É. Apor , I. Ormos (ed.): Goldziher Memorial Conference, June 21–22, 2000, Budapest.
ORMOS, István: Goldziher's Mother Tongue: A Contribution to the Study of the Language Situation in Hungary in the Nineteenth Century
GOLDZIHER'S MOTHER TONGUE leaders of the most important Jewish community in Hungary in those days Chief Rabbi Farkas Alajos Meisel and the two rabbi-councillors Yehuda Wahrmann and Samuel Löh Brill, were all ignorant of Hungarian, although from i860 onwards the community's need for a Hungarian preacher grew rapidly.) 4' 1 It may be noted in this context that the language problem was one of the central issues in the battle between conservative and reform Judaism, a battle that reached unparalleled acutcness in Hungary, especially in the 1860s, culminating in the congress of 1868-1869: the representatives of Orthodoxy strongly objected to the spreading of alien languages (that is, Hungarian and Standard German) in synagogues and schools as language(s) of preaching and instruction, at the expense of Jüdisch-Deutsch, which seemed to them to safeguard the preservation of religion and the religious communities in their inherited forms. 4 7 Thus in 1865 for instance, a synod was held by ultra-Orthodox rabbis at Nagymihály in the Yiddish-speaking part of north-eastern Hungary, at the conclusion of which a resolution was passed declaring amongst other things that "it is forbidden to preach in any other language but Jargon. It is equally forbidden to listen to such a sermon. Any Jew hearing a rabbi or anyone else preaching in an alien language is obliged to leave the synagogue at once and go out into the street. The preacher must preach in the Jewish language [i.e. Jüdisch-Deutsch] , which is used by the pious Jews of this country . 4 8 4 I' Groszmann, Kohn Sámuel..., 22-23; Dr. Ödön Kálmán, 'Kohn Sámuel', Magvar-Zsidó Szemle 44 (1927), 285. 4 7 On this see in general, with numerous references to the languages involved: Yaqov Katz, Ha-qera' se-lo nit 'achah. Perisat ha-ortodoksim mi-kelal ha-qehillot be-hungaryah u-vegermanyah. [Jacob Katz, The Unhealed Breach. The Secession of Orthodox Jews from the Jewish Communities in Hungary and Germany.][In Hebrew.]. Jerusalem 1995 [in Hungarian translation: Jakov Katz, Végleges szakadás. Az ortodoxia kiválása a zsidó hitközségekből Magyarországon és Németországban. Transl. Gábor Ács. Rcv. Judit Stöckl, Budapest 1999]. It may be noted that Katz, who by his age and origin must have been familiar with "Jargon", never (as far as can be judged from the Hungarian translation) uses the term when speaking of it: he seems to employ the terms "Yiddish" and "Jüdisch-Deutsch" instead. See also Pietsch, Reform és ortodoxia... 60-71. On the reasons why this controversy, which also appeared in other countries, reached unparalleled acuteness in Hungary, see ibid., 151-153. See further Nathaniel Katzburg, 'The Jewish Congress of Hungary, 1868-1869', > n : Hungarian Jewish Studies. Ed. Randolph L. Braham, New York 1966-1973, vol. II, 1-33. 4 8 Groszmann, A magyar zsidók..., 80-81; Pietsch, Reform és ortodoxia..., 61. On the linguistic aspects of the religious controversy in Hungary cf. Solomon Poll, 'The Role of Yiddish in American Ultra-Orthodox and Hasidie Communities, VIVO Annual of Jewish Social Science (New York) 13 (1965) [not seen]. 213
