Hungary

Population: 10,020,000
Jewish population: 35,000-120,000

The Hungarian Jewish community is the largest in East Central Europe. Most Hungarian Jews live in the capital, Budapest, which has some 20 working synagogues and a plethora of other Jewish institutions, both religious and cultural. There are also a number of smaller Jewish communities in provincial cities, including Debrecen, Miskolc and Szeged, with an active religious and cultural life. Before the war, Hungary had a Jewish population of 450,000 and Budapest was home to over 200,000 Jews, who accounted for some 20% of the city’s habitants. Hundreds of thousands of Hungarian-speaking Jews lived in territories in the neighboring countries that had once been under Hungarian rule. Beginning in 1938, some of these territories were restored to Hungary. During World War II, Hungary allied itself with Nazi Germany and initiated a series of repressive moves against its Jewish population. These culminated in the deportation to Auschwitz of nearly the entire Jewish population of the provinces. Of Hungary’s wartime Jewish population of some 800,000, fewer than 200,000 survived. Immediately after the war, as the country moved into the Soviet orbit and was confronted by acts of anti-Jewish violence, many of the survivors elected to leave. Another wave of emigration followed the abortive 1956 uprising. Eventually the situation stabilized and the ultimate collapse of Communism hastened the revitalization of Jewish communal life. Today, despite antisemitic rumblings, Hungary Jews have every facility to express their Jewish heritage and religious life.