Disszimiláció az asszimilációpárti zsidóság körében 1848–1914
Dissimilation Among the ’Assimilationist’ Jews 1848–1914

Summary/Abstract: Hungarian Jewish historiography has until now neglected to scrutinize whether Neolog Jews living in Dualist Hungary were truly as enthusiastically “assimilationist” – or simply “integrationist” – as this historiography has commonly depicted them. A close reading of articles published in Neolog Jewish journals, rabbinic sermons, pamphlets and works of fiction reveals a more nuanced picture. Obviously, Neolog Jews did not elaborate any consciously articulated agenda of dissimilation. In fact, the historical significance of the tiniest utterances of dissimilationist views must be appreciated against the pressure of a liberal but also nationalist political elite which stressed repeatedly and in the strongest terms Jews’ duty no to differ in the slightest sense from their non-Jewish compatriots. Yet despite this pressure, dissimilationist voices existed, from isolated calls to keep a Jewish national consciousness to regrets about an exaggeratedly exclusive identification with “Hungarianness,” from expressions of nostalgia for the self-isolating premodern Jewish world to outright rejections of the assimilationist ideal. As this article aims to show, these various expressions of dissimilationist opinions were a certainly marginal yet also constant feature of Neolog Jewish intellectual life between 1867 and 1918.

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