Neolog Judaism
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Neolog Judaism is a mild reform movement within Judaism which evolved in the Kingdom of Hungary around the mid-19th century.
History
The Neologs were in constant strife with the Orthodox, and the rift between them was institutionalized as a result of the Hungarian Jewish Congress, convened on December 10, 1868. Virtually all Neolog-dominated congregations, except very few, joined the National Jewish Bureau established on the base of the Congress' resolutions. The Orthodox seceded and formed a central organization of their own.[1] The reforms were comparable to the more traditional wing of U.S. Conservative Judaism. At the time of its founding the Orthodox Jews in these regions were opposed to all modern innovations, so even these modest reforms had led to sharp organizational separation. Communities that aligned with neither the Orthodox nor the Neologs were known as the Status Quo.
In the nineteenth century, the Neolog Jews were located mainly in the cities and larger towns. They arose in the environment of the latter period of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a generally good period for upwardly mobile Jews, especially those of modernizing inclinations. In the Hungarian portion of the Empire, many Jews (nearly all Neologs and even some of the Orthodox) adopted the Hungarian language, rather than Yiddish, as their primary language and viewed themselves as "Hungarians of Jewish religion".
In the era of Communist Hungary after World War II, the government forced Orthodox and Neolog organizations there into a single organizational structure, albeit with a semi-autonomous Orthodox section. However, all three denominations (Orthodox, Neolog and Status Quo) have resumed their separate existences in the post-Communist period. The secular Jews nowadays, concentrated especially in Budapest, and representing the majority of the relatively small Jewish community of Hungary, are generally better connected to the Neolog institutions, they have several operating synagogues: Dohány utca (main central synagogue), Frankel Leó utca (small synagogue), Thököly út, Páva utca (Holocaust Memorial and Documentation Center), József körút (rabbinical seminary), Budafoki út. The Status-quo Ante community nowadays does not separated from the Neolog community, as it wanted to see Jews united always. The Status-quo Ante Synagogues in Budapest located at: Rumbach Sebestyén utca (currently not operating), Bethlen Gábor tér (the synagogue of the Chief Rabbi - Head of the Hungarian Rabbinate), Nagyfuvaros utca, and the Hegedűs Gyula utca. The so-called orthodox community operates three synagogues: Kazinczy utca, Dessewffy utca, Visegrádi utca. There is also a small group of Habad hassidim, they are renting one synagogue from the Neolog community at Vasvári utca, and they operate two more: Károly körút, Óbuda. Most of the Neológ, and all of the other - Status-quo Ante, Orthodox, Habad - communities following Shulchan Aruch.
See also
References
- ↑ Jacob Katz. A House Divided : Orthodoxy and Schism in Nineteenth-Century Central European Jewry. ISBN 9780874517965. pp. 227-230.
- Michael Riff, The Face of Survival: Jewish Life in Eastern Europe Past and Present, Valentine Mitchell, London, 1992, ISBN 0-85303-220-3.
- Stephen Roth, "Memories of Hungary", in Riff The Face of Survival, 125-141.
Further reading
- Patai, Raphael, The Jews of Hungary: history, Culture, Psychology, Detroit, Michigan, Wayne State University Press, 1996, ISBN 0-8143-2561-0
- Patai, Raphael, Apprentice in Budapest: Memories of a World That Is No More Lanham, Maryland, Lexington Books, 2000, ISBN 0-7391-0210-9
