Miskolc

In 1744, 12 families resided in Miskolc, while by 1775 there were already 23 families living there, creating the principal institutional framework for the community. The region was characterized by two-way migration: on the one hand, from the East from the direction of Galicia, and from Moravia on the other. As an intermediary station, this latter canalized migration coming from the Holy Roman Empire. This duality had characterised the whole Kingdom of Hungary.

Greek merchants (with Greek Orthodox religion, mediating with the Ottoman Empire, being of mostly South Slavic origin) and, after Maria Theresa’s accession to the throne, Jewish merchants were also involved in wine trade. The goal with involving the Jewish was to change the direction of trade routes, and ensure the cohesion of the empire. This had sometimes led to conflicts between Greek and Jewish merchants and Hungarian wine producers.

The number of Jews began to increase from the 1810s, but they only managed to fulfil an actual role in society from the middle of the 19th century.

After settling the local institutional controversy following the Jewish Congress of 1869-69, an orthodox Jewish community was formed in Miskolc by the second half of the 1870s. Later, a small group of Hasidic Jews tried to separate from them, creating an institutional system within the institutional framework of the Orthodox Head Office, parallel with the Sephardic Orthodox label. The reason behind that was the fact that countrywide some Hasidic communities had joined the orthodox institutional system referred to as Sephardic Orthodox.  (See, for instance, the Sephardic temple at Teleki tér.) Besides the ritual of the service, the explanation for that was the differing interpretation of the strictness of religious law, and the contrasting sociocultural background. (Differing direction of migration, different language, social class and way of life.) The Orthodox Office did not support the separation, resulting in conflicts in the community lasting for several years.

In 1880, the majority of the Jewry of Miskolc was born elsewhere. The total number of the Jewish population was 5 117 in 1880, 5 874 in 1890, 10 291 in 1910, 11 300 in 192, 10 862 in 1930 and 10 428 in 1941. In 1910, 20% of the total population was Jewish, while by 1941 this number decreased to 13,5%.

Besides trading, craftsmanship has provided an independent livelihood, in which people could set their own hours to adapt to their religious life. As a result, the number of craftspeople was growing continuously. They established their own guild in 1833. Unlike the practice of the era, Jewish craftsmen were included not based on their occupation, but on denomination. It served as an alternative to Christian guilds, which were formed based on denomination. After the abolition of guilds in 1872, the Jewish guild of Miskolc was the first to become a trade corporation. It eradicated the corporate form and restraints of the pre-modern world, creating space for the free competition of modern capitalism, along with a free financial market, devoid of religious aspect. It also served the economic empowerment of Jews.

Following general tendencies, produce trading Jewish families invested their accumulated capital surplus to the development of infrastructure and the food industry, alcohol distilling in particular. In 1844, Móric Weisz established a distillery in Miskolc, followed by the brickworks of the Furmann brothers, which was one of the first family businesses in the town. The economic climate facilitated the growth of the Jewish community and the settlement of Jews in Miskolc. By the turn of the century, prominent members of the orthodox community (with an Ashkenazi ritual) worked mostly at agricultural ornamental farms, in the food industry, as magistrates or lawyers, in the banking industry, in commerce or as intellectuals. Craftsmen and retailers, however, continued to be parts of the religious community.

In accordance with the general urban tendencies of North-eastern Hungary, large investors and financiers were members of Ashkenazi families with Czech-Moravian roots, while Hasidic Jews were mostly craftsmen, home craftsmen and retailers.

Prominent personalities

For pilgrim tourists: rabbis buried in the 3 ohels of the Jewish cemetery on Avas Hill: Meyer Rosenfeld, Chaim Mordechai Yaakov Gottlieb, Asher Anshel Wiener

Heritage tourism:

Samuel Austerlitz „rabbi, born in 1870 in Vienna. He was trained in several yeshivas, and received his semikhah at the yeshiva in Bratislava. He worked in Vienna, Pápa and Mesto Šamorín. After 1914 he held the title of chief rabbi of the orthodox community of Miskolc. An outstanding orator, author of several Halachic works (Hungarian Jewish Lexicon, p. 70)

Meyer Rosenfeld „chief rabbi of Miskolc, born in Brezová in October 1830, died in Miskolc in 1908. Student of Ezekiel Baneth, chief rabbi of Nitra, and Jakob Fleissig, rabbi of Hlohovec. He started his career as a rabbi, becoming the chaplain of the prison in Leopoldov. Then, he had worked in Nádudvar for 17 years. Simon Vogel, who later became a general of the infantry, had been his student there. In 1878, the Jewish Community of Miskolc appointed him as chief rabbi. This is where he continued his blessed operation as rabbi until his death. He was deeply respected by all, regardless of denomination. (Hungarian Jewish Lexicon, p. 753)

Prominent rabbis/wonder rabbis

Thoughts concerning the use of the notion wonder rabbi:

Journalists of the enlightened Hungarian society associated the deeds of wonder rabbis with folklore, superstitious practices, psychological pathology and humbug. The word is the loan translation of the German term Wunderrabbiner. It is one of the clichés in the literature of the Jewish Enlightenment, which criticized Eastern European Jews with a pejorative undertone. The shift in meaning was resulted by the need for Jewish juvenile fiction, which basically happened in a modernizing Jewish bourgeois medium. (e.g. literary works by Martin Buber, paintings by Isidor Kaufmann, short stories by Lajos Szabolcsi.)

County rabbis (office existing until 1832)

Izrael Mandel

Asher Anshel Wiener (-1880)

Avraham Wiener Posselburg (1880-1832)

Ashkenazi township rabbis (from 1836)

Chief rabbi Mózes Fischmann (1836-1875)

Rabbi Mór Klein (1866-1870) [father of Dr. Arnold Kiss, chief rabbi of Buda.]

Chief rabbi Mayer Rosenfeld (1878-1904)

Chief rabbi Dr. Sámuel Spitzer (1904-1908)

Chief rabbi Samuel Austerlitz (1914-1939), elected member of the municipality council

Preacher Dr. Salamon Spira (1898-1944)

Rabbis of Sephardic (Hasidic) prayer associations

Mózes Vitriol

József Reinitz (-1926)

Sámuel Smelke Grüntzer (1926-1936)

Juda Gottlieb (1936-1944) [as son of the rebbe, without election]