Jakab Réka: Bérlőből polgár. Pápa város zsidó közösségének társadalom- és gazdaságtörténete 1748-1848 (Veszprém, 2014)

Jewish settlers within the city. In close connection to all that, we looked at their living conditions and their acquisition of property in the city.

The beginnings of modern Jewish immigration to the Trans-Danubian district can be traced to the decade after Rákóczi’s War of Independence. The source of this immigration to Hungary was primarily the exodus from the big communities in the northern parts of the Empire, namely the Czech lands and Moravia. This was caused by Charles Ill’s policies towards the Jews, which restricted opportunities for these communities. A secondary cause was that this was the period when the over-populated communities in the border towns on the edges of Sopron and Vas counties began to push people out. These communities had been welcomed onto lands belonging to the princely branch of the Esterházy family and the Batthány family, their privileges guaranteed, from the second half of the 17th century on.

The period of consolidation that followed the Turkish occupation and wars saw the beginning of the development of the system of production within an economic system of landed estates. This was reinforced by a change in the direction of exports from the period of the occupation as the feudal estates producing industrial raw materials and agricultural produce began to trade with the northern territories of the Empire, which were being encouraged to industrialise. Court policy towards the Jews was a similarly determining factor, specifically forbadding them to settle in Free Royal Cities. These factors all influenced the direction of immigration into Hungary, which coincided with the economic needs of the landed estates. The owners of large estates played a significant role in the creation of Jewish communities in the important settlements of their lands and in their market towns. Later, they also played a large role in how these settlers fared; whether the cities managed to retain them and whether they remained attractive and therefore served as a source of continued immigration.

The first Jews appeared on the lands of the Esterházy family in Pápa and in the city itself at the turn of the 18th century. These early Jewish figures had exclusively economic links to the city; we cannot really say they settled. Their eventual settling was the result of a longer process. The deciding factor in their decision to settle for good or not was the success or otherwise of their business. If their livelihood in Pápa became assured, they moved their families into the city.

The first records of Jews in Pápa date from 1698 and relate to a pálinka [eau de vie] dealer by the name of Jacobus Hirschl. He and his relatives were tenants of the Pápa estates in the first decades of the 18th century. The first census of Jews in the city is from 1736 and records 11 families or 73 souls. In the following decades, the number of Jews in the city grew steadily thanks first to intensive immigration and later to natural increase.

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