Moses Vorhand

Judaism was settled in Makó around 1740 by Bishop Miklós Stanislavich. The small community could initially consist of only one or two dozen families. After their settlement, their community (the communitas judeorum in Makó) came under the jurisdiction of the bishop-landlord. Their oldest institution is the Chevra Kadisa (Funeral Home), whose statutes were drawn up in 1748. It was probably in the late 1740s that their first rabbi, Jakab Zelig, was invited to head the community. From then until 1956, the rabbi Makón functioned (except for the period of the emergency between June 1944 and March 1945).

After 1945, the neolog community was led by cantor Henrik Schulmann, and after his death, a rabbi came from Szeged or Hódmezővásárhely to perform services. The rabbi of the Orthodox during this period was Nándor Lemberger, who left the city in 1956 and emigrated to Israel, where he continued to lead the “Makó” community.

Makón has no community today, but in Israel, in the city of Kiryat-Ata, it still operates under the spiritual guidance of a “virtual Makó rebbe”.

Moses Vorhand was born in Nyitra on August 17, 1862 (as the child of József Vorhand and Rozália Ehrenfeld). His wife is Rachel Schönfeld (deceased on 30 October 1935). He was the head of the local rabbinical council in Nyitra. In 1912 he was invited to be the head of the Orthodox Jewish community in Makó, and between 1913 and 1944 he was the chief rabbi of the Orthodox Rabbinate. On Makó he helped to operate a large and famous yeshiva. His most significant work is Ohel Mose, which mostly contains explanations of the Torah.

It was reported during the ghetto, brutally abused at the Makó police station, as a result of which the elderly rabbi died soon after in a Jewish hospital in Budapest. Just before his death, he prophesied that terrible days would await Judaism, and he vowed to intercede with the Creator so that the Jews of Makó would not be lost there. On June 9, 1944, the Orthodox community received permission to repatriate his body. Even before the deportation of the Jews of Makó, he was laid to rest in the Jángori cemetery.

The tomb of Moses Vorhand, revered as a “miracle rabbi” a Cadic (true man), became the main pilgrimage site of Orthodox Jews from Makó.