The periodical of The Federation to
Maintain Jewish Culture in Hungary
March 1998
According to new Hungarian legislation in 1997, taxpayers couldchannel 1 per cent of the income tax to various social organizations.A total of 8 million taxpayers channelled about Ft 2 billion (10million USD) to various causes. In her report, Fanni Hahn found outthat various Jewish organizations received about Ft 4 million (20thousand USD) in this way. The Swiss Fund for Needy HolocaustSurvivors has begun the distribution of 400 USD for each Hungariansurvivor of the Shoah. A small ceremony was held to celebrate theoccasion, and those present were told that there will be a secondround of compensation once each and every Eastern European survivorhas received his/her 400 USD. This will take some time since manyJewish communities in Eastern Europe have still not prepared theirlist of survivors. In his report on the Seventh Conference of theJewish Media, Janos Gado offers an overview of the Jewish papers,radio and television channels of the Diaspora. Smaller communitiestend to publish a single paper, with a 1-2 hours weekly programme onradio and television; the 300 thousand strong and strongly separatedJewish community in Argentina maintains a daily 24-hour radio andtelevision programme, while the American Jewish media is asmulti-coloured and diversified as American society in general. Ourarticle on Israel focuses on the Jewish immigrants from the formerSoviet Union who form a strongly individual community, preserving manyof their traditions from their former homeland. In his article,"Hypocritical Pharisees?", Tamas Visi documents - on the strength ofevidence in Jewish and Christian sources - how a false picture of thePharisees became rooted in Christian society; of how literate andlearned men came to be identified with insincerity and hypocrisy.Tamas Biro offers a critical review of the new prayer-books publishedby the Lubavitch in Hungary. Finally, we have included Ivan Sanders'book review of Maria Foeldes' novel, The walk. The authoress fromTransylvania in Romania (who committed suicide in 1975 in Tel Aviv)led a doubly minority existence as a Hungarian Jewish writer. In thisnovel she describes her exclusion from society and her eventualdeportation.
