Orthodox Jewish Rabbi ordained in Hungary since the Holocaust.
Shlomo Koves received his prayer shawl this week in a Budapest synagogue at an ordination ceremony attended by officials including Hungarian President Ferenc Madl and Rabbis from Israel and Russia.
The event was part of an effort to end decades of persecution that culminated in the Holocaust during World War Two, when Hungary cooperated with Nazi Germany. An estimated 600-thousand Hungarian Jews died in the Holocaust, and after the war Jewish suffering continued under the Communist regime.
Rabbi Koves told BosNewsLife that those tragedies nearly destroyed Jewish Orthodox culture in Hungary.
HOLOCAUST
"Especially after the Holocaust, my grand parents thought it is not anything positive that it should be taught to their children, I mean my parents," Koves said.
"Both my parents only found out that they were Jewish at the age of 12," he explained. "They did not want to make the same mistake with me and let me know that I am Jewish much earlier than that. But that does not mean that I knew what it means to be Jewish. It meant to me the same as heaving brown hair and blue eyes…"
Rabbi Koves said he became interested in Judaism at the age of about 11 when his father showed him a synagogue. Soon after, Koves said, he realized it was his calling to become a Rabbi and one day share with Hungarian Jews their, long hidden, roots.
HERITAGE
"One day when I came home I realized the big gap between the Jews here and the heritage they have and they don’t know about. That’s when I realized that if I know something and am able to give it over, so than I can’t take myself out of this great responsibility."
Koves joins two other Jewish Orthodox Rabbi’s, who arrived from America and Romania. One of them is 37-year old rabbi Boruch Oberlander who arrived from New York shortly before Communism ended in 1989.
Although the ordination of Hungary’s first Orthodox Rabbi in over half a century is a far cry from the country’s estimated 300 Orthodox rabbis before the war, Oberlander believes the event is a great encouragement for those Orthodox Jews who decided to stay in Hungary before the collapse of Communism in 1989.
JEWS FLED
He said most Orthodox Jews fled Hungary during the Hungarian revolution against Soviet domination of 1956 or, like Oberlander’s family, shortly after the Second World War.
"My parents are both Holocaust survivors, they both lived in the block where I live now," he explained. "In 1949, when the Communists came to power, my grand parents felt that Jewish life is not going to be the same in a religious way. So they packed their packages and left.."
Despite the changes in the last decade, there is still international concern however about anti-Semitism directed against the country’s estimated 100-thousand Jews, which is still the largest Jewish community in Eastern Europe, outside Russia.
SKINHEADS
Last month Skinheads disrupted a Hanukkah celebration of Jewish people in Budapest, suspected neo-Nazis held a White Christmas meeting, and a deputy chairman of the far right Hungarian Justice and Life Party received a suspended prison term for incitement of hatred against a community.
Hungarian police and secret services are now trying to prevent a neo-Nazi event next month in Budapest, amid worries that Hungary will become a European centre for these kind of groups.
But Jewish people this week celebrated with a chief cantor from Israel the ordination of Rabbi Koves, who they hope will usher in the beginning of a new era for Hungary and the region.
