December 1996 Issue

December 1996

The Hungarian Jewish Heritage Fund – , which is to manage the compensation paid by the Hungarian state to the Jewish community – will manage next January only the compensation tickets of a value of 4 billion HUF. The interests of this sum will cover the monthly income raise of the holocaust survivors. Real estates and precious art objects – the most important part of the compensation – are still subject to negotiations and the negotiators are far from an agreement. In the board of the Fund however – says our author – the administration of the official Jewish Community will have the largest influence – due to lack of a strong Jewish civil society.

The new building of the Anna Frank high school – belonging to the Jewish Community and financed from the Hungarian state budget – had been probably planned without a competition – despite the repeated statements from the community’s leadership. This is the conclusion of our investigative report.

Equality does not mean uniformity, pointing out to the differences between minority groups is not necessarily racism – says Attila Novák, criticizing the stereotypes of leftist human right activists, who use labels of this kind very easily.

In our Central European review we publish six essays from six authors: David Albahari from Belgrade, Emi Baruch from Sofia, Maxim Biller from Berlin, Konstanty Gebert from Warsaw, Elma Softic-Kaunitz from Sarayevo and Milos Ziak from Bratislava. Writers, journalists, politicians they are, they share their impressions with us: how it feels like being a Jew these days in their respective countries.

Int the second part of his travelogue, János Gadó reports from the ‘camp’ of the religious Zionists, what impressed and frightened him at the same time.

In our section on culture we publish some Jewish-related excerpts from the memoirs of Mikhail Shostakovitch, the world famous composer. We bid farewell to István Engel Tevan, the renowned artist and illustrator.

The study of Kinga Frojimovics and Zsuzsa Toronyi looks back on the establishment and history of the 80 years old Jewish Museum in Budapest.

compensation ticket

monthly income raise

monthly income raise

subject to negotiations

competition

Writers, journalists, politicians they are,

: how it feels like being a Jew these days

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