte heim was very real and in its own, even better way, continues to exist. It is filled not with black-hatted followers, but with Jews of all sorts who are vibrantly working to mesh their Hungarian lives with their dynamic Jewish identities and are creating their own niche in Jewish culture.

And as I was learning about my new-found Hungarian community, my Hassidic community was coming into focus too. On Friday night, a week into my Szarvas experience, we gathered our campers on an outside terrace. Campers and staff members of many different countries joined us as, swaying in unison, we sang Shabbat melodies together under the shooting-star filled Hungarian sky. Sitting at that circle I held a book of zmirot (Hebrew songs) that my mother had given me to take along on my trip. It was a special book because in addition to the traditionally found Hebrew zmirot, this one included old Yiddish songs too, and one Hungarian song. The song of szol a kakas, about a bird lost in the forest and longing to find its way out. This song, which also tells its metaphor of Jews in exile longing for the Land of Israel, is one that all the men and boys of my Hassidic community know.

My brother learnt to sing szol a kakas in both Hungarian and Yiddish when he was a bright eyed three-year old boy at cheder. During Jewish holiday meals he and my cousins would proudly sing the song in Hungarian along with my grandfather, who’s face behind his long beard would have a wistful look every time they sang this song. Was he truly yearning for the Land of Israel, as the bird in the song? As a child, I could never tell. But as I sang szol a kokos on Friday night at Camp Szarvas along with my many new Hungarian friends, I understood that my grandfather was longing too for the land of this song. A land that I too had come to love.

When moving beyond the Hassidic community in which I was raised, I understood that I was choosing to live a life of choices, of inter-weaving my Judaism with other facets of my identity.  When I came to Camp Szarvas with a community vastly different than the one in which I was raised, yet right near where it began, I found that it was a choice and challenge that many of my international Jewish peers share. But what I came to understand most deeply was that, like me and my peers at Camp Szarvas, my grandfather and the community he sings for has in their own way made those choices too.

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/finding-the-alte-heim/

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Metaphors and history

I went the other day to the Hungarian National Museum. It’s heavy on the medieval aspects, but still has some excellent 20^th century pieces, so I found it really useful.

There was an interesting section of the exhibit in which they collected the original street signs from the Communist regime-era, which were crossed out and later replaced with new names at the time of the overthrow of communist rule. No more Bela Kun Street. No more Leninvaros or Marx St. Just triumphant red lines through the old names.

It reminded me about the story of Robert Capa, who returned to his native Hungary a few years after the war. So much had been destroyed, and to cover up the rubble and loss, the Rakosi regime put up huge Soviet billboards and renamed the streets and squares. “Budapest,” said Capa, looked like “a beautiful woman with her teeth knocked out.”

You can't say that about Budapest today (ok, you shouldn't really say it anytime) ... but it's a good reminder of the power of metaphors and symbols in Hungary.

This is how you write a thank-you letter

Here I am, in Budapest, with my colleague Taly, who pulls out of our offices one of the most stunning and moving books I’ve ever seen. It’s a collection of acknowledgements from different Jewish communities to celebrate 25 years of the Joint.

So it’s November 1939 … and everything is about to change. Most of those who wrote these letters – certainly those living outside of Budapest – would be killed in the Shoah.

But there is a timeless beauty, an elegance, and a wondrous gratitude in some of these letters. They speak of hope, of help, of relief. They are amazing to read.

“There is no Jew, who would not demand God’s blessing to your work, but thousands and thousands of mothers and children are praying fervently, because they had direct opportunity to enjoy your extreme kindness and nobility.”

“… Where danger was most despairing, [and help] the most urgent, you appeared and brought help. Who would be able to thank you? God sees and has seen all you did…”

“There are many who are preaching humanity. It is easy to proclaim it by words, but difficult to prove in deeds. You have chosen the more difficult and also the most noble way, when you protected and helped our social establishments, giving them possibilities to act.”

I’ve put photos of the documents here, and you can click on them to see them better. But hopefully we’ll get more copies – there are many – and upload them to our archives so they can be accessed and viewed by many more people. It’s a privilege, and a rare opportunity, to see this  aspect of our history.

Yet another reason why I love my job

I spent an hour this morning visiting one of the most amazing Jewish women in Budapest. 

Erzabet (Elizabeth) is 90 and was one of the Shoah survivors saved by the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg. She was caught several times by the Arrow Cross (the Nazi-backed Hungarian fascists) and the Nazis, but each time managed to escape. "They kept capturing me, so I kept escaping, " she said.

And she was telling us about the food packages she received from the Joint.... and suddenly we realized that she wasn't talking about the food packages she receives now, but rather the ones she received from us in the 1940s, with her first coat, and the taste of chocolate.

Back to Hungary

I'm heading to Hungary tonight to work for a few days with our professionals and leaders there on storytelling and mission staffing.

I've written a fair bit about Hungary in the past: the weight of Jewish history there, and the difference between engagement and outreach in the community, and what they tell us about our future horizons there.
The grappling with history, and all that it entails, is pretty weighty stuff.

I'm optimistic. For a number of reasons, which I've looked at in the past.

But also because there's something about the Hungarian Jewish community that fascinates me. Unlike pretty much any other Jewish community in the world, the Hungarian community isn't an "immigrant" one. The national component of Jewish identity is unique, vibrant and very autonomous.
We talk about the uprooting and rebirth of Jewish life, migrations and reinventions. Hungary is an important exception. There's a lot for us to learn there.

Insert Your Story Here

I’m spending these next few days preparing for a series of presentations next week in Budapest. I’ve been asked to come in and spend a few days with our leadership and management working on presentations, storytelling and fundraising concepts.

Going through my notes and stories, one thing struck me – the most challenging thing about how we tell our stories in the Joint is how personal and individualized they are. The most difficult area we have to focus on, when we teach field staff and others to tell their stories, is helping them choose their stories. Once you start using someone else’s stories, or ideas – it smells fake. And inauthentic stories aren't very inspiring.

All of this came up the other day in a conversation with a colleague who wanted “my” JDC introduction presentation that others could use. The problem is … I don’t have one. Because there isn't one.

You have to talk from your own passion, with your own stories. My awesome story about how we do such-and-such a thing sounds great, but only because I've been there, smelled the perfume, touched the brick and can convey the sound. So I can relay the entire experience authentically. But it's only my story. 

I can’t tell your story as well as you can.

An Indian perspective on Szarvas

Amazing video from my colleague Gideon Herscher. Gideon was in India, taking part in the first-ever Limmud conference there. He had a brief moment to interview Indian graduates of our Szarvas Camp in Hungary .... it shows you what we mean when we talk about a global effort for Jewish renewal ...

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Szarvas 2013

Awesome video from Szarvas, the pioneering international Jewish summer camp operated in rural Hungary by JDC and the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation. Szarvas is an amazing chance to connect to Judaism and meet friends from around the world. 

It's a second home for participants. And it's a dynamic and vital part of the global Jewish revival.

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Restitution and Renewal

My drash at Temple Beth-El Mekor Chayim in Cranford, NJ, this Shabbat ...

Shabbat shalom.

So, there I was, about a year ago, in downtown Vilnius, Lithuania.

And I was standing with a small group in a communal building courtyard.

Around us were several huge apartment buildings, several hundred apartments in all. Nearly all owned before the war by Jews. Now all owned by Lithuanians.

We had a Lithuanian-Jewish tour guide who, uniquely for most Lithuanian Jews actually spoke Lithuanian as his mother-tongue and not Russian.

And it was particularly useful to have a Lithuanian-speaker with us, to translate those interesting moments that otherwise we may have missed.

For example, standing in that courtyard, we noticed two fourth-floor windows opening on each end of the courtyard. Two neighbors shouting hello to each other, some forty feet above us.

And looking down on this small group of American Jews, they waved to us.

And what did they say to each other?

Our guide translated: “Look,” said one to the other. “The Jews are here, coming to take back your apartment.”

It took me a few minutes to realize the history behind that comment.

The Jews are here. Coming to take back your apartment.

So that was Lithuania.

And a couple of weeks ago, I visited the Hungarian Jewish community. I’ve been there before. I seem to find myself at least six or seven times a year in currently communist or former communist dictatorships.

And in Hungary I found an interesting continuation of that Lithuanian story.

In 2010 the opposition center-right party – Fidesz - received 53% of the vote. But because of the electoral system they got 2/3 of the seats in the Hungarian Parliament.

Here’s where it got interesting: the Constitution allowed for a 2/3 majority in parliament to make changes – but no one ever thought that one party would receive that kind of a majority.

And they have made good use – or bad use – of that majority. They have changed the courts, the constitution, the election system. All of this in ways that smack of corruption, nepotism and one-party dictatorship.

What frightened everyone at the time wasn’t the massive 2/3 Fidesz victory – even though it should have. Instead, what frightened people was the surprising rise of the far-right Jobbik party, which succeeded on a xenophobic and racist platform in gaining 17 per cent of the vote.

And on the surface, being afraid of the far-right party seemed like a legitimate conclusion.

Jobbik excelled in making scapegoats out of Jews and Roma – what we used to call Gypsies.

One of the reasons that the far-right in Hungary is so much more viciously anti-Semitic than its counterparts in other European countries is that there’s no real Moslem presence in Hungary.
But there are some 120,000 Jews and maybe 700,000 Roma.

So Jews and Roma are basically the only visible and identifiable minorities in Hungary.

And if you live in a country like Hungary, with high unemployment, almost zero economic growth, and a traditional tendency to blame your troubles on others … then the Jews and the Roma are perfect for your needs.

There was a famous case last winter where one of the heads of the Jobbik party, Marton Gyongyosy, stood up in Parliament and said ‘now is the time to make a list of all those Hungarian Jews who are too loyal to Israel and not loyal enough to Hungary.’

It’s important to note that the issue of lists for the Hungarian Jewish community is particularly sensitive.

The Shoah, the Holocaust, in Hungary only lasted six weeks.

From May to July 1944, the Nazis rounded up hundreds of thousands of Jews and sent them to Auschwitz.

A Hungarian Jew living in the countryside in 1944 had less than a ten percent chance of surviving the following 12 months.

And how did they succeed in killing so many, so fast?

They took the lists of Jews from the Jewish community. Which is why the issue of lists is so sensitive.

So the problem last year wasn’t so much the noise of a few far-right fascists in Partliament who called for a list of Jews.

The problem was that the 2/3 majority government party said nothing.

And the reason for that is, in some ways, the real challenge ahead of us.

For Hungarian Jews, the Soviets were liberators in 1944.

When the Soviet Red Army overthrew the Nazi regime, Hungarian Jews were quite literally saved by the Soviet Union.

Without question.

But for most Hungarians, who weren’t affected by the Shoah or by Nazi repression, the opposite was the case: the Soviets were evil foreign invaders, and clearly unwelcome.

So … in a case like this, when the issue of reparations – the restitution of stolen property from the Jewish community comes up, there are two layers to the conversation.

Because: in many cases the government is working to restitute property that was stolen from Hungarians by the Soviets.

This was property that was “nationalized” and stolen from Hungarians.

But … some of these same Hungarian “victims” were themselves the beneficiaries of the same property that was “aryanized” maybe ten or twenty years earlier when it was stolen from Jews.

And sometimes they themselves were the ones who stole it from those Jews!

So …let’s review:

A significant number of Hungarians supported the Nazis. They saw the Soviet occupation as unwelcome. The Jews, on the other hand, saw the Soviets as liberators and life-savers.

So … there's an actual debate in Hungarian society on whether fascist rule and communist rule were essentially “the same” in terms of their moral depravity.

I was walking through a museum in Budapest and looking at some really shocking attempts to make a direct equivalence between German Nazi rule and Russian Communist rule. Particularly striking was a rotating set of two bodies, in fascist and Communist uniforms, meant to show how similar they were.

It was particularly graphic.

And completely unjustified.

It’s perfectly ok to insist that there were atrocities committed by the Communists, and to say that the lack of respect for human life in Communist times was appallingly low.

There were atrocities, and there wasn’t enough respect for human life.

But to jump from there to say that, essentially, there was no difference between the Fascists and the Communists, is too far.

To jump even further, and claim that Hungary was the victim of foreign occupation is also morally unacceptable. It ignores the dedication and enthusiasm of so many Hungarians from the right and left to turn to evil.

And it helps you understand, I think, why there is a tendency in some of these countries to feel that they have no personal or national responsibility for what happened.

Why, for example, they aren’t standing up against a small fascist growth in Parliament to stand up for minority rights.

And this is happening far too much around Europe today.

Because what you have here is a sleight of hand.

First you equate Fascism with Communism, and then you say that both are foreign intrusions.

Hungary has no responsibility.

Lithuania had nothing to do with it.

Austria was innocent.

This is the challenge that the organized Jewish community faces today.

If the Holocaust Death Camp is “the same as” the Communist Gulag  - then there’s not only a moral failure here, there’s also never going to be a genuine move to full reparation of stolen Jewish property and a decent reckoning with their past and responsibility.

And why is this still so important today?

Because there’s a very clear and – when you think about it – a very obvious – reason for why so many Jewish communities are so weak and so under-developed.

It’s because they had everything stolen from them.

By the Nazis and by the Communists.

And once you start restituting that property, bringing it back to the community – then you can start to see the beginnings of revitalization.

Because you can renovate restituted property, and turn it, for example, into rental apartments or gyms or retail stores.

And with the monthly income you can start to build community centers, and leadership programs, and send kids to summer camp and Sunday school.

But only if you get that first step started.

So, therefore ... two conclusions:

First, sometimes the enemy of democracy isn’t always what it appears to be.

Sometimes it can be much stealthier and quieter than what you’d expect.

Sometimes things aren’t what they seem.

And second, the weight of history can be so burdensome, so awful, that it will take us a very long time to recover, and correct the evils of the past.

But we know how to get there.

Thank you.

Shabbat shalom.


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Not The Same Thing

Time and again in my visit to Hungary this last week I heard members of the Jewish community deplore the move to ‘equivalence.’

Lots of Hungarians supported the Nazis and saw the Soviet occupation as unwelcome. The Jews, on the other hand, saw the Soviets as liberators and life-savers. So there's a debate in Hungarian society on whether there's an equivalency (or worse) between fascist rule and communist rule. When I visited a museum in Budapest there were some fascinating attempts (seen here) to make a direct equivalence between Nazi terror and Communist terror.

The uniforms, rotating between the fascist Arrow Cross and the Communist police, was particularly graphic.

And unjustified.

It’s ok, I think, to insist that there were atrocities committed by the Communists (there were) and to say that the lack of respect for human life in Communist times was appallingly low (it was). But to jump from there to say that, essentially, there was no difference between the Fascists and the Communists, is too far.

To jump even further, and claim that Hungary was the victim of foreign occupiers – ignoring the dedication and enthusiasm of many Hungarians from the right and left to turn to evil – is also pretty unjustified.

So what you have here is a sleight of hand. First you equate Fascism with Communism, and then you say that both are foreign intrusions. Hungary ends up bearing no responsibility.

This is the challenge that the organized Jewish community faces today. If the Holocaust Death Camp is “the same as” the Communist Gulag  - there’s not only a moral failure here, there’s also never going to be a genuine move in Hungary to full reparation of stolen Jewish property and a decent reckoning with their past and responsibility.

The Past and The Future

One of the greatest accomplishments we have in Hungary is the revitalization of Jewish life for the "new generation" and the "missing generation."

In 1948 when the communists took power, lots of Jews saw it as a very positive sign, finally they could look to a better future. Those who – on an individual level – emphasized their personal and religious Jewish identity, had already left. Those who wanted to be 'Hungarians' stayed. 

In 1956 there were anti-Semitic outbreaks as a reaction against the Communists. Many religious Jews left. 

Therefore, those who remained were - even more so - those who didn't take their Jewish identity as an important factor and didn't educate their children about their heritage. 

And others left when the regime fell in the 1990s.

So the revitalization of Jewish life, in places like the Balint JCC, is critical .... and it's happening on a scale that is unprecedented for Hungary. You can see the future of Jewish Hungary in this video.

Boston Hungary Mission 2013

From Todd, on our mission ....

Here are 3 brief minutes from this amazing mission. We learned about Hungary's hope, joy, promise, need, pain and rebirth by spending time within the Hungarian Jewish community. Thank you CJP and JDC

My favorite Hungarian anecdote

We had a terrific tour of the Hungarian Parliament for our CJP Mission

And one thing that struck me was the cigar-holders on the window-ledges outside the assembly hall.

Each cigar-holder was numbered. So you'd put your fine Havana cigar in your holder (you could smoke outside the hall) and go listen to a speech. And if it was a really good speech, your cigar would have fully burned to ash by the time you got back. So ... the way to tell a really good speaker is how long the ash was.

And the phrase for a really good speech is "it was worth a Havana."

Szarvas 2013 ... CJP Mission visit

Quite possibly the best mission video to Szarvas (with a minute or two at the beginning with the Balint JCC kids) I've ever seen. Kudos to Todd ...

556 Calories

We had dinner last night with some inspiring leaders of the Hungarian Jewish community. I was fortunate to sit and chat with Andras Heisler, the newly-elected president of the federation of religious communities.

“Without the Joint,” Andras said, “there would be no Jews in Hungary.”

The largest-ever relief operation conducted by the Joint, by budget size, was the $35 million program to provide food, medicine and clothing to several hundred thousand Hungarian Jews after the Second World War. 

Negotiating with the new communist regime (many of whose leaders were anti-Zionist and extreme Stalinists of Jewish descent, generally hostile to Jewish and humanitarian concerns) meant negotiating with a government that had no desire to protect its own Jews. By the end of 1945, the Hungarian ration card entitled its holder to exactly 556 calories (out of the 2500 a healthy person required).

And … Hungarians had relatives in the countryside. They hadn’t returned from the ghettoes and camps. The Jews had nothing. No strength, no food. No families. 

JDC had to save them from death.

The fact that there’s a thriving community – and a living one – is testament to what happened here almost seventy years ago.

The Weight of History

I’m here in Budapest with a terrific group from CJP (Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston). And one of the issues we’re grappling with is the history that’s all around us.

Our (Jewish) guide made a fascinating reference to how she loves going for a swim in the beautiful Danube river … that same river into which were shot and killed so many Jews in 1944.

And we’re walking around a city around homes which belonged to Jews, from where Jews were expelled. So much of the city was built by Jews. So much of the Jewish story here is tragic.

In the building in which the federation of Jewish communities sits, you hear that Adolph Eichmann had his offices there.

As you walk through the central streets you learn how much was built by Jews, who were killed and persecuted (and not just during the fascist period).

The weight of history can be oppressive. Even though so many Hungarian Jews survived. Even though there is a real story of renewal and revitalization. There is also a past.

Rescue

I’m on my way to Hungary with a Combined Jewish Philanthropies (Boston Jewish federation) mission. It’s a great group and I’m looking forward to framing our work and telling the story of what we do in a fascinating and revitalizing community.

But first, I wanted to write down something that happened to me in synagogue yesterday, Shabbat morning.

I took my kids, who played (somewhat noisily, it’s true) at the back of the room with two other kids – whose mom was their teacher at the JCC last year. The mom introduced me to her in-laws, and we spoke in a mixture of Hebrew and English. I knew something of their immigrant origins, and these stories always fascinate me. And they asked me about this trip, and about my work at the Joint.

And, as we said goodbye after the Kiddush, the mother-in-law looked at her husband and said to me, “and of course, the Joint rescued him after the Shoah, and put him through the DP (Displaced Persons) Camp in Europe.”

Then I remembered. Last year, as a favor to the teacher, I had found her parents’ JDC emigration cards in our archives. They had been registered with JDC in Europe after World War II. Her father-in-law was in Ferewalt from 1946 to 1949.

“But you,” I said. “I remember you were also in a DP Camp, no?”

“Yes. Fulda [Germany],” she said. “I was saved by the Joint as well. We were both rescued.”

It was a good start to the weekend.

Hungary

I’m taking a mission from CJP (Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston) to Hungary this weekend, so this was of particular interest …

After Years of Stalling, Hungary Resumes Social Welfare Funding to Holocaust Survivors

Following protracted discussions over the course of several years, the Hungarian government has agreed to release $5.6 million in previously committed funds for social welfare services for needy Holocaust survivors of Hungarian origin living outside of Hungary. These funds will be distributed through the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference). That organization can now resume its worldwide distribution to social services agencies outside of Hungary that assist Hungarian Holocaust survivors with daily living. Additionally, the Hungarian government committed to continuing negotiations for the restitution of assets.

“Nearly 70 years after the persecution and mass murder of Hungarian Jews by the Nazis and their local collaborators, the government has fulfilled its previous agreement to support elderly Hungarian survivors,” said Greg Schneider, Claims Conference Executive Vice President. “We very much appreciate the critical support of State Secretary Janos Lazar for this significant initiative that will enable elderly survivors in need to live with an added measure of dignity and comfort.”

The money will be a lifeline for survivors who require homecare, medicine, meal delivery, transportation, emergency cash grants, winter relief, case management and socialization programs. Such services enable survivors to remain living in their own homes for as long as possible, a primary goal of the Claims Conference.

Earlier this year, with the appointment of Janos Lazar to the position of State Secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister, a new tone was taken by the government, which seemed to change course from placing obstacles in the way of transferring the funds, to trying to work cooperatively to resolve whatever issues remained in the way of the funds’ transfer.

In 2007, the Hungarian government pledged $21 million to be distributed over the course of five years to assist Holocaust survivors in Hungary and abroad. The Jewish Heritage of Hungary Public Endowment (MAZSOK) – a restitution foundation in Hungary composed of local Hungarian Jews, government officials and the World Jewish Organization (WJRO) – was tasked with administering one-third of the funds to survivors currently living in Hungary, while two-thirds of the funds were transferred to the Claims Conference to fund social welfare services for needy survivors living outside of Hungary.

But in 2010, a new government came to power in Hungary, and the transfer of funds to the Claims Conference in the final two years of a five-year commitment was suddenly suspended in 2012, leaving survivors deprived of the assistance they had come to expect and which they so desperately need. The $21 million represents an advance payment on a hoped-for larger agreement to provide compensation for the heirless and unclaimed formerly Jewish-owned assets confiscated by the Nazis during the Holocaust and/or subsequently nationalized by the Communist regime after the war.

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Szarvas - 2013

I'm speaking this evening at the Jewish Federation of Monmouth County about Hungary and the revival of Jewish life there. There's no better example than Szarvas .... just received this terrific video about their "Donate Your Day" event there this week ...