Schism, Sectarianism and Jewish Denominationalism: Hungarian Jewry in a Comparative Perspective

Tuesday, October 13

• 6:00 p.m. - 6:15 p.m. Opening Remarks: Michael L. Miller (CEU)
• 6:15 p.m. - 7:15 p.m. Keynote Address: Michael K. Silber (Hebrew University, Israel): Was the Hungarian Jewish Schism Inevitable? 

Wednesday, October 14

• 10:00-10:10: Welcome: Andreas Braemer (Institute for the History of German Jews, Hamburg)
• 10:10 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Session 1 Schism and Education
• Moderator: Andreas Braemer (Institute for the History of German Jews, Hamburg)
• Carsten Wilke (CEU): Orthodoxy's Stronghold: The Educational Policies of the Pressburg Yeshiva and Their Bearing on the Hungarian Jewish Schism
• Mirjam Thulin (Simon-Dubnow-Institut, Leipzig): The Controversies over the Rabbinical Seminary in Budapest
• Coffeebreak
• Victor Karady (CEU): The Imprint of Religious Divisions on Schooling Strategies in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1850-1914
• 12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. Lunch Break
• 1:30 p.m - 2:45 p.m. Session 2: Impact of the Schism on Religious Practice
• Moderator: Gabor Balazs (Israeli Cultural Institute, Hungary)
• Shlomo Spitzer (Bar-Ilan University, Israel): The Schism in Hungary and Its Influence on Halakhah
• Maoz Kahana (Hebrew University, Israel): Hungarian- Jewish Hasidic Society after the Schism: The Dual-Meaning of an Enclave Society
• 2:45 p.m. - 3:15 p.m. Coffee Break
• 3:15 p.m. - 4:45 p.m. Session 3: The Sounds and Sites of Schism
• Moderator: Zsuzsa Toronyi (Hungarian Jewish Archive, Hungary)
• Rudolf Klein (St. Stephen University, Hungary): The Architecture of Schism: Neolog and Orthodox Synagogues in Historical Hungary
• Judit Frigyesi (Bar-Ilan University, Israel): Neolog and Orthodox: Music as the Fundamental Expression of Contrasting Attitudes
• 4:45-5:15 Coffeebreak
• 5:15 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Session 4: The Jewish Congress: Reverberations Abroad
• Moderator: Gyorgy Haraszti (Institute of History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences / Jewish Theological Seminary - Jewish University in Budapest)
• Andreas Braemer (Institute for the History of German Jews, Hamburg): The 'Jewish Congress' in Hungary - German Responses and Reactions
• Rachel Manekin (University of Maryland, USA): The Schism that Never Happened: the Case of Galicia
• Yeshayahu Balog (University of Tubingen, Germany): Koppel Reich and Samson Raphael Hirsch. A Comparative Perspective

Thursday, October 15

• 10:00 a.m. - 11:30 p.m. Session 5: Separatism and Nazi Rule in Europe
• Moderator: Maria M. Kovacs (CEU)
• Guy Miron (Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, Israel): Emancipation Reconsidered: Hungarian Jewish Orthodoxy and the Jewish Laws, 1938-1944
• Isaac Hershkovitz (Bar-Ilan University and Yad Vashem, Israel): The Rise of Nazi Germany and Hungarian Jewish Life: Reconsiderations of Hungarian Orthodox Separatism in the 1930s
• 11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Lunch Break
• 1:00 p.m. - 2:45 p.m. Session 6:  Unification and Division in the Twentieth Century
• Moderator: Gabor Kadar (ELTE, Hungary)
• Michael L. Miller (CEU): A House Reunited? Communist Unification of Hungarian Jewry after the Shoah
• Alice Freifeld (University of Florida, Gainesville): Displaced Hungarian Jewish Identity, 1945-48
• Andras Kovacs (CEU): Neolog and Orthodox Jewish Identities in Post-Communist Hungary
• 2:45 p.m. - 3:15 p.m. Coffee Break
• 3:15 p.m. - 5:45 p.m. Session 7: Hungarian Separatism in the New World
• Moderator: Gabor Schweitzer (Institute for Legal Sciences of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences)
• Adam S. Ferziger (Bar-Ilan University, Israel): Debating Hungarian Separatism in the New World: The Hirschenson-Greenwald Exchange of 1927-28
• Marc Shapiro (University of Scranton, USA): Hungarian Ultra-Orthodoxy and its Post-World War II Halakhic Legacy: The Case of Rabbi Menashe Klein
• Coffee break
• David Myers (UCLA, USA): Hungarian Orthodoxy in the New World: Religion and Politics in Kiryas Joel, New York
• Matthias Morgenstern (University of Tubingen, Germany): ‘Ungarn’ in New York, Berlin and Jerusalem - Remarks on the History of Hungarian Orthodoxy in the Jewish World
• 6:15 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Session 8: Closing Reflections and Final Discussion
• The Legacy of the Schism
• Moderator: Adam S. Ferziger (Bar-Ilan University, Israel) 

On the occasion of this conference, the Hungarian Jewish Archives has uploaded a number of related images from its collection.