Horváth László szerk.: Mátrai Tanulmányok (Gyöngyös, 1999)

The prehistory of the Gyöngyös Jewish community - as perhaps all prehistories is hidden by the mists of time. The sources mention Jews in 38 places in the Hungary of the late Middle Ages. We know little of their lives; and while charters speak of several cemeteries and houses of prayer, we know only a few of them. Medieval synagogues were found by the archeologists at Sopron and Buda. There is early reference to Gyöngyös appearing in the Jewish written material in the middle of the 15th century. This book, with a little simplification, will argue that Israelite people had been living in the town continually from the 15th century. After the Mohács disaster, Jews were generally driven out of Hungarian towns. Their situation, however, was by no means the same in the three parts of the divided Hungary. Their condition was best in the areas of Turkish supremacy, which is now the most interesting to us. Not only did they enjoy religious tolerance, but they also started to handle financial and trade matters. Their role was preserved in Gyöngyös, which is supported by the fact that when in 1657 the Rabbi of Nándorfehérvár, Simcha ben Gerson ha-Kóhen listed the towns which were authorised to issue ritual divorce documents, he included the name of Gyöngyös. The list probably represents the situation at the turn of the century, because it claims to be valid for the times of the Rabbi's grandfather, Simcha bár Chájim, Rabbi of Buda. The town's appearance in the 'Book of Names' makes it very probable that there was a Jewish religious community in Gyöngyös in the 1600s. Their role in trade was very notable. Jewish and Greek people - the so-called 'arnóts' (Albanians) in Gyöngyös - not only established shops but also run the corn trade. Even landowners of the Hungarian Kingdom welcomed Jews, because they could only sell their corn through them. What they exploited was an empty slot in the scale of services, an unfulled need to. It was only through them that the products of a country torn in three, the products of several areas, could change owners. Their enterprise made high profits, but risk rose in direct proportion with the profits. Following the liberation from Turkish supremacy, the continuity of the Jewish communities was broken for decades or for centuries in most of the places in the former occupied territories. Gyöngyös must have been an exceptional place, since the sources speak of rich Jews with considerable capital right after the dislodgement of the Turkish. It is thought that the local Jewish community was singular in this respect. Their numbers started to swell in the 18th century. Mostly it was the landowners - in the case of Gyöngyös, such powerful families as the Eszterházy, Grassalkovich, Koháry, Károlyi and Orczy - who settled them in their manors or city houses, to enable them to sell the corn and products of their estates. The town, however, disapproved of this endeavour. The Jews were rivals to the local tradesman, and to the artisan, and repulsive usurers to the average citizen. The leaders of the town had been trying to expel them until the reform period, and their only patrons were the landowners.