The Invisible Jewish Budapest

Jewish Budapest is very visible today. From classy Israeli restaurants to the mimicking of Hebrew script on bar signs, Erzsébetváros—Budapest’s seventh district to which the old Jewish Budapest belongs—showcases its Jewish heritage with apparent confidence. It is also a highly contested place, as anti-Jewish sentiment has resurfaced in the social and political life of Budapest and Hungary (though some might argue it never disappeared). Self-aware Klezmer celebrations live alongside public Soros-bashing. Reading Mary Gluck’s fascinating book, it is tempting to say plus ça change. Her book on fin de siècle Budapest investigates the impact of Jewish life and culture on the development of Budapest into a cultural metropolis. Occasionally witty and always sharp, Gluck’s book gives a voice to those who helped make Budapest the modern city that we now recognise. The pivotal period of 1867 to 1873 marks the beginning of Gluck’s study. Hungarian Jews witnessed new possibilities emerging with Jewish emancipation in 1867, while the Austro-Hungarian Compromise that same year instilled fresh confidence in a more autonomous Hungarian Kingdom. In the decades that followed, Budapest (united in 1873) was transformed into a modern city by processes that highlighted the deep tensions within Hungarian society. Those who contributed towards Budapest’s rise, so Gluck argues, were often Jewish and their input remained unacknowledged yet contested. At the same time, the very vocal anti-Semites of Budapest and beyond had a different vision of Budapest, which was also dependent on this new imperial appearance of the city. For them, it was Attila’s heritage and not the modern incarnation of the city that mattered. Modern Budapest was Jewish Budapest, or the ‘sinful city’ as Miklós Horty would assert in inter-war Hungary (pp. 4, 5, 208). This is the central thesis of the book: an uneasy interplay existed between Jewish intellectuals who made the city, the city itself basking in its imperial grandeur and the possibilities given to a new hostile political culture

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