History of the Jews in Hungary

The history of the Jews in Hungary dates back to at least the Kingdom of Hungary, with some records even predating the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in 895 CE by over 600 years. Written sources prove that Jewish communities lived in the medieval Kingdom of Hungary and it is even assumed that several sections of the heterogeneous Hungarian tribes practiced Judaism. Jewish officials served the king during the early 13th century reign of Andrew II. From the second part of the 13th century, the general religious tolerance decreased and Hungary's policies became similar to the treatment of the Jewish population in Western Europe.

The Ashkenazi of Hungary were fairly well integrated into Hungarian society by the time of the First World War. By the early 20th century, the community had grown to constitute 5% of Hungary's total population and 23% of the population of the capital, Budapest. Jews became prominent in science, the arts and business. By 1941, over 17% of Budapest's Jews had converted to the Catholic Church.

Anti-Jewish policies grew more repressive in the interwar period as Hungary's leaders, who remained committed to regaining the territories lost at the peace agreement (Treaty of Trianon) of 1920, chose to align themselves with the governments of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy – the international actors most likely to stand behind Hungary's claims. Starting in 1938, Hungary under Miklós Horthy passed a series of anti-Jewish measures in emulation of Germany's Nürnberg Laws. Following the German occupation of Hungary on March 19, 1944, Jews from the provinces were deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp; between May and July that year, 437,000 Jews were sent there from Hungary, most of them gassed on arrival.

The 2011 Hungary census data had 10,965 people (0.11%) who self-identified as religious Jews, of whom 10,553 (96.2%) declared themselves as ethnic Hungarian. Estimates of Hungary's Jewish population in 2010 range from 54,000 to more than 130,000 mostly concentrated in Budapest. There are many active synagogues in Hungary, including the Dohány Street Synagogue, the largest synagogue in Europe and the second largest synagogue in the world after Temple Emanu-El of New York.

It is not definitely known when Jews first settled in Hungary. According to tradition, King Decebalus (ruled Dacia 87–106 CE) permitted the Jews who aided him in his war against Rome to settle in his territory. Dacia included part of modern-day Hungary as well as Romania and Moldova and smaller areas of Bulgaria, Ukraine, and Serbia. Prisoners of the Jewish-Roman Wars may have been brought back by the victorious Roman legions normally stationed in Provincia Pannonia (Western Hungary). Marcus Aurelius ordered the transfer of some of his rebellious troops from Syria to Pannonia in 175 CE. These troops had been recruited partly in Antioch and Hemesa (now Homs), which still had a sizable Jewish population at that time. The Antiochian troops were transferred to Ulcisia Castra (today Szentendre), while the Hemesian troops settled in Intercisa (Dunaújváros).

According to Raphael Patai, stone inscriptions referring to Jews were found in Brigetio (now Szőny), Solva (Esztergom), Aquincum (Budapest), Intercisa (Dunaújváros), Triccinae (Sárvár), Dombovár, Siklós, Sopianae (Pécs) and Savaria (Szombathely). A Latin inscription, the epitaph of Septima Maria, discovered in Siklós (southern Hungary near Croatian border), clearly refers to her Jewishness ("Judaea"). The Intercisa tablet was inscribed on behalf of "Cosmius, chief of the Spondilla customhouse, archisynagogus Iudeorum [head of the synagogue of the Jews]" during the reign of Alexander Severus. In 2008, a team of archeologists discovered a 3rd-century AD amulet in the form of a gold scroll with the words of the Jewish prayer Shema' Yisrael inscribed on it in Féltorony (now Halbturn, Burgenland, in Austria). Hungarian tribes settled the territory 650 years later. In the Hungarian language, the word for Jew is zsidó, which was adopted from one of the Slavic languages.

The first historical document relating to the Jews of Hungary is the letter written about 960 CE to King Joseph of the Khazars by Hasdai ibn Shaprut, the Jewish statesman of Córdoba, in which he says that the Slavic ambassadors promised to deliver the message to the King of Slavonia, who would hand the same to Jews living in "the country of Hungarin", who, in turn, would transmit it farther. About the same time Ibrahim ibn Jacob says that Jews went from Hungary to Prague for business purposes. Nothing is known concerning the Jews during the period of the grand princes, except that they lived in the country and engaged in commerce there.

In 1061, King Béla I ordered that markets should take place on Saturdays instead of the traditional Sundays (Hungarian language has preserved the previous custom, "Sunday" = vasárnap, lit. "market day"). In the reign of St. Ladislaus (1077–1095), the Synod of Szabolcs decreed (20 May 1092) that Jews should not be permitted to have Christian wives or to keep Christian slaves. This decree had been promulgated in the Christian countries of Europe since the 5th century, and St. Ladislaus merely introduced it into Hungary.