Reference Type: Journal Article
Author: Hartman, Zvi
Year: 2010
Title: The "Assimilation Trap". The Jewry of Post Trianon Hungary
Journal: Studia Judaica
Issue: 12
Pages: 229-241
Language: English
Keywords: Jewish minority, history, assimilation, integration, politics, ethnic identity, religion, education, elites, traditions, social groups, antisemitism
Abstract: (En) After the Hungarian Jews received civil rights in 1867, they took an active part in the Hungariansociety. They became successful citizens of the State of the Magyars, while the Hungarians felt being left behind. At the end of the 19th Century the Jews played an essential role in westernizingHungary. In order to enlarge the number of citizens, the Hungarians "recruited" all the ethnicgroups of Greater Hungary, which were ready to embrace the Magyar language and culture.Among those groups the Jews was the main ethnos who was ready to become "brothers instatistics", as C.A. Macartney put it, whereas other ethni were reluctant to. Thus theHungarians enlarged their Hungarian speaking population in an area where the Germans weretheir neighbors in the West and the Slavs and Romanians their neighbors on the other side of Hungary.
The Jews of Hungary, including those who emigrated to Hungary from other Eastern countries,were ready to embrace the Hungarian "inclusivist policy". Consequently they contributed to theHungarian language and culture. This approach was the beginning of a new kind of inter-ethniccooperation. The Jews even tried to proliferate the Hungarian cultural and language among other ethni.
URL: http://www.academia.edu/3816419/_The_Assimilation_Trap_The_Jewry_of_Post-Trianon_Hungary_in_Studia_Judaica_Cluj_XVIII_2010_pp._229-241