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SANDERS/JEW ISH REVIVAL IN CENTRAL EUROPE
39
HOPEFUL SIGNS
Kobanyai’s essays still reflect a great deal o f elegiac sadness
but also cautious optimism about the fu tu re o f Jewish life in
Hungary. A fter all, since the fall o f the Communist government
in the spring o f 1990, there
have
been dramatic developments
signaling renewal. In the last year o r so several new Jewish el
ementary and secondary schools have opened their doors. Major
international Jewish organizations now have offices in Budapest.
Relations with Israel have not only been normalized, bu t con
tacts between the two countries have multiplied. The newly es
tablished Hungarian Jewish Cultural Association (Magyar Zsido
Kulturalis Egyesiilet) is quite active, as are Zionist groups that
advocate large-scale emigration. And while some Jewish activists
also suppo rt a proposal to designate the Hungarian Jewish com
munity an ethnic minority, most Hungarian Jews reaffirm their
Hungarian roots and contend that minority status, enticing and
beneficial though it may seem, would actually be an anachro
nism in a country with a long tradition o f liberal assimilation.
I t ’s interesting to note that a writer like Janos Kobanyai along
with some o f his contemporaries (Gyorgy Kozma, for example,
an essayist and ar t critic, and Robert B. Tu ran , a playwright)
have jou rneyed to Israel and written extensively about their ex
periences. Profoundly moved by what they saw and heard , and
surprised and touched, too, by the intensity o f their emotional
response, they have nevertheless commented on the fact that
while in the Holy Land they were more aware than ever o f
their “o therness.” In a way they express the classic dilemma
o f the Diaspora Jew. Because o f their renewed interest in J u
daism, they feel too Jewish in Hungary, but they are also be
wildered, intimidated, pu t o ff by the “concen trated” Jewishness
o f Israel.6
T h e re is more open talk nowadays in Hungary about similar
conflicts experienced by earlier generations o f Hungarian writ
ers, including those who are though t o f today as modern classics.
Poets and novelists like Milan Fust, Erno Szep, Dezso Szomory,
T ibo r Dery were born and in most cases came o f age du ring
the pre-1914 golden age o f liberal assimilation, and could th e re
fore identify with the Hungarian ethos unequivocally, whole
6. See for example, Gyorgy Kozma, “Itt van a jegy a zsebemben” (My Ticket
Is In My Pocket). In
Elet es Irodalom,
February 16, 1990: 12.