(a Tze'enoh U'Re'enoh just like my Bubbe had)
Hungary was the only place in Europe (outside of Germany, but that's another story) where the Yidden spoke the Sfas haMedinah. Not only did they speak the SH, but they new little Yiddish, especially the women. The Yiddish that they spoke was of the very German variety, so much so that a Russian/Polish/Rumanian Yid would probably understand very little. The need, therefore for Hungarian-language books was great. Most people had Hungarian-language Siddurim, Machzorim, and books. Can you imagine that in Poland or Russia?! a Yiddeneh in Poland reading the TR in Polish? never!
After WWI most kids in Poland did go to Government schools, and their Jewish education consisted of a tutor or Rebbe after hours. All that paid off; so that now in Boro Park old Polish women, survivors of the Holocaust can live to see and hear Polish spoken in the streets of Boro Park and Williamsburg. They must be real happy to see the sons and daughters of their family's murderers come and live amongst them after all those years...
(Sefer Chut HaMishulash, a Halachic primer, if you will, for Public School students)
Still, there was very little change in culture, especially amongst the Frum. Nobody actually spoke Polish at home or between friends. They didn't consider themselves Polaken. For some reasons Hungarians did consider themselves Hungarians, and do till this very day. Most first generation Hungarians, the children of the Survivors, speak Hungarian quite well because that's what they were spoken to by their parents. The same goes for many second generation descendants too. This is what Hertzel Apshan means when he says that Yidden in Marmures האבען זיך נישט מאדיאראזירט, They didn't become like their Hungarian brethren.
Having said that, Hungarians still managed to maintain a high level of religious observance, faring much better than their Polish, Russian, Litvish, and Bessarabish/Bukovinish co-religionists, but there's more to that than meets the eye. Most of it can probably be traced to the fact that poverty in Poland/Russia etc. was far greater than in Hungary. Any collection of pictures, especially Roman Vishniac's, will attest to that. Polish etc. children were dirty (Kipshuto) and their clothes were tattered and rags. Hungarian children had decent clothing, for those days anyway, and were clean and kempt. A hungry child looks for food anywhere he can.
(Thanks to A Simple Jew for the Ebay listings)
16 comments:
tzig, i hope i'm not poking at a hornet's nest, but there are some questions re: origin of hugary's jews connected to the formation of hungary.
וד"ל
which might explain the hungarian jews patriotism.
i hope i'm not poking at a hornet's nest
darn right you are
Why do we need an excuse to be patriotic? Doesn't it make sense to support your country, especially in those times?
Patriotism? Support your country? AIUI, Hungarian Jews didn't support "their" country, they supported their Austrian emperor, whom their Hungarian neighbours hated.
I am not so sure this חוט המשולש is of orthodox origin. If a "Dr." Rabbiner put this together. I might well have been a 'status-quo' thing.
I have a reprint of ספר על הלכות נדה in Hungarian done by famous rabonim. If you wish I can send you a scan. As far as Yiddish/Hungarian goes. You are only half way right. Yes many rural frum Jewish women spoke only Hungarian. But as a rule and this was a basic to the rules of orthodoxy, any Rabbi who was a 'prediger' a preacher in Hungarian or Pure German was to be considered outside the fold and banned.
It is so in the צוואת חתם סופר and while the Yiddish in 'oberland' was different then in, say, Poland. it was different enough that a German would not understand it either. Still many shulls even in America strictly enforce this rule; no goyishe language ever, even the must frum type.
I know of a shull that refused to let Rabbi Moshe Meir Weiss give his shiur in their shull because he delivers it in English.
Milhouse
I guess what I should've said was "support the powers that be."After all supporting the freedom fighters in Hungary or anywhere else would only help you that both the Rulers and the Fighters would hate you since you're not really a true Magyar.
Yosef718:
You may be right about the status-quo part, although the TzenehReneh is Ortodoxish. Have you ever tried reading Reb Michoel Ber's writings in Yiddish? Pretty difficult stuff.
It's interesting to note that Russian Jews were more adapt in sfas hamedinah then their Polish brethren, and the Poilisher, in turn, used SH more then the Litvisher (though Lithuanian, b'chlal was hardly spoken due to the country's history etc.)
I question the statement that the Hungarian held their own -they were far more assimilated then most (Or at least those in Budapest and to a lesser extent in Slovakia -as opposed to those in Transylvania and the Carpathians who taka held their own amongst the poilisher and Russisher)
"AIUI, Hungarian Jews didn't support "their" country, they supported their Austrian emperor, whom their Hungarian neighbours hated."
Millhouse, did the jews have a choice in their support of the emperor?
Yes, they did have a choice. They could have opposed him, just like their Magyar neighbours. But they supported and loved him, because he was a (relative) ohev yisroel. I'm not criticising them for it, in fact I think they were right to do so; but it is a fact that they did not support "their" country, i.e. Hungary, but rather the hated Hapsburg ruler. This speaks not of "patriotism", of feeling like "true Hungarians", but rather of putting their own interest first, and supporting an emperor who supported them.
Franz-Josef had many sins on his long long record, but I'm sure that when he arrived for his Final Judgment the good he had done for the Jews, and their prayers for him, stood him in good stead.
What good would it do for them to oppose them. What good would come from a Magyar State? Why shake up a perfectly good situation and hope for something just as good just so that Imre' the hungarian can be happy with "HIS" country?
Whatever happened to הוי מתפלל לשלומה של מלכות
?
What good would it have done them? None at all, which is why they didn't do it. You seem to think that I'm criticising them for it. Franz-Josef was good for the Jews, so the Jews loved him. But that means they were thinking as Jews rather than as Hungarians, which tends to undercut your thesis that they were "patriots"; they didn't support "their" country, they supported that country's hated oppressor, because he wasn't oppressing them.
This whole thing that hungarian jews were basicaly more religous then jews in Poland /Galicia is a myth. They made a cleanup by the famous tielung and every jew that was as you would call today MO or young Isreal was considered a Niolog/Goy. And the ortodoxy was left with 10 percent in almost every big city that had the partiton. A city like Budapest with it's 400,000 jews were wiped off the jewish screen, and it was left with Reb Kopel Riech little shtibel,But in poland till the war, yidden was still 1 big family and the weaker ones fell to all kind of Ism's
To Yosef 718: Wasnt the shul that prohibited MM Wiess, Visnitz Monsey?I am thinking if the Ahavas Yisroel in Grossvardien would also think the same?
Anonymous
The opposite can be said.
I think many of whom would be called MO today would be super-frum then. No beard, no shaitel for the wife, minglings with the opposite gender etc. That was the frum norm in Oberland, to a large extent anyway.
It looks you never met a real yid fron guier,secular studies was trief.The ani mamin of MO is secular studies.
Guier? where's that?
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