Neolog Judaism

Neologs (Hungarian: neológ irányzat, "Neolog faction") are one of the two large communal organizations among Hungarian Jewry. Socially, the liberal and modernist Neologs had been more inclined toward integration into Hungarian society since the Era of Emancipation in the 19th century. This was their main feature, and they were largely the representative body of urban, assimilated middle- and upper-class Jews. Religiously, the Neolog rabbinate was influenced primarily by Zecharias Frankel's Positive-Historical School, from which Conservative Judaism evolved as well, although the formal rabbinical leadership had little sway over the largely assimilationist communal establishment and congregants. Their rift with the traditionalist and conservative Orthodox Jews was institutionalized following the 1868–1869 Hungarian Jewish Congress, and they became a separate communal organization. The Neologs remained organizationally independent in those territories ceded under the terms of the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, and are still the largest group among Hungary's Jews.

In the early 19th century, when the first attempts to reform Judaism under the influence of Enlightenment (Haskalah) were made, they had little impact in the Kingdom of Hungary. Rabbi Aaron Chorin of Arad was an early proponent of religious modification; from the publication of his 1803 book "Emeq ha-Shave" and onwards, he dismissed Practical Kabbalah and the Zohar, authored guidelines for modernizing Judaism according to Talmudic principles and sought to remove what he regarded as superstitious or primitive elements, like spitting in the prayer of Aleinu. In 1818, Chorin was one of the few rabbis who backed the Hamburg Temple. He drew the ire of Hungarian Orthodoxy headed by Rabbi Moses Sofer of Pressburg, and, as well, had but meager following in his country. The rural character and social seclusion of the Jews in the kingdom offered little incentive for his endeavor.

With the commencement of the Hungarian Reform Era in 1825, especially after virtually all limitations on Jewish settlement were removed in 1840, the Kingdom's Jews underwent rapid urbanization and acculturation, and many began to assimilate. A gradual linguistic shift from Yiddish to German took place, and later to Hungarian. The pressures that motivated German Jews to seek aesthetic changes in their synagogues a generation earlier began to manifest themselves. In addition, the local Liberals – Lajos Kossuth among them – insisted that Emancipation would be granted only after Jews abandoned the customs that set them apart from society so that they could fully integrate. As in Germany, both moderate and extreme religious reformers in Hungary opposed this demand, claiming civil rights should be unconditional and that the changes they instituted were made for their own sake. However, there was a clear correlation between the levels of education and acculturation and support for change. At that time, the assimilated Jews had long since ceased to uphold traditional religious rules such as Sabbath observance and the requirement for Jewish-cooked food.

In 1827, a young lay leader of the Pesth Jewish community, Gabriel Ullmann, established a prayer quorum that practiced the rite of the Stadttempel in Vienna. This style was carefully crafted by Isaac Noah Mannheimer to introduce aesthetic change without breaching the Shulchan Aruch; the bimah was set in the front of the hall, as in churches, and the wedding canopy was held inside rather than under the sky. An all-male choir accompanied prayers, and the rabbi delivered his sermon in the vernacular, dressed in a cassock. In 1830, the Pesth quorum turned to a fully functional synagogue, and from there the new rite spread to other large cities. The Viennese Rite, wrote Michael Silber, was the key factor in what would be known as "Neology" in Hungary – the designation itself was late, and was first used by the local Orthodox by the end of the 1860s, during the Congress controversy. They borrowed it from Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch in Frankfurt, who applied it to denote all religious reformers. The term "Neologs" remained in common use only in Hungary, and became identified with that movement.

As opposed to the German states, the weight of intellectual rabbis in the Hungary was low; the communities' dignitaries were those who led the acceptance of the new ritual, and they were content with what German progressive Jews condemned as "cosmetic changes". The Neologs had theologians who applied critical analysis to the study of Judaism and sought to modify it on the basis of scientific research. Of those, the most prominent was Rabbi Leopold Löw, who was also instrumental in promoting the cause of Emancipation and in the adoption of Hungarian language and national identification among the Jews; he was the first to preach in that language, doing so from 1844. But even he shared the views of Zecharias Frankel, whom he considered his mentor along with Solomon Judah Loeb Rapoport.

The ideas of Abraham Geiger and the other German pioneers of Reform Judaism found barely any support in Hungary. In 1845, the Ksav Sofer could still recommend that Jacob Ettlinger approach Löw Schawbb – Rabbi of the largest Neolog center, Pesth, and Leopold's father-in-law – and request to add his signature to a petition against the conferences assembled by Geiger and his colleagues. Leopold Löw supported Frankel's failed attempt to convene a counter-conference in Dresden.

Graduates of the Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau, hub of Frankel's Positive-Historical School, were sought after by the liberal congregations in Hungary for the rabbi's office. The Neologs' main efforts were directed at establishing an institution along similar lines in their country. One such graduate, Alexander Kohut, became a Neolog activist and rabbi; afterwards, he immigrated overseas and co-founded the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Later on, a considerable number of the rabbis affiliated with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism in its early days arrived from Hungary and were linked with Neology.

During the 1848 Revolution, Ede Horn, a disciple of the radical German rabbi Samuel Holdheim, headed the Pesth Reform Association, where he abolished circumcision and moved the Sabbath to Sunday. Löw and Schwabb condemned him sharply, and demanded the authorities close down the Association – now headed by David Einhorn, who arrived to replace Horn after the latter fled the country – and similar groups that sprung up at the time of the revolution.