Jewish World

After Hungary recognized a Chabad-affiliated organization as the official representative of the country’s Orthodox Jews last year, a rival group charges the organization with a power grab ‘signed off’ by the Orbán government and made possible by ‘undue influence Chabad has at the government level’

Hasidic Jews arrive to pray at the former house of late rabbi Yeshaya Steiner, also known as Rebbe Shayale, in the village of Bodrogkeresztur, Hungary.Credit: Attila Kisbenedek / AFPJudy Maltz

Sep 19, 2024

Hungary’s Supreme Court is being asked to rule on whether an organization affiliated with the Chabad-Lubavitch movement engaged in a “hostile takeover” of one of the oldest Orthodox Jewish communities in the country.

The appeal was filed earlier this month by the ousted head of the tiny Autonomous Orthodox Jewish Community (MAOIH), after a lower court in Budapest dismissed the case. An initial hearing is expected this fall.

The Chabad-affiliated Jewish community in Hungary, known as EMIH, has been active since the late 1980s, whereas MAOIH was established some 150 years ago. Chabad in Hungary is known for its close ties to the government of Viktor Orbán.

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Robert Deutsch, the former president of MAOIH, alleges in the court document that the Hungarian government was operating outside its authority when it sanctioned the takeover and recognized Chabad as the sole legitimate representative of the Orthodox community in the country more than a year ago.

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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban talks to reporters in Cernobbio, Como Lake, Italy, Sept. 6.Credit: Luca Bruno/AP Photo

Deutsch and other members of the old guard at MAOIH allege that Chabad recruited employees of a kosher slaughterhouse it operated in Budapest for membership in their largely ultra-Orthodox community with the intent of taking over key leadership positions. These new “phantom members,” as he describes them, obtained voting rights in the general assembly that runs the community by circumventing standard procedures.

“These were people who had zero connection to the Orthodox community in Hungary,” said Deutsch, who was appointed president in January 2021, in a phone conversation.

At a general assembly meeting held in February 2023, which he alleges was held in violation of the community’s bylaws, Deutsch was ousted. He was replaced by Gábor Keszler from the Chabad-affiliated EMIH.

In May 2023, EMIH was recognized by Hungary’s autocratic government as the official representative of the Orthodox community in the country. Soon thereafter, the outgoing leaders of MAOIH requested an injunction and restraining order against the enforcement of the government decision from the Metropolitan Court in Budapest. After two hearings, their request was denied.

Among the estimated 80,000-to-100,000 Jews who live in Hungary, the vast majority are not Orthodox, and even members of the non-Orthodox Jewish community have expressed alarm at the government-endorsed Chabad takeover.  [Emphasis added.]

In a Facebook post at the time, Andras Heisler, then the leader of Hungary’s Jewish community, (affiliated with the liberal Neolog movement), said the government decision to recognize Chabad as the official representative of the Orthodox community “has shocked every honest Jewish person” in the country. He denounced the Chabad takeover as “a sin against Judaism.”

The Kazinczy Street Synagogue in Budapest, center of a dispute between Chabad and a long-standing Orthodox community.Credit: Thaler Tamas

By strengthening “artificially founded Jewish organizations,” Heisler wrote in reference to Chabad, the Hungarian government was undermining the true representatives of the local Jewish community.

In July 2023, members of the MAOIH community opposed to Chabad found themselves shut out of their more-than-century-old Kazinczy Street Synagogue and forced to pray outside. The worshippers were informed that the shul had been closed for renovations.

Rabbi Yankel Eckstein, a London-based kashrut supervisor with deep family ties to Hungary, was slated to be appointed full time rabbi of MAOIH just before the takeover.

“This is all about the undue influence Chabad has at the government level, and they used their connections in the government to get their hostile takeover, which was done in a very underhanded way, signed off, so to speak,” he said in a phone conversation.

“The problem is – and this is the basis of our appeal – that the government actually has no business interfering in religious issues because there is a definite separation of church and state in Hungary. The main thrust of our argument is that the government has overstepped its authority, and we’re simply asking for things to be reinstated.”

Asked for comment, the spokesman for Chabad in Hungary issued the following statement:

“Under our umbrella organization EMIH we operate 12 synagogues, two schools, and numerous institutions serving Jewish communities in Hungary, employing 27 rabbis in four cities across the country. EMIH uniquely ensures the supply of kosher food in Hungary and maintains the infrastructure necessary for religious life. Thus, it has no need and no intention of any ‘takeover’ of the synagogues of MAOIH or its real-estate.

Comment by Truth Uncensored Afrika:  Please read all the articles on the evil CHABAD MAFIA that is taking over many countries.