Foreshadowing the Looming Disaster

"The Organized Jewish Community" (1869) Organized Jewish life in the 19th century grew out of Hungary's feudal history grappling with winds of liberalism of varying intensity. Beginning around 1790, the Hungarian government started to consider according Jews and Jewish communities basic civil rights, with this process encountering ups and downs for the next 150 years or so. The question of Jewish status vis avis the government was also a matter of debate within the Jewish communities, with ramifications of the debate leading to the formation of an organized Jewish community framework - or more correctly, frameworks - in 1869. The hotly-contested 1869 Congress of Jewish Communities produced several very important developments for Hungarian Jewry, including: Organized community structures Creation of a Rabbinic Seminary Autonomous Orthodox and Neolog communities Legal status vis avis the government More...

Despite the seemingly happy years of freedom - there subconsciously loomed a descending catastrophe, with the constant fear, humiliation and degradation the Jew had to live with in Europe. We were a tormented, tolerated, unwanted and hated population in those countries.

Because we were of a religion strange to their own and we prayed from the Hebrew prayer books, we were not wanted - only tolerated. But we, the Jews, hid our heads in the sand like an ostrich. We did not wish to face the reality of our fate in Nadudvar.

One day, coming home from the kindergarten with a gentile girl, we saw a bearded Jew (whom I personally knew) walking in the street. He was the cantor at our Jewish Temple, Mr. Blau. Suddenly, the gentile girl told me to hurry up and run fast - we have to run because this Jewish man with the beard will kill us! I became so shocked from her degrading words that I could not say a word. Stunned, I became speechless, and the blood froze in my veins. A deeply felt horror overtook me because of this senseless humiliation! Oh, how could they be so ignorant, to educate a child of a delicate age to hate so much, to alienate their young children from their fellow human neighbor by such unheard lies. They poison the souls of their own children with the seeds and flames of hatred against other human beings - and innocent ones at that!

© David Muskal, 2001