mentalblog.com comments:
This blog is quickly becoming one of my favorite. The Hungarian talk is interesting. I am Lubavich, and both of my parents are Hungarian. Interestingly enough, I was brought up speaking Hungarian, but my parents taught me to dislike Hungarians.
What do you mean your parents taught you to dislike Hungarians? How so?
Hirsch: I hope you mean that you are "a Lubavitcher" - It would be quite incredible for you to be [=] "Lubavitch." But if you are "Lubavitch," are you the entire city, or the entire movement? ;-)
Why dislike Hungarians ? In fact for all the fun poked at their expense many of the Hungarishe Yiddn are very fine Yidden, and that extends to all classes. Their rabbonim have a certain directness and heimishkeit. missing from the MO and yeshiveshe "poskim"
Their pashute Yidden are simpley zisse Yidden the Oberlaender are straight shooters.
Asa white Russian Lithuanian Jew I see much in the Hungarishe Yid that is missing from many of the White Russian Jews...
Certainly no reason to dislike them , poke fun of course like others poke fun at us Litvishe Yidden or at Galicianer but dislike ??
Schneur, what is "missing from many of the White Russian Jews"?
Firstly besides Lubavitcher chasidim there are very very few White russian Jews who are religious .
Next the Hungarian Jews are very folksy, many have no pretensions, they accept you as you are.
My parents had many White russian jewish friends survivors of the War 95% were non religious.
On the other hand their Hungarian friends were religious and Survivors.
I am not being judgemental here at all I like all Jews.
The Hungarians did a much better job in many instances in passing on their Messorah that is their heritage to the next generations ie Yiddish, cooking , Sense of Humor, minhogim dress etc.
Of course i am generalizing and in my opinion the Lithuanian jew had a much richer culture than his Hungarian counterpart. My father's Yiddish was much richer and idiomatic than anything I heard among the older generation of Hungarian Jews.
Yet many Orthodox hungarian jews are fairly learned especailly in Shulchan aruch.
I do wish to generalize but the hungarian Orthodox jew does not have the intellectual elitism that some of the Lithuanian yeshiva survvors have. (if you were not a Yeshiva mann , you wetre not in the chevra ).
Of course I met many tierre old time lubavitcher like Refael nachman Cohen, Foole Kohn, Zemach Gurevitz, R. mendel Futterfass, Rav Dworkin and others who were zisse and tierre Yidden too.
What I meant is the folksy element of many hungarian Jews.But I did not mean to generalize.
I wish there was more to it. Hungarians annoy me, although I am one of them. I speak the language, but I am not part of the culture. Funny enough, I have never been exposed to chassidic hungarians because my parents and grandparents were all fully secular. I was the first generation since the Holocaust that my parents tried to raise frum. Somehow that turned into modern orthodox, then I fried out in high school, and then in college, the Lubavichers caught me and re-introduced me to yiddishkeit.
Sorry to all you Hungarians out there -- I have been brought up not to like the culture.
HOWEVER! To your defense, I have purchased a book "The World That Was: Hungary/Romania" which should give me some insight into my heritage as a Hungarian. So as with anything, perhaps with education, my dislike of Hungarians will subside.
Warm regards to you all.
Shneur, is there much difference between White Russian and Lithuanian (and Latvian) Jewish culture?
any Yid who takes his Yiddishkeit seriously is attractive to me, be he Lubavitch Satmar or MO or any other shade of Orthodoxy.
All I ask is that they do not judge others badly
Hirsch, were your attitudes re: Hungarians well-developed before you got involved with Chabad?
Welllll... I wasn't gonna say this, but the Previous Lubavitcher Rebbe did sum it up once as follows:
"A Rumainisher hut chutch emunas chachomin, ubur an Ungarisher - er toyvult zich un toivult tzich, un es helft nisht gornisht"
I would dare say that the culture of White Russian jewry and Lithuanian jewry is basically the same.
The traditional clothing was the same, the Litvishe Yiddish dominated both areas, and the soup was eaten after the main dish.
In Reisen (Eastern White Russia) Chabad tended to be strong, but many of our famous gedolim came from White Russia not Lithuania proper like rabbis Moshe feinstein, Y. kaminetsky, Jacob Ruderman, Rabbi Povarsky, and others.
Latvia was a strange amalgem of Lithuanian Jewry with a dose of German culture and religion. In Lithuania the s sound over the shin sound tended to predominate , but its my contension the culture and religion was essentially the same.
In what context did the rebbe make his statements about Hungarian jews and was he talking about the assimilated element , the Neologs or about the Unterlander Jews ?
What did the Rayaatz say about the peylishe jews from warsaw and Lodz ?
But lets make it clear all of this was done in jest. My dear parents had some "great " things to say about anyone who was not from Lithuania or white Russia, but all in jest !
I heard the zekan Anash Rabbi SL called the Polish element who joined Chabad in the 1930's peylishe ga...im But i am sure it was in jest too.
Actually, the Rebbe's comments were part of a longer conversation.
Unfortunately, I've forgotten most of it - but I seem to remember that they were in a wagon, and somehow the topic came up. The Rebbe commented on all areas and their tendencies, from the White Russian Yid - to the Hungarian Yid... melemayla lemata...
The quote above was the end of the comments, as the Rebbe had reached the bottom of the list. I am sure there was humor intended, but at the same time, I am sure he felt that there was an element of truth to what he was saying...
Oops, I seem to have lost my identity! "Anonymous" was me.
Not be overlooked is the fact that Belarus was Russian Orthodox and the other parts of the greater Lithuania were catholic with German protestant component. So you have to take into account the traditional influences of the Russian orthodox church. i.e beards, messianic overtones, ascetic spiritually and heroic spirit.
As far as Lithuanian and White Russia goes in terms of religion ( the non Jewish religion).
There were also many Roman Catholics and some Uniate Catholics in White Russia. Many White Russian towns had as my father would call it a Pravislavner kloister and a Romische kirche.
In addition both Lithuania and White Russia were under Czarist rule from at least 1772-1918. That does make for some homogeny.
As even the Jews of Congress Poland from 1772 -1918 were under Czarist rule and adopted some influences from lithuania (like amny rabbis etc rather than natural soul brothers further south in Galicia)
Perhaps as one went deeper into White Russia (Smolensk, Vitebsk,) the Pravislavner Church became dominant, but certainly Western White Russia hd a large Polsih population and Roman Catholicism was a amjor force there too.
Back to Hungary ... there's a book called "The Man Who Loved Numbers" about Paul Erdos (pronounced "ehr-desh") a brilliant mathematician who was born to Jewish parents in Hungary (they later converted to Christianity but he refused to) ... anyway it devotes a whole chapter on Jewish life in Hungary from the mid 1800's until WWII. Jews basically owned Budapest, the entire textile industry, stock market, theatre district ... so many felt they had to convert to get ahead -- and did. It was a very complex and integrated society. The book is interesting, but this chapter by itself is worth the purchase.
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