For one full day, a single room in Manhattan will become the center of gravity for the global Jewish conversation. The summit takes place at a charged and transformative moment: In the north, the most severe tension since the ceasefire took effect has been recorded, amid a global discussion led by the US administration regarding the issue of the day after in Gaza.

New York has recently seen a sharp rise in antisemitic hate incidents, alongside a political victory for a candidate who is wary of Israel. In Israel, citizens are still coping with a security state of emergency, civil crises, and the search for the outlines of the day after the war. All these issues will receive a single stage tomorrow, featuring the people who are at the heart of decision-making.

Unity across continents

The opening will focus on unity and strength: Yoav Limor will host the summit, which is being hosted by Dr. Miriam Adelson, who will open with a special, exclusive onstage interview with Mike Waltz, the US Ambassador to the UN and one of the closest figures to US President Trump. Immediately afterward, Ambassador Ronald S. Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress, will deliver a special address, focusing on the Jewish identity crisis in the US and a call for Jewish unity across continents.

In the first session, Deputy US Attorney General for combating antisemitism Harmeet Dhillon, Israel's UN Ambassador Danny Danon, senior figures from Jewish academia, leaders of major communities, and representatives of North American federations will take the stage. All of them will confront the question that is concerning every Jew in the city: Will New York (New York City) return to being a safe home? The strategic segment of the summit will feature the Biden administration special envoy Amos Hochstein, who will address the question hanging over the north: normalization or conflagration.

Afterward, senior figures from Israeli communities abroad, representatives of KKL-JNF, and government ministries will delve into the challenges of building Israeli resilience. The afternoon will be dedicated to economics, media, and innovation. Ofra Strauss will discuss the role of local industry during a time of crisis, and Michael Eisenberg will be interviewed about the "11th Million" trend that is changing the face of the Israeli economy. Following this, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, one of Israel's great friends in the US over the years, will take the stage for a special conversation to analyze the international system and the West's role in preserving the alliance with Israel.

Testimonies from captivity

The climax of the day will focus on the hostages, bringing together on one stage former hostages Evyatar David and Guy Gilboa-Dalal for a joint conversation about the difficult days in captivity. Earlier, the stage will host Orna Neutra, the mother of the deceased hostage Omer Neutra who was returned from captivity, and Yael Alexander, the mother of former hostage Edan Alexander. Also participating in the summit will be former Ambassador and Minister Gilad Erdan, Minister Amichai Chikli, Malcolm Hoenlein, Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, philanthropist Sylvan Adams; Sar Shalom Gerbi, manager of the Education and Community Division at KKL-JNF; businesswoman Ofra Strauss; Yoel Zilberman, CEO and founder of the HaShomer HaChadash organization; Chairman of the Zalman Shazar Center Avigdor Kahalani, CEO of the Rashi Foundation Michal Cohen, KKL-JNF Chairwoman Ifat Ovadia-Luski, Founding President and Chairman of the Board of Reichman University Prof. Uriel Reichman, CEO of the Ministry of Heritage Itai Granek, Head of Communications and Government Relations at El Al Michal Gerstler, and others.

Tickets can be purchased here: https://tickchak.co.il/Israel1

The post Israel Hayom first-ever New York summit kicks off Tuesday appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Growing security concerns have prompted the Jewish community in Berlin to implement a protective measure: publishing only the first letter of community members' surnames, rather than their full family names, in birthday announcements in the local community newspaper, according to a report in Bild. The community's monthly journal "Jewish Berlin" traditionally includes a section for "mazel tov" wishes to members over 65 and announcements of children's bar and bat mitzvah celebrations.

The publication recently added an explanatory note to the section: "Dear community members, in light of current anti-Israel and antisemitic incidents, we are now printing only birthday and bar/bat mitzvah names with abbreviated surnames as a precautionary security measure."

Speaking with Bild, Ilan Kiesling, spokesman for the Jewish community in Berlin, explained that this decision was implemented shortly after October 7, stemming from heightened security concerns for community members. Kiesling emphasized that this precautionary step aims to "minimize the potential for hostile actions against our community members," citing specific concerns about Hamas supporter demonstrations in Berlin's streets and the dramatic increase in antisemitic attacks following the October 7 massacre.

In a show of solidarity, Germans wearing kippot participated in a demonstration supporting the Jewish community in Berlin. Ahmed Mansour, an expert on radical Islam based in Germany, commented on the community's decision to withhold full names from public view, telling Bild: "An increasing number of Jews in this country fear being publicly identified as Jewish and subsequently attacked. This represents more than just a tragedy – it signifies a fundamental failure. A failure of our political system, our society, and those who claim that 'never again' amounts to more than empty rhetoric."

The post Fear forces Berlin Jews to hide their identity in community paper appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Climbing the paths leading to the summit of Gellert Hill is no simple task on January mornings. Though we're ascending on a day that isn't particularly cold by Central European standards, the ground is covered with a thin layer of ice that accumulated during the night, causing members of our group to occasionally slip. At some point, these falls become a semi-comical and semi-bonding activity. Eventually, we all arrive safely at the peak to discover that the panoramic view entirely justifies the effort.

Dr. Yoav Sorek gathers us and begins explaining what we're seeing. Unlike the vast majority of Israeli tours in Budapest that focus on the Holocaust period before moving on to the Communist years and ending with the present day, Sorek takes the group 150 years back in time. He speaks about Austria-Hungary – the powerful kingdom that existed until World War I – and about the unique development of Hungary's magnificent Jewish community, a chapter that has been almost entirely pushed aside and forgotten from Jewish history. The names of influential and important rabbis who somehow escaped the spotlight of consciousness float in the air. Chief among them is Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner, the hero of Sorek's doctorate – a figure who, had he not encountered fierce and uncompromising hostility, might have changed the fate of the country's Jews. It's evident that our tour guide is determined to restore the lost honor of Hungarian Jewry, and the horizon-expanding explanation we're hearing on this beautiful hill overlooking the Danube is just one way to do so.

"While writing my doctorate, I fell in love with Hungary's story and its symbiosis with the Jews," Sorek explains to me later. "For me, it was a lost and fascinating continent. I found a story about a culture that arose and revived itself in national awakening, and within it embraced the Jews, who in turn saw it as paradise. Add to that the good relations that exist between the peoples to this day, and I find it fascinating."

Many Hungarian natives live in Israel, but Hungarian culture has been marginalized and barely exists, certainly in Religious Zionism. Why?

"I have a theory that I can't prove. Many in Religious Zionist circles have Hungarian roots, but when looking at this movement's history in Israel at the institutional and consciousness level, we see that in the first generation there were Yekes (German Jews), then Jews from Russia and Lithuania, like Rabbi Moshe Zvi Neria and Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, while Hungarians only became Zionists en masse after the Holocaust. Many survivors immigrated to Israel, so Religious Zionism has a strong Hungarian foundation, but it lacks an ethos and figures. What people know about Hungarian Jewry is mainly connected to Satmar, meaning the zealots. There is a zealous element in Hungarian Judaism, but it certainly wasn't the majority."

A Coup is Just an Excuse

Israelis love Hungary for its cost of living - because it is the opposite of Israel's. Even in kosher restaurants, typically one of the most expensive aspects of traveling abroad, you won't pay more than 120 shekels per person for a full meal, including dessert. Western brands in malls and shops will cost you almost the same as in Israel, but local brands are much cheaper. To calculate the cost, take the price in Hungarian Forint, remove two zeros and subtract another 10%, and you'll have the amount in shekels. 10,000 Forint, for example, is about ninety shekels. This calculation seems complicated at first but will become second nature after your fifth bottle of water.

In the historic city center, near the Great Synagogue, there are two relatively high-quality kosher restaurants: 'Hanna' and 'Carmel'. Right next to them, two cafes and several fast food stands together provide kosher infrastructure for a few days' stay in the city. In the restaurants, you'll find goulash and nokedli, symbols of Hungarian cuisine, which is based on meat, potatoes, and eggs. Or as my Hungarian grandmother often said, "to be satisfied, you don't need to complicate things."

Over a steaming bowl of goulash at one of the kosher restaurants, I sit with Shorek to hear how he rediscovered the history of Hungary and its Jews. He is one of the well-known intellectual figures in the religious-Zionist sector in recent years. Among other things, he founded and edited the 'Shabbat' section in Makor Rishon, and the journals Segula and HaShiloach. Today he is the chairman of 'Lechatchila - A Home for Israeli Torah.' His connection to Hungary seemingly begins at home: both his parents were born in this country. His mother was orphaned during World War II, immigrated to Israel at age five, and grew up in Youth Aliyah institutions. His father was eight when he arrived in Israel on an illegal immigrant ship. "Hungarian culture wasn't celebrated in our home," he recalls. "My parents spoke Hungarian only when they wanted us not to understand something, or when communicating with the previous generation, and when I was 14, that entire generation was no longer alive."

What led you to delve deeper into the history of Hungarian Jewry?

"Both of my parents' families are rabbinic dynasties with long genealogical lines. A kind of elite, if you will, especially on my mother's side, where you find disciples of the Chatam Sofer (Rabbi Moshe Sofer, one of the greatest Jewish legal authorities of the 19th century and a leader in the fight against secularization and reform). They also had an indirect family connection to Rabbi Glasner, but I never heard his name in my childhood.

"I had a certain interest in Hungarian rabbis out of simple sentiment, but I didn't expect to find among them someone who wrote in the style of Rabbi Kook or Rabbi Reines. At one point, I traveled to the US and was invited to the home of distant relatives named Glasner. We descended upon them with seven children for the first days of Sukkot, in the home of a relatively small family. They asked what I was doing, and I said I was about to write a book about the renewal of Torah in Israel. The host got up and pulled a small bound booklet from the shelf: a collection of Religious Zionist thought, an offprint from a forgotten book of the Rabbi Kook Institute published in the 1960s. This section, translated from German, was called 'Zionism in the Light of Faith,' and its author was Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner, the host's great-grandfather."

Sorek began leafing through the booklet, reading and becoming excited. "I was even shocked. I realized that the author of this text was a distinguished Torah scholar who had confidence and broad shoulders, and what he wrote was in some ways exactly what I was supposed to write in my book. He states, for example, that the Torah of exile must make way for the Torah of the Land of Israel, and that there's no place for separation between Orthodox and non-Orthodox. You see things that Rabbi Kook wrote from depth and complexity, Kabbalah and literature, and with Rabbi Glasner everything comes from simple rabbinic intuition. These two figures came from completely different places. Hungarian Orthodoxy was a world unto itself, and Rabbi Kook came from Lithuania and had strong connections with the Hasidic courts around him. They lived more or less in the same period, and more or less the same number of years. They even met briefly in Jerusalem and had previously exchanged some correspondence.

"Rabbi Glasner says things simply. You read something written a hundred years ago, but anyone with a bit of Torah education will understand it as if it were written yesterday. The impressive rhetorical ability, the clarity of thought – all this made me fall in love with Rabbi Glasner's character. I told myself that if one day I pursue a doctorate, and want to study a subject seriously and dig into it completely – I'll choose him. And indeed, a few years later that's what I did." The doctorate Sorek wrote in the History Department at Ben-Gurion University became the book "From Pressburg to Jerusalem" (published by the Zalman Shazar Center). "It took some time to convince the advisors that this unknown figure warranted a doctorate. Initially, it was agreed that the topic would be 'Rabbi Glasner and His Era,' but I'm sure that in the end they too understood that he could carry the work on his own."

Before we get to know Rabbi Glasner, what actually distinguishes Hungarian Jewry from other diasporas?

"First of all, it was a very large community. A significant portion of European Jewry in the 19th and 20th centuries was Hungarian Jewry. It included about a million Jews around 1900. In Budapest alone, about a quarter million Jews lived then – making it the largest 'Jewish city' in Europe after Warsaw. This is a very important community, but it hasn't received the honor it deserves in history and public consciousness. Not much has been written about it, not much research has been done, and therefore not much is known about it. The reason is that Hungarian Jewry was somewhat insular, outside the general European-Jewish discourse. This is the only country that had both Western European Jews, what's called 'Oberland,' German-speaking and educated people, and on the other hand Jews from Galicia and Moravia, the 'Unterland.' In other words, within the same space there are very different Jewish cultures – people who dress differently, eat different food, barely intermarry with each other."

"Secondly, Jews in Eastern Europe were then engaged in struggles between enlightenment and orthodoxy, Zionism and anti-Zionism, socialism and nationalism. Jews in Hungary had an exceptional symbiosis with Hungarians, and most importantly, they had it very good. Therefore, other Jews in the world simply didn't interest them. They conducted their own internal conversation, in Hungarian."

Speaking of Hungarian, you write that it's the only European language that can still be heard today in Hasidic concentrations around the world, besides Yiddish of course.

"That's right. In Brooklyn and Williamsburg, you can still find elderly Jews speaking Hungarian. Among the ultra-Orthodox, you won't find people speaking Russian, Polish, or Czech, because these are languages of those who want to assimilate. Hungarian, on the other hand, wasn't perceived as threatening or leading to too deep integration with the Hungarian people – partly because it's a relatively small nation, but mainly because Jews didn't see Hungarians as enemies. Hungary gave the Orthodox the security that no Reform Jew would bother them or undermine them. This was an emancipation deal that recognized Orthodox Judaism as another 'official church' in the country. And unlike other European countries, which along with recognition demanded that we reform Judaism a bit – to be less xenophobic, more liberal, to allow mixed marriages – here exactly the opposite happened. The state stood behind Orthodoxy and said: speak Hungarian, study Hungarian core subjects, but other than that, do what you want."

Why did this happen specifically in Hungary and not in other countries?

"The nationalism that developed in Hungary before World War I was multi-ethnic and liberal by definition. This stemmed partly from the fact that Hungarians themselves aren't homogeneous. Not all are Catholic, there's a strong Protestant element, so religious tolerance existed from the start and this influenced attitudes toward Jews. A reporter from the Jewish-American Forward who arrived in Budapest in 1910 reported that this was the true paradise for Jews. And we're talking about a journalist coming from the US, the 'golden country.' Another important factor: the Hungarians needed Jews numerically to stand against the Romanians, Slovaks, and Serbs. The kingdom ruled over many other peoples, and Hungarians were only 45 percent of the population in its territory. The Jews gave them the percentage points they needed to be a majority."

This golden age ended after World War I. "Two-thirds of the territory no longer belonged to Hungary, and in the remaining third, there was a Hungarian majority or Jews. Jews suddenly became a minority that could be hated, and 'paradise' became the first place in Europe to establish quotas for Jewish students in universities. They connected it to the Communist revolution that Bela Kun, who was Jewish, tried to lead, but that was just an excuse. However, it's important to say that between the World Wars, Hungary didn't turn into an antisemitic monster. Jews still had a central place in the country, but they were already hated, and antisemitism began to develop where it had barely existed before."

A congress that's a trap

To talk about Rabbi Glasner, we need to go back to the years before World War I, and away from Budapest to Transylvania – today in Romania, but then part of Hungary. The central city in the region was called Klausenburg, today Cluj. "The state authorities cultivated Klausenburg as a center of Hungarian culture. In 1906, for example, they built the Hungarian National Theater there. You can see this building in today's Cluj, but now it's called the Romanian National Theater. It's amazing to see that even a hundred years after Klausenburg became Romanian, the tension between the two sides still bubbles there. You barely need to scratch the surface for it to show. You say a word in Hungarian on the street, and suddenly a resident hugs you like you're their lost brother because they feel like a persecuted minority."

And there, in Klausenburg that wasn't yet Cluj, Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner served as the city's chief rabbi for a very long time – 44 years. "He was an opinionated, rational personality with a modern spirit. His father, Rabbi Abraham Glasner, was one of the important students of the Ktav Sofer (son of the Chatam Sofer) and was married to the Chatam Sofer's eldest granddaughter. The father delivered his sermons in fluent German, meaning clearly 'Oberland,' like most of the Chatam Sofer's family. They weren't zealots at all, contrary to their reputation."

"After serving in a small Hungarian town, Rabbi Abraham Glasner was appointed rabbi of Klausenburg, then a growing Jewish community. He served in the position for 17 years, and after his passing, the community appointed his only son, Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner, in his place. This happened in 1878. There were also opponents to the appointment – the more modern elements in the community, Jews who would later establish the Neolog movement. They said, 'Who is this young man who goes around with the Hasidic rabbis?' Rabbi Glasner was connected to several rabbis from the area, and therefore was a thorn in their side. The ultra-Orthodox, who became angry with him later on, always mentioned that in his youth he was connected to Hasidic courts, meaning to the good ones. Oberland from home, Unterland from the surroundings."

Rabbi Glasner began serving as the rabbi of Klausenburg at a very young age – a position he would resign from after four and a half decades, following disputes that erupted over his Zionist leanings. "At first, he established a yeshiva and was appointed to the Budapest Rabbinical Council, making him part of the Orthodox establishment. He was also a great expert in the laws of ritual slaughter, as befitting a rabbi of a large city in those days, and maintained good relations with rabbis in the area, even though he was somewhat of a modernist. He often traveled to Budapest for communal affairs and published his opinions on various contemporary issues. His responses reveal the character of a bold and unpredictable person, who often thought differently from the rabbis around him."

In what areas was this expressed?

"Around 1900, when he already had twenty years of experience, Rabbi Glasner spoke out on matters of civil marriage, conversion, and other issues that were then at the center of debates, and his statements are quoted to this day. In a new book by Yeshivat Har Bracha on the topic of conversion, there is an extensive section about Rabbi Glasner, who broke new ground and presented a very important position. Basically, he said that once a woman chooses to abandon her Christian identity, we are less concerned with which commandments she observes: her choice is sufficient for us to accept her conversion as authentic, because she is willing to pay a heavy price for it."

When did Rabbi Glasner's not-taken-for-granted romance with Zionism begin?

"The moment Herzl's 'The Jewish State' was published, around 1896. I discovered this in a way that might suggest there were those who sought to diminish his character. These things appear in the manuscript of his book of responsa. The entire book was printed word for word, except for one response that wasn't printed. I discovered this when I was looking for something else related to a printing error, and for that purpose, I compared the printed book to the manuscript, and had already gone through all of it."

"In the omitted question, a rabbi of one of the communities wrote to him: 'They established a Zionist association in the city and want me to be an honorary member, what do you think?' Rabbi Glasner answered: 'You're probably hesitant because they think about nationalism and not about religion, but ultimately Zionism strengthens people's religious identity, brings them closer to Judaism and the Land of Israel, and distances them from assimilation, and this is a wonderful thing. They say they're not interested in the religious aspect? So they say. The very fact of their choosing religious identity in an era when it's so easy to escape from it, this is the 'beginning of redemption.'' He actually used this term, before the year 1900. I don't know if anyone else in Europe said these words then."

And then came the clash with Hungarian Orthodoxy.

"The first world congress of the Mizrachi movement took place in 1904 in Pressburg – today Bratislava, capital of Slovakia. Rabbis in Hungary organized to boycott the event, and that's where Hungarian Jewry's anti-Zionism was born. It didn't have deep roots; it was a political move against Mizrachi. Rabbi Glasner wasn't part of the boycott: on one hand, he apparently respected it and didn't personally attend the congress, and on the other hand, he published a letter against the boycott, which he said was done without serious discussion and based on false assumptions about Mizrachi. He himself became Mizrachi's representative in Hungary, though at that stage it had no practical significance. Later, around 1920, he gave many lectures and swept all of Transylvania into Zionism, but in 1904 there was no one in Hungary to talk to about the subject. Rabbi Glasner understood there was no point, didn't preach about Zionism, didn't write articles, and didn't advocate. Because Hungarian Jews simply weren't there. As mentioned, they had it good in Hungary, and they didn't want to be considered unpatriotic."

Did Hungarian Jews' anti-Zionism stem from extreme religiosity or rather from Hungarian nationalism?

"The public didn't flock to Zionism because they identified with Hungarian nationalism, and Zionism in their view contradicted all that. By the way, Rabbi Glasner was a Hungarian patriot and didn't see Zionism as contradicting this. During World War I, he wrote that it is forbidden to use tricks or 'get sick' to dodge military service, and his son even served as an officer in the Hungarian army. The Hungarian rabbis who led the sharp opposition to Zionism were heavily influenced by propaganda from the 'Black Bureau' in Kovno, which came from the Chabad Rebbe's study hall, the Rabbi of Brisk, and other Russian rabbis who feared the danger of secularization. Hungarian Jews weren't very interested in this because there was no secularization there: you were either religious or assimilated. But in Eastern Europe, secularization was strong, and in the eyes of the rabbis there, Zionism was a way to be Jewish without religion, and it had to be fought against relentlessly. That's why they were shocked when they learned that a Mizrachi conference was going to be held in Hungary, and that the rabbis there didn't understand it was a trap aimed at secularizing everyone. This propaganda was very successful with important rabbis who already had an ultra-Orthodox sentiment, in the sense of fearing anything new. There were quite a few rabbis in Hungary then who thought differently and saw Zionism as wonderful, but they were silenced."

Looking back, it seems Rabbi Glasner's view was quite naive, and the ultra-Orthodox concerns were justified. Most Zionists today are secular, and the Jewish state is secular.

"I disagree with that statement. Mass secularization occurred in Eastern Europe without any connection to Zionism. For those who became secular, Zionism was actually the more Jewish option, instead of becoming Communist-Socialist or just going to America and being secular Jews. Thank God, a large enough part of the Jewish people chose the Zionist path."

I'm not sure the ultra-Orthodox would say "Thank God" about this, since many of these Jews are, as mentioned, secular.

"Perhaps. But Rabbi Glasner was far from this kind of thinking. It was clear to him that in the new life of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel, we wouldn't be religious in the same way we were in exile. Judaism needed to take on a new face, and secular domains were equally important. If you're creating Jewish culture, it means that both the architect and the farmer are performing a Jewish act."

That's classic Religious Zionism at its purest.

"Correct, exactly like Rabbi Reines and all the others. The concept of the 'New Jew' was very strong among Religious Zionist rabbis, it wasn't just a secular idea. Rabbi Reines wrote extensively, he was a great philosophical genius; Rabbi Glasner didn't write much, but was a brilliant orator. There are many descriptions of the ecstasy among his audiences during his Zionist journeys through Transylvanian and German communities. He believed wholeheartedly that redemption was coming, and had deep admiration for those who made aliyah to Israel."

"Rabbi Glasner himself made aliyah in spring 1923 and settled in Jerusalem. Here too, he remained active in the Mizrachi movement, supported religious settlement, and taught at the movement's teachers' seminary. In October 1924, he passed away and was buried on the Mount of Olives. "When he arrived in the country, all his anti-Zionist opponents were certain he would see what was happening around him and change his mind," Shorek relates. "They circulated a forged letter in which Rabbi Glasner supposedly said 'I came to the Land of Israel, you were right, it's terrible.' So he had to write a letter contradicting this. In the period's newspapers, one can find descriptions of how pleased he was with what was happening in the country."

Herzl didn't say

Shorek takes his tour participants outside the big city to the picturesque town of Vác, which he calls "the Zikhron Ya'akov of Hungary." Not that there's much Jewish heritage to see in Vác, but this is part of Shorek's approach's charm – he genuinely loves Hungary and doesn't focus solely on its Jewish story. We found ourselves in a beautiful botanical garden in the small town, wandering without needing to connect everything to orthodoxy or halakhic issues. Shorek also ensures the tours aren't too packed or overly didactic, and his guidance usually ends around one in the afternoon. Afterwards, participants are free to wander the city as they wish or simply rest.

A tourist from another country trying to understand the world through the flight board at Ferenc Liszt International Airport would be sure that Israel is a superpower: every few hours, a flight from Ben Gurion Airport lands here. It's no coincidence that you hear so much Hebrew in central Budapest. When you add to this the cooperation between the Israeli government and the Hungarian government, you can definitely declare a new golden age in Jewish-Hungarian relations – no small matter after the Holocaust.

The Jewish community here is relatively small, but echoes of its magnificent past are evident in almost every corner. The impressive Neolog synagogue on Dohány Street in Budapest is considered a must-see attraction for tourists from around the world, regardless of their religion. I ask Sorek to talk about these echoes of the past. "The sharp division between Orthodox and Neolog Jews continued to exist in Hungary, both formally and practically, until the Holocaust and even after," he explains. "In the late 1940s, Orthodox synagogues and educational institutions operated in Budapest. Following waves of emigration – after the war, and again in 1956 – and due to the Communist regime's hostile attitude, almost no Orthodox Jews remained in Hungary. But the community officially continued to exist and maintained many properties, even if deteriorating."

One of the interesting proofs of Orthodox Judaism's decline in Hungary can be found in Chabad's central role in everything related to Judaism in the country today. "We classify Chabad members as ultra-Orthodox, and this Hasidic movement was even anti-Zionist, but dividing Jews into Orthodox and non-Orthodox is completely foreign to Chabad thinking. It's a movement that seeks to reach every Jew, and in the diaspora, it's even an Israeli anchor."

Chabad's activity in Hungary in recent decades operated alongside the dwindling Orthodox community, and sometimes there was hostility between the sides. All this changed recently when a person associated with Chabad became the official manager of the community and began a long and fascinating journey to renew its assets and shake off the accumulated dust. He raised enormous sums to restore the Orthodox synagogue on Kazinczy Street and began implementing the project. Simultaneously, he's establishing a museum in the community building's basement that will tell Hungarian Jewry's story from the Orthodox perspective, competing with the famous museum of the Neolog synagogue.

Participants in Sorek's tour get to enter the Kazinczy synagogue, still closed to the public, and also visit the real treasure, at least in history lovers' eyes: an archive in the making that seeks to organize tens of thousands of books, certificates, sacred objects, and documents that accumulated in Orthodox community warehouses and were neglected for decades. These materials come not only from Budapest but also from provincial cities, most of whose synagogues closed in the Communist regime's early years.

I ask Sorek why he presents Hungarian Jewry through Budapest, even though Rabbi Glasner, a central figure in the story he weaves, operated mainly in Klausenburg. "When my book was published – almost three years after completing the doctorate – I thought a launch event is nice, but we could do something cooler: a launch journey. I built a tour composed of Budapest and Cluj, and half the participants were Rabbi Glasner's family members, who were very involved in the book's writing process. Seemingly, why not just visit Cluj, his city? The answer is that you can't understand his story without understanding the Hungarian-Jewish story. Budapest doesn't need Rabbi Glasner, but Rabbi Glasner needs Budapest. The Orthodox community was created in this city. Hungarian liberalism enabled the idea of a separate Orthodox community, and the strong symbiosis between Hungarians and Jews caused Zionism to be delayed years before it took root in this environment. That's why Budapest is very central to the story, while Klausenburg hasn't had Hungarians for more than a hundred years."

"If you want to grasp the reality of Jewish life, the paradise they had; if you want to understand why Theodor Herzl, a Hungarian Jew, had to find another place to talk about Zionism, knowing that no one in Hungary would listen to him – in Budapest you can see it before your eyes. Beyond that, there's something exceptional about this city. It was built to be an empire's capital in the late 19th century, then went through two world wars and decades of communism, yet if you have the right ears and eyes, you hear and see things. It's like walking through a living museum."

"In Budapest, the Jewish communities also separated. Today we don't see the rift with our eyes, because there are no active Neolog and Orthodox communities here anymore, but you can walk down the main Jewish street and tell how all the Jewish shops were open on Shabbat, and the city's rabbi didn't care because they weren't from his community."

And what about the Holocaust of Hungarian Jews? Almost defiantly, it's not present in your tour.

"Obviously we can't ignore the Holocaust, but there was so much in the period before it. Indeed, precisely because of Hungarian Jews' 'paradise' feeling, what happened here in the Holocaust appears as betrayal. Unlike Poles or Ukrainians, who always appeared to Jews as enemies lying in wait, in Hungary, it wasn't like that at all. The feeling of betrayal is strong and justified, but Israelis – including Hungarian natives – love Budapest very much."

"People are amazed to see that this city symbolized the height of progress in the early 20th century. The subway that ran here was the first in Europe and third in the world, after London and New York. The largest Gothic building in the world is the Hungarian Parliament. There's an interesting duality here – on one hand, it's amusing to see thousands of monuments to national heroes who never won any war. After all, this is a culture that was crushed under German and Russian boots, and never rose to be an economic power, at most it had some sports achievements.

"On the other hand, they survived. Budapest continued to be a large and prosperous city despite everything it went through, and the Hungarian language, which is different from everything around it and seemingly should have disappeared – here quite a few people are chattering in it. Maybe demographically it will end in another hundred years, because it's a small nation that can't reproduce enough, but the Hungarians managed to create culture, science, and poetry in their language. During the golden age of relations with the Jews, you could see a kind of similarity between the peoples, a population of Asian origin scattered among Europeans, an unconscious correlation of shared destiny."

I can't help but ask you about your son Dvir z"l, who was murdered in a terrorist attack in August 2019. Is Budapest for you also a place to escape to?

"I don't feel like I'm escaping from anything. Sometimes I feel a bit uncomfortable immersing myself in other things and not in memorials, although I said from day one that I don't want to fall into a place that perhaps keeps other bereaved parents alive, meaning constantly dealing with memorializing the child who died. Certainly not when I have other living children."

"Dvir was killed when I was completing my doctorate," he adds. "A year passed from then until I finished and submitted the work. After submission, I entered a mental crisis. The shiva days are also a farewell party where you discover what kind of child you raised at home, there are things that sweeten the pain and you don't really understand that he won't be here anymore. Working on the doctorate gave me more time. After I finished came the crisis, and it took me two years to get out of it."

It's not clear if this is one of the tour's goals, but a few days in Budapest with Sorek instills Hungarian pride in anyone with roots in this region – I, the humble one, am among them. A few days after returning home, the dedicated WhatsApp group is still buzzing. Pictures, documents, impressions, and summaries continue to appear one after another. I admit I'm not the type for organized tours and tours where they take me like an obedient sheep from here to there, but this time it was something different. Full of passion and love for Budapest, its Jews, its past, and its present, which is also full of Jews and Hebrew – just ask Franz Liszt International Airport.

The post Hungary's forgotten Jewish heritage appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Shalom Boguslavsky's new book boasts probably the longest book title you have ever read: "The Unlikely and Oft-Overlooked Story of the Rise and Fall of Jewish Eastern Europe." The first sentence in this highly popular history book, written by the tour guide, lecturer and blogger, who has a strong passion for Eastern Europe, proudly tells us that, "It is a ridiculous feat to recount five hundred years of history in one book."  But Boguslavsky was forced to tell this story in one book as it is precisely this 500-year period from the 15th century to the Holocaust that creates a clear narrative arc: at the start of the 16th century (the period of the Expulsion of the Jews of Spain, the growing strength of the Ottoman Empire and the conquest of America by the Europeans) there were only a few tens of thousands of Jews in Eastern Europe; by the mid-18th century (prior to the American War of Independence and the French Revolution) this number had already grown to 750 thousand; and by the end of the 19th century (the birth of Zionism, the eve of the First World War, against the backdrop of a tremendous wave of emigration to America), there were some 6.5 million Jews there.

But Boguslavsky's book does not necessarily deal with these relatively well-known global events, which accompanied the rise of Judaism in Eastern Europe, but actually focuses on the no less interesting but much less remembered (or "oft-overlooked" in his words) developments of that particular area. Who are the people and the cultures who shared the Eastern-European domain with the Jews? What is the connection between the Jewish mythology of that period – the shtetl, the incessant battles between the Hasidim and the Litvaks (the Misnagedim or "opponents" who later took on the term Litvaks as they came from Lithuania) and so on – and the reality of the other surrounding nations and states? Our inability to perceive the conditions leading to the development of such a major force in world Jewry, does to a large extent underscore the importance of one of the maps presented at the beginning of the book: that large land of two kingdoms Poland-Lithuania, which at the time encompassed Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, and Kaliningrad. This is an immense swathe of land that has changed over the years, it expanded and was later downsized, it was partitioned and then reunited, and for the duration of those hundreds of years it was plagued by revolutions no less than those occurring in Western Europe. This certainly had an impact on the Jewish population.

Boguslavsky's interest in the Jews of Eastern Europe began as a necessary part of his profession. "I began to travel to Eastern Europe, mainly to Ukraine, due to personal circumstances, and also as I was extremely interested by it," recounts Boguslavsky. "The more I traveled the more I became captivated with it, and I thought: I travel in any event and deal with guiding and tourism, so why shouldn't they pay me for those trips? So, I began to take groups of tourists with me. I obviously needed to engage in an orderly effort to learn the relevant material so as not to talk garbage when providing commentary on the sites in question. When I learned the general history of those places, it cast Jewish history in a completely different light, and gave me the broader context that I had been missing until then, and that people usually are not aware of. The second thing that happened is that I was overly critical of certain images that had been traditionally associated with the Jews of Eastern Europe. They still remained firmly implanted in my head, but then, gradually I began to see things that did not really fit in with those images."

The first thing that Boguslavsky noticed, which contradicted those preconceptions that had "been implanted in his head," he claims was the number of Jews spread across the lands of Eastern Europe. "There were simply masses of Jews there," he says. "At some point, more than three-quarters of world Jewry were concentrated in that region. This was information that was already available, but it became much more present and tangible when I was there and saw the little that remained of it with my own eyes. It is still possible to feel the prominent presence of the Jews in that region to this day. The first example that caused me to understand this was one of the remains of the synagogues that I saw. Even the little that remained of it was extremely grand and majestic. I thought to myself that it is from the literature written about that period, rather than the academic research, that we always tend to gain the impression of the small, shabby and pitiful shtetl with the non-Jews on one side of the river and the Jews on the other side, and everything is so small and abjectly impoverished. And then, all of a sudden, you see a synagogue hewn from stone in the center of the town, a magnificent edifice built by the King of Poland's own personal architect. Thus, a number of factors began to accumulate that did not correspond with the image that I had entertained, and so I began to delve into this subject a little more.

"In the beginning, I thought to myself, 'Wow, how smart I am, I have unearthed completely new ground here,' but as soon as I began to read I immediately grasped that I had not uncovered anything at all. Everything that I thought I understood – the world of academic research already knew. Prof. Majer Bałaban, Prof. Israel Heilperin and all the leading lights in this field have already written everything there is to write much more eloquently than I could write. But it transpires that there is a gap between what is known to the world of academic study and the popular perception of things. And I, in my profession, am supposed to give this out to people who do not hail from an academic background or who have been dealing with such issues for their entire lives. And so, this is how I decided to take the leap and try and bridge that gap."

Where did the Cossacks come from?

The book weaves the general history of the region with the local Jewish history and the Jewish memory, or the Jewish mythology of Eastern Europe. Familiarity with the broader view of the story, says Boguslavsky, sheds a different light on our story, that of the Jews. "If you ask historians dealing with Jewish history what was the greatest event that occurred in the last third of the 18th century, the rise of the Hasidic movement will always stand out together with the bitter split between the Hasidim and the Misnagedim, Boguslavsky points out. "Ostensibly, this is an internal Jewish theological-ideological dispute, a fight for the spiritual leadership of the Jews, and similar issues. However, when you study the wider picture, you come to understand that all this took place in parallel to the Civil War, revolutions, invasions, and severe internal political strife in the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom. The Jews were involved in all these affairs. At that time, the historic Four-Year Sejm (Parliament) discussions were well underway, which were intended to determine the fate of the kingdom, and the Jews sent their emissaries to it, took part in the rebellions, and played an important role in the wars – both as victims but also as fighters, here and there. So, to what extent did the Jews who lived at that time really regard the halakhic disputes, such as the question of whether it is permitted to stand on your head during prayers, as a central issue? I don't know and there is no way of checking this. But we really should not be telling our story without the broader context."

How does that context have a specific impact?

"The issue of the denunciatory letters sent by opponents of Hasidism to the Russian government is a central pillar in the conflict between the Hasidim and the Misnagedim. I have heard this story more times than I care to remember, and I have never come across anybody who mentions that there is a wider context to the use of such a tool: the Russian government in those areas, which were given over to Russia following the partition of the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom, was completely new, it had just materialized there. So, everybody was trying hard to prove to the new administration that they were loyal to it and that the other side was full of treachery and plans to undermine it. This is also a government, and once again it is important to mention here the wider context, which until that point had not come across any Jews at all. Until that time, there had been no Jews in Russia so that its government had absolutely no idea who these people were and what was happening among the Jews. So now, each side was convinced that it had been presented with a golden opportunity to go to the new administration and present to it the reality of the situation as it saw it, and in a manner that would support its own cause.

"This is not the only context. This dispute is also connected to the processes of modernization that were just beginning to take shape at that time. The leadership crisis in the Jewish world that led to the rise of Hasidism is a direct outcome of the crisis of modernity. The Enlightenment is not the only thing that was born out of that crisis. Hasidism too, as well as the Misnagedim movement, along with the Enlightenment, are modern phenomena. These are three distinct movements that appear at the same time, against the same background, and under the same circumstances. I believe that this puts the whole story in a much more interesting context than the purely internal Jewish theological and sociological aspect that it has been customary to talk about."

Another example is that of the Khmelnytsky Uprising in the mid-17th century, clearly one of the more severe traumas that is indelibly etched in Jewish historical memory – but without any context. "The story usually goes something like this: people called Cossacks, known by and familiar to only a handful of people, suddenly appeared from nowhere, and they slaughtered us because they are antisemites with a deep-rooted hatred of anything Jewish," says Boguslavsky. "The truth is that this is correct, as who did not hate Jews during that period? Having said that, when you zoom out from what was clearly a horrific series of pogroms, you see a historical event in dimensions that are reminiscent of the Thirty Years' War, one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in Western European history, which was just coming to an end when the Khmelnytsky Uprising began. We are talking about several decades of wars resulting in millions of dead and wounded, with a whole spectrum of factors involved. An epic drama of which we remember an episode that lasted for a year and a half and which was not necessarily the most fatal event for the Jews at that time, but regarding which the most eloquent text was written, which also survived, the book "Yeven Mezulah" or the "Abyss of Despair", written by Rabbi Nathan Nata ben Moses Hannover. What would have happened had this book not been written or had it not survived? We might have completely forgotten about this event or not even known about it."

A highly selective memory

The book is replete with figures we have heard of, but also brings to life from the 'abyss of despair' colorful characters, who might not have left a personal stamp on history but their stories are no less riveting. One of these figures, whose story to a large extent is the story of the entire period, is Fabus Abramovich of Kraków. "A rogue and a con artist who took over the community in Kraków at the end of the 18th century. This is an amazing story. He was the leader of the opposition in the community. In the Jewish communities of that period, an oligarchy comprising just a few families was able to rule all the community institutions for more than a hundred years on occasion, even though elections were actually held annually. In terms of the situation in those days, this was one of the most democratic forms of government that existed on Earth, but such an oligarchy also gives rise to opposition, which is usually composed of those people who were not given the jobs that they believed they ought to have been given. In the 18th century, when the initial buds of mass politics were just beginning to sprout, the opposition began to portray itself as ostensibly being the force that represents the 'simple people' against the 'arrogant elite'. Of course, had they succeeded and risen to power they would have acted precisely as those preceding them did. These struggles were always a sordid affair, but the events in the community of Kraków were especially sordid and violent.

"Our man, Abramovich, took advantage of the fact that Kraków was conquered time and again by various forces during the period of the partition of Poland-Lithuania. Against the background of this tumult, he succeeded in creating a devious bureaucratic manipulation that would appoint him as a dictator to rule over the community. Jewish communities in Europe were run for hundreds of years by a joint leadership of four 'parnasim' (heads of the community), each one running the community for one month at a time on a rotation. Underneath the parnasim were the 'tovei ha'ir', the good (elder) citizens, who themselves were above the rest of the community. This form of government, which has roots in the Hellenistic-Roman world, ensured decentralization of power, creating checks and balances. The community rabbi too had his own form of power. Abramovich left this entire structure in place in Kraków but then placed himself above it all as a sort of dictator. He managed to convince the community that the governor had appointed him to this position; while he persuaded the governor that the community had asked him to assume that position. He relied on the fact that both sides would fail to uncover the deception.

"In the end, it failed, and the deception was indeed exposed. This story, apart from the fact that it is extremely entertaining, reflects the fact that the leadership structure of the Jewish communities, which worked so well for hundreds of years, had ceased to function by the end of the 18th century. Due to its inherent weakness, all sorts of issues began to crop up, such as the Hasidic takeover and manipulations such as that of Abramovich.'"

One of the declared goals of the book is to change the image of Jewish Eastern Europe. "The image that we have is of a later period, the end of the 19th century and the turn of the 20th century. The period about which authors such as Sholem Aleichem and others wrote, the era of mass emigration to America, was one rife with crises. People tend to emigrate when bad things occur. The Jewish town was old and decrepit at that point, and the majority of the Jews were living under the rule of the Russian Empire, an extremely despotic and antisemitic form of government. This is the period addressed by the literature with which we are familiar and these are the memories that people carry with them.

One of the declared goals of the book is to change the image of Jewish Eastern Europe. "The image that we have is of a later period, the end of the 19th century and the turn of the 20th century. The period about which authors such as Sholem Aleichem and others wrote, the era of mass emigration to America, was one rife with crises. People tend to emigrate when bad things occur. The Jewish town was old and decrepit at that point, and the majority of the Jews were living under the rule of the Russian Empire, an extremely despotic and antisemitic form of government. This is the period addressed by the literature with which we are familiar and these are the memories that people carry with them. They are not historians, they do not have an overall perception of the periods from the 15th century onwards, in some of which life was better and in some it was much worse. They are familiar with what they remember, and the tendency is to assume that the reality with which we are familiar is the fixed, permanent situation. This picture is not completely baseless, although it is somewhat exaggerated, and this is the death knell. But we are interested in the entire period, not only the demise but also the ascendancy and the golden period of prosperity.

"To all of this, we need to add the existing image that we have regarding Poland, Ukraine, Belarus and the rest of the places that make up the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. We regard these as being extremely antisemitic areas, where the local inhabitants are breastfed on antisemitism. This has always been a matter of concern for me. Could the Jews be such complete idiots who specifically went to those places where they were so hated? That is simply not logical. If so many Jews chose to live there of all places, this must mean one of two things. Either the fact that there were so many Jews there led to the hatred of our people, and this is not very flattering for us as Jews, or that the situation there was not as bad as in other places.

"And lo and behold, just as it was clear to anybody living throughout those eras, it was indeed not as bad there. In other places, where we do not regard the local inhabitants to be antisemites from birth, they simply did not allow the Jews to settle among them. The best method of not being attributed the current image of an antisemite was prevalent already back in the Middle Ages, by expelling all the Jews, and in this manner, nobody would accuse you of antisemitism. This is the reason why nobody accuses the English of being antisemitic. They threw out all the Jews back in the 12th century and since then, everything there has been just 'peachy keen'. The Jews lived in Eastern European countries and thus they were subject there to the best things and the worst things too. And it is from here too that we have the most historical sources and memories."

The fact that masses of Jews lived in this region distorts the perception as to the actual scope of persecution of the Jews. "If a war is being waged – and wars at the time were without intervention from the High Court of Justice or human rights groups such as B'Tselem, with armies massacring civilian populations without any remorse, just for the fun of it – then in a place that was home to tens of thousands of Jews, then it is a predictable consequence that hundreds and thousands of Jews would be killed. If the same type of war occurs elsewhere, where only a few thousand Jews were living, then a few dozen or perhaps a few hundred Jews would be killed. Clearly, thousands of Jews being killed leaves a much more lasting impression, but this does not necessarily mean that the warlords and the soldiers in those places with a much denser Jewish population were more antisemitic. We remember one event, and the other, smaller event, we have never heard of – and this is what shapes the story."

Their rise and fall

The book paints the rise of Jewish Eastern Europe in bold colors along with the years of its glory and grandeur, but it also focuses equally on the long and hard years of its demise. Boguslavsky succeeds in persuading the reader of the existence of a strong bond between the overall geopolitical processes and the severe crisis experienced by the Jewish population. "In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Jews developed into a status of their own within the feudal order, just like the classic classes of the nobility, the peasants and the bourgeois," he explains. "In Poland-Lithuania there were two parallel urban classes: A Christian urban class and a Jewish urban class, more or less equal in size. One of the issues that set the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth apart from Western Europe was that it was engaged in the conquest and settlement of non-developed lands, mainly in Ukraine and Belarus. In the process of the settlement and regulatory organization of these territories, the government and the nobility encouraged different types of people to settle there: urban dwellers, peasants, and Cossacks. The Jews had good reason to take an interest in settling down there, as they had been pushed aside and removed from other locations, and this led to a situation whereby they developed into an extremely important factor in these areas.

"Therefore, the entire system in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth became dependent on the Jews in relation to a number of matters – for example, in the mediation efforts between the nobility and the peasants, or in the field of public administration. Somebody had to manage the estates, postal services, fishponds, and forests. The concept of a 'leaseholder', which is very familiar to us from Jewish literature, comes from here. Leaseholding is the accepted method of management in the feudal regime – a type of privatization: the government or the noblemen who own the estate do not manage the day-to-day running of the lands on their own. They issue a 'tender' and then check to see who is ready to run everything and pass on the profits to them. This is privatization in its pre-modern form. The Jews were also responsible for the transportation of goods. The peasants would grow agricultural produce and the Jews would then export this. The local Jewish merchant purchased the goods from the peasants and then sold them wholesale at a regional fair, and from here the produce was then transferred to the next fair, and it would proceed from one fair to another until it was eventually shipped abroad. The imported goods would also be passed on via the Jews. The result is that large parts of the largest country in Europe were simply unable to function without the Jews.

"In other places, the Jews were not involved in leaseholding. In Medieval times, the Jews were traditionally involved in commerce, but here the commerce actually moved aside somewhat in favor of the leaseholding. This is based on the fact that the Polish nobility took control of the Jews in the 16th century: the Parliament of Nobles was much more powerful than the king, and the nobles simply succeeded in taking control of the asset that was called the Jews. They took it from the king for themselves, just as they took other assets, and in essence, they used the Jews for whatever they deemed to be important to them."

All this was turned on its head once modernity appeared at the doorway and the social order was undermined. "The nobility began to decline and the state became more centralized. During this modern era, the king was not made any weaker and actually gained power: suddenly there was no such thing as every nobleman doing whatever took his fancy. And so, the status of the Jews was undermined. Their unique role was eroded. And as soon as the Jews become like everybody else, then those selfsame 'everybody elses' no longer wished for the Jews to be part of them. And this is what leads to their demise. Prior to the rise of nationalism, society was divided up into groups – there were nobles and peasants, there were Catholics and Protestants, and there were also Jews. But, then when all of a sudden there is a collective identity, the question inevitably arises: Are the Jews really part of it? These questions arise and this is also the trigger for the revival of Jewish nationalism, which did not occur in a vacuum, disconnected from what was happening in the greater environment surrounding the Jews at that time."

Jewish Eastern Europe has become a genuine magnet for young Israelis these days. Do you understand why this is happening at this specific juncture?

"The truth is that I have no clear answer to this. I can however hazard a guess: This is a reaction to the dismissal of the Diaspora, which was an extremely acceptable approach in Israel until not so long ago. People who made aliyah from Eastern Europe preferred to leave behind what was there, but after a few generations there is no longer any sense of urgency to escape from this, and now, all of a sudden, they are beginning to show interest and they really wish to learn. This is part of a natural process of searching for your roots, even among today's youngsters. The discourse surrounding identities picked apart the liberal 'Israeli' identity, and so young people whose families came from Eastern Europe are now asking themselves why everybody has an identity apart from me. Suddenly everybody is looking for their own personal identity."

Boguslavsky (47), a resident of Jerusalem ever since he made aliyah at the age of five, is married with two children. Until a number of years ago, he was known to the followers of the blog entitled "Drop the Scissors and Let's Talk about it". Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he became a social media influencer and even almost a media star. The strongly opinionated and well-reasoned analyses he published on social media regarding the war attracted considerable attention, turning him into one of the leading commentators in that field for some time, even though he is neither a journalist nor an academic researcher of the conflict.

"It became a part of my routine," he says. "I used to travel to Ukraine several times a year, I have friends there, colleagues, acquaintances, and relatives, and so when the war broke out, it naturally preoccupied me and is still doing so. Writing on that topic provided me with a form of escapism. This is a war that I felt was 'close to home' so that by writing about it on a more intellectual level, I was able to stand back and distance myself from it to some extent. Apart from that, I also saw that many people were writing nonsense about what was going on there and that really annoyed me.

"Truth be told, this is often the trigger that gives me the impetus to start writing: I see that someone else is writing absolute baloney and I feel a need to correct them. That's the reason that people write on the internet, no? And indeed, the knowledge that people in the West and in Israel have about Ukraine is sorely lacking, to put it delicately. I don't claim to be an expert on that country, but in view of the overall paucity in that field I am a genuine 'lily in a field of thorns'. The professional experts, almost all of them, are experts on Russia – and based on their expertise on Russia they tend to extrapolate and project their knowledge onto other post-Soviet states, usually looking at issues via a Russian prism. This is why what they said was hot air, and somebody had to portray a different picture of things and write less nonsense. I'm sure that there are those who will beg to differ but this is how I saw things."

You have recently ceased to write about this topic.

"I don't like repeating myself. If I have written something a number of times, then I get fed up. In addition, during the initial months of the war I spent long hours, often close to 12 hours a day, just going over all sorts of Telegram channels and other sources of information in a variety of languages in order to get my hands on the rawest of information available. It is not possible to go on living in that fashion for a long time. So today, I still try and keep up to date but not with the same intensity.

"And also – I wore myself out. There is a limit to the number of atrocities to which you can become exposed. When October 7 came round, I had already developed the ability, even before you actually see what is in the photo, to scroll down the feed as you know that this will be a trigger. Your finger knows to skip over it before your eye identifies what is in the image, because you really need to maintain your sanity."

The post Beyond 'Fiddler on the Roof': The untold story of Jewish life in Eastern Europe appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Thirty-five teachers from Panama, Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Brazil were officially certified last week as "teachers of Jewish education in the Diaspora" by the Diaspora Affairs Ministry, Education Ministry, and Herzog College within the framework of the UnitEd project.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

UnitEd, according to its website, is a "joint venture between the State of Israel, the Diaspora Affairs Ministry, and philanthropists in the Jewish world… to strengthen formal Jewish education around the world and to create a global network for Jewish educators."

The teachers underwent some 900 hours of general training, in which they received the very best pedagogical tools unique to Jewish educators abroad.

"The educators and teachers in the Diaspora are at the forefront of Jewish education," said Diaspora Affairs Minister Nahman Shai.

"Through their hard work and dedication, they preserve the Hebrew language, the values of Judaism, and the next generation's connection to its Jewish identity and bond with the State of Israel. I'm proud to stand at the head of a ministry that recognizes the importance of teachers in the Jewish world and that invests time and resources in their professional advancement," Shai added.

The project "provides an answer to one of the main challenges in the world of Jewish education, which has become more acute in recent years – the shortage of teachers with suitable training," said UnitEd Managing-Director Tal Shaked.

"Without Jewish education," she added, "there is no communal future, and therefore we must act together… to strengthen the schools in the Diaspora."

Herzog College President Dr. Rabbi Yehuda Brandes said: "The college places immense importance on deepening the ties with Jewish education in the Diaspora, making it stronger and enriching it."

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

The post 35 teachers from Central, S. America certified as 'Jewish educators in the Diaspora' appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has made the unusual decision not to appoint an adviser for Diaspora affairs, Israel Hayom has learned.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

The Diaspora affairs adviser is tasked with maintaining and bolstering the prime minister's ties with Jewish people overseas and their representatives.

Bennett's decision not to fill the role is particularly surprising given his prioritization of the subject throughout his political career.

In previous governments in which he served, Bennett demanded the Diaspora Affairs portfolio, and his close associate Dvir Kahana until recently served as the ministry's director-general.

Naama Klar, director of the non-profit Reut Group that tackles challenges facing Israel and the Jewish world, said: "Israel's prime minister plays a significant role not only regarding Israel's citizens but vis-à-vis the entire Jewish people. The ties between Israel and the Jewish Diaspora are a strategic issue that has repercussions for national security. Therefore, a senior adviser in the prime minister's sector must be tasked with the subject and be responsible for bringing up-to-date information to the prime minister and the senior echelon on Jewish communities and the robust relationship with them at any given moment."

Klar said the appointment of a Diaspora Affairs minister would not relieve Bennett of the need for a personal adviser in the field, as has been the case in the past.

"The Diaspora Affairs minister has operational responsibility for a variety of commitments and collaborations between the Israeli government and Jewish communities in the Diaspora, but they cannot integrate the importance of the connection between Israel and the Diaspora within the other most serious national security considerations on which the prime minister should formulate their policies. Not to appoint an adviser is to take the Diaspora issue off the prime minister's radar and make it more vulnerable to neglect and deterioration, which will necessarily lead to a blow to Israel's national security," Klar said.

Shira Ruderman, the founder of the Ruderman Family Foundation, which works to bolster ties between Israel and Diaspora Jews, said that while unexpected, "It's unclear whether the fact that they're not appointing an adviser in the field is an indication of the government's intentions on the Diaspora issue. Israel's ties with the Jewish world must be a critical subject that ranks high up in the new government's list of priorities."

She said: "I hope they find effective ways to promote the relationship, for example, by bolstering the role of the Diaspora minister and allocating significant resources."

Bennett's office has yet to comment on the reports.

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

The post Breaking with tradition, PM will not appoint Diaspora adviser appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Following a challenging coronavirus year, the World Zionist Organization is relaunching its efforts to send emissaries to the Jewish Diaspora in order to enrich communities about the values of Zionism. This year, it is sending its largest-ever delegation.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

Ninety emissaries will represent the mosaic of Israeli society and teach Israeli history, Zionism, and Hebrew.

All of them are teachers who bid farewell to their students in Israel in late June in order to head to North and Latin America, Europe, Australia and even Morocco, with whom Israel normalized relations in 2020.

Due to the outbreak of the pandemic, the demand for WZO emissaries rose by a whopping 50% compared to last year, especially in North America. As the coronavirus left many parents unable to pay for their children's tuition at private Jewish schools, the WZO hopes the emissaries will fill that gap by providing Jewish education.

"The emissaries in these schools are in many ways ambassadors of the State of Israel, representatives of the Israeli public, culture, tradition and language," Dr. Chagit Hadar, Judaic Studies Principal at Ben Porat Yosef school in New Jersey, said.

Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai praised the move and said it "will strengthen the bond between Jewish communities in the Diaspora and Israel and provide much-needed education for the young Jewish generation."

Gael Grunewald, head of the WZO's Education Department expressed excitement at the largest-ever delegation and said that "emissaries are becoming another in the big bridge that connects the Diaspora to Israel."

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories! 

The post WZO sends record number of emissaries abroad appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Israel Hayom reporter Dan Lavie was awarded Thursday the B'nai B'rith World Center Award for Journalism Recognizing Excellence in Diaspora Reportage for 2021 for his coverage of challenges facing Diaspora communities, particularly in the year of the coronavirus pandemic.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

The award ceremony was held in Jerusalem and attended, among others, by President Reuven Rivlin and Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai. 

The prestigious award was conferred by the B'nai B'rith World Center that works to strengthen Israel-Diaspora relations and is considered to be the leading recognition in the Jewish state when it comes to Diaspora Jewry. 

After the outbreak of the pandemic, Lavie created a series of articles entitled "The Jewish world in the age of coronavirus," in which he covered the core issues Jewish communities across the world faced due to the virus, including Jewish education and identity, philanthropy in times of crisis, antisemitism, the changing face of Jewish communities and streams of Orthodoxy, and more. 

Israel Hayom editor-in-chief Boaz Bismuth congratulated Lavie on his win and said the newspaper "strives to support its reporters and give them freedom of action to bring readers the highest quality and the most interesting topics. Dan Lavie is a prime example of quality and excellence. I have no doubt he is a role model for many other reporters." 

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

The post Israel Hayom reporter Dan Lavie awarded prestigious B'nai B'rith prize appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

The Gesher nonprofit organization, which works to bridge the different sectors of Israeli society, sent a delegation to the United States Wednesday to express support for the community due to the recent uptick in antisemitic incidents.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

Members of Knesset and public leaders met with the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League Jonathan Greenblatt and the President of The Jewish Federations of North America Eric Fingerhut, as well as the victims of recent antisemitic attacks.

The delegation's goal was to express solidarity with American Jewry in the wake of a troubling spike in antisemitic incidents.

"The tours and meetings with the members of the Jewish community in the US attest to how much our brethren abroad long for solidarity and support from Israel," said Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, who was part of the delegation.

Gesher CEO Ilan Geal-Dor said: "It is our national and moral duty to make Jews in the Diaspora feel and understand that we are with them and that Israel and its citizens see them as an integral part of the Jewish people. We Israelis should care about them no less than they do about us."

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

The post Israeli activists go on solidarity mission to US in wake of rising antisemitism appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai has spoken with the heads of the international Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform movements and told them, speaking for Israel's new government, that he was committed to "Israel being open to all three streams, and recognizing them on an equal basis."

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

When Shai took over at the Diaspora Affairs Ministry, he held a round of phone conversations with Rabbi Moshe Hauer, head of the Orthodox Union; Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal, head of the Conservative Movement; and Rabbi Rick Jacobs, head of the Union for Reform Judaism.

Shai stressed his personal commitment, as well as that of the new government's, to ensuring that Israel be open to all streams of Judaism and Jewish communities.

Shai also said he would do everything in his power to strengthen ties between the Diaspora Affair Ministry, the Israeli government, and all parts of the Diaspora.

The leaders of the various movement welcomed Shai to the role and expressed their desire for cooperation and dialogue.

"I expect to continue to strengthen ties with Jewish leadership and communities around the world, with the goal being to form a good, strong relationship between Diaspora Jewry and Israel," Shai said, adding, "the Jewish tent is a big one, and it can and should include all streams and communities of the Jewish people."

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

The post 'Israel will recognize all streams of Judaism on an equal basis' appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.