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No. 33. Vienna, 19 August 1898. Volume 2.

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The Administration.

The Hungarians.

By H. York-Steiner.

Hungary is the land of contrasts. Glowing love of liberty and sudden intolerance, primitive strength and refined voluptuousness, heedlessness and political wisdom, profundity and exuberance wrestle for the mastery and drive the nation, as well as the single individual, from one extreme to the other. Its northern frontiers bristle with snow, and an Italic sea bathes the south. And whatever population stirs there between north and south came together here out of many lords' lands, from north and south, from the East and the West, striving after mutual understanding in thirteen different tongues. The Jews, too, have been driven together here out of many lords' lands — driven together, that is to say, hunted together, They came as soon as the ground beneath their feet began to burn in Germany, Bohemia, Moravia and Austria. That, too, is not meant figuratively.

In pre-Christian times they possessed great liberties, indeed downright privileges as against the rest of the population, which were withdrawn from them as Christianity grew strong. But their mercantile power was of such importance to the country that the restrictions were again and again repealed.

Towards the end of the 14th century they were expelled, but as early as 1430 King Sigmund made good what his predecessor Louis had sinned against the Jews and against the country. When, at the siege of Ofen (1685), the Jews gave proof of especial valour and of a strong attachment to their adoptive fatherland, they received many rights back. Since then they were scarcely molested at all, and Hungary formed a refuge for the harried and tormented Jewry, and, down to the last days of the Vormärz, the home of those Moravian and Bohemian Jews who could obtain no family number and emigrated in order to found a hearth of their own. With the exception of the mining towns and a few royal free towns, from which the German burgherdom kept them at a distance, they were permitted to dwell everywhere and to pursue every occupation. In the movement of the years 1848—1849 they shared the sorrow and the joy of the nation, and in the year 1868, with the renewed independence of the State, they became full citizens in due form.

Before I therefore enter upon a criticism of their conduct, let it be established that nowhere in the world have the Jews been better treated than in this country, and that even to-day they occupy in no State a more favourable position than in Hungary. If, then, they cling with enthusiasm to this country and to the leading nation, they give no more than they owe. But many Jews go beyond that: they forget, and would have it forgotten, that they are Jews, overlooking the fact that their surroundings have never forgotten it and never will forget it. In this land of contrasts there are indeed many shadings of Judaism to be found: the secluded Chassidim in the north-east, in part Galician immigrants, and advanced Neologues in the lowland; congregations that were reformed earlier than the reform congregations of Germany. Only one thing is common to all these Jews: a great friendliness towards education. Soon after the reign of the Emperor Joseph they in many places established the Normal School which he had set up, in which, to be sure, the German language prevailed. When in the year 1867 Hungarian became the language of the State, the learning of which was accounted a patriotic deed, the Jews were quickly ready to learn anew and to bring up their children in the Magyar tongue. In many places German instruction was retained, so that the children remained masters of the German language as well, which for merchants is indispensably necessary, but is of use in other callings too.

The Jews are indeed to be found in every position, in all offices and institutions, in the administration, in the magistracy, as teachers and professors, journalists, writers and artists, but in commerce and industry their working is positively predominant. They have, directly and indirectly, a great share in the raising of the credit of the State, and if Hungary can think of creating a customs territory of its own, it is the Jews who have contributed most towards it. Also in agriculture