Reference Type: Book Section
Author: Gidó, Attila
Year: 2013
Title: From Hungarian to Jew. Debates Concerning the Future of the Jewry of Transylvania in the 1920s
Editor: Hatos, Pál - Novák, Attila
Book Title: Between Minority and Majority. Hungarian and Jewish/Israeli ethnical and cultural experiences in recent centuries
City: Budapest
Publisher: Balassi Institute
Pages: 185-199
Language: English
Keywords: Jewish minority, history, interwar period, elites, ethnic identity, zionism, nationalism, Transylvania, integration, intellectuals, press, assimilation, Antisemitism
Abstract: (En) This essay of ers a discussion of the context of the dispute regarding what was referred to as the "Jewish Path" in Transylvania following the First World War. The debate was held in the columns of the major Jewish and Hungarian newspapers and journals of Transylvania in 1927. The controversy originated in a report issued by the Népies Irodalmi Társaság [Folkish Literary Society] located in Budapest, which was entrusted with organizing fi nancial support for the Hungarian institutions of Transylvania. The Society informed István Bethlen, the Hungarian Prime Minister at the time, of its worries concerning the future of the Transylvanian Jewish community after the 1924 general assembly of the National
Hungarian Party in Romania, which took place in Brassó (Brasov). Its principal concern was that in time the members of the Hungarian-speaking Jewish communities of Transylvania would lose contact with and their cultural ties to the Hungarian nation. On the basis of the contributions to the debate of the general assembly, taking the events that occurred after 1918 in Romania and specifi cally in Transylvania into consideration, the Society saw two possible prospects for the future. The Transylvanian Jewish community either would begin to assimilate and adopt the culture of the Romanian majority or it would become an independent national minority.1 The same questions were raised three years later, in
1927, but this time they were raised by members of Jewish circles. The debate was ignited by a newspaper article written by Frigyes Hajdú, a Jewish lawyer from Temesvár (Timişoara), who - as someone who considered himself Hungarian - raised the question in the columns of the German language Temesvarer Zeitung. Hajdú came to the conclusion that the Hungarian Jews of Transylvania would gradually break away and assimilate, adopting a Romanian national identity. The aim of this study is to of er an account of the main elements of the 1927 controversy and also to analyze from this perspective the evolution and transformation of the relationship between Hungarian and Jewish inhabitants of Transylvania after 1918.
URL: https://www.academia.edu/2606045/From_Hungarian_to_Jew_Debates_Concerning_the_Future_of_the_Jewry_of_Transylvania_in_the_1920s._In_Pal_Hatos_-_Attila_Novak_ed._Between_Minority_and_Majority._Hungarian_and_Jewish_Israeli_ethnical_and_cultural_experiences_in_recent_centuries._Balassi_Institute_Budapest_2013