Kol Nidre

I arranged to attend Yom Kippur services at Congregation Szim Shalom in Budapest, a small Progressive congregation that meets in the Jewish Community Center. They could not have been warmer and more welcoming. The rabbi, a woman, even printed out a copy of her D'Var Torah (sermon) in English so that I could follow along. The cantorial soloist was a young man with a terrific voice and remarkable presence. A different man sang the Kol Nidre, and he was mesmerizing, which is the transcendent spiritual experience I look forward to all year.

Later during the service he sat next to me and offered me a prayer book, which I saw was in Hebrew and English. It was from the British Progressive Judaism movement, which is mostly equivalent to the Reform movement in the US. I thanked him for his offer but I actually was enjoying the congregation's prayerbook in Hebrew and Hungarian! As I read and heard the Hebrew, I made out the words in Hungarian. Some words are fairly transparent, such as Jeruzsálem. Others more obscure. It was an interesting challenge and had the effect of making the text fresher and more engaging.

When the prayerbook congregant offered me the book, I detected an unmistakable American accent. He said he was from Cincinnati and Kentucky. He came to Budapest for his wife. Turns out, she is the rabbi!

I had a chance to talk to the cantorial soloist as we got ready to head out into a chilly night. He is studying to be a cantor in Berlin and is in the first year of a four-year program. Let that wash over you for a minute - there is a cantor training program in Berlin!

One woman I spoke with explained that she had learned about her Jewish roots about eight years earlier and sought to explore, and then affirm, her Judaism. She formally converted and then had a Bat Mitzvah. I get the sense that there are a number of Eastern Europeans who are exploring and choosing Judaism. Meanwhile, her mother, who acknowledges the family's Jewish roots, won't have anything to do with it and won't attend services with her.

There were about 600,000 Jews in Hungary before WWII. They lived relatively unmolested lives until about 1944, when Hungarian Nazis cracked down. Those in Budapest were forced into a ghetto, the traditionally Jewish neighborhood surrounding the Dohány Street Synagogue. About 300,000 were sent to camps, many to Auschwitz in Poland.

There are about 100,000 Jews in Hungary today. That is a remarkable number.