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  • Polish Hasidism and Hungarian Orthodoxy in a BorderlandThe Munkács Rabbinate
  • Levi Cooper (bio)

kárpátalja as a borderland

It is possible tohave been born in Austria-Hungary,have been married in Czechoslovakia,have given birth in Hungary,have lived with your family in the Soviet Union,reside currently in Ukraine,… and have never left the city of Mukachevo.

This sign describing the twentieth-century vicissitudes of one town in Zakarpats' ka—as the area in Ukraine is known today—used to hang on the wall of the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation.1 Yet even before the twentieth century, Jewish communities in the region were embedded in an environment of shifting borders, changing political realities, and varying cultural influences. [End Page 199]

Kárpátalja (Carpathian Ruthenia) lies to the north and east of the Hungarian plain, and continues northward to the Carpathian Mountains.2 Munkács (Mukachevo) lies below the Carpathians, on the edge of the Tysa lowlands. Geographically situated on the perimeter of empires, Carpathian Ruthenia served as a crossroads between states and can be considered a 'borderland'. The term 'borderland' refers to a loosely defined region that is significantly affected by a border. Borderland scholars have called for the area on both sides of a border to be considered as a unit of analysis.3 I am suggesting that Carpathian Ruthenia be considered a borderland because it has consistently existed on the borders between empires, kingdoms, or states.

Physical location at the periphery does not necessarily entail intellectual isolation. From a Jewish perspective Munkács served as a meeting point for different ideas. While borderland studies can help frame the Munkács experience, a useful metaphor is a catchment basin: that is, an area of convergence—not of water but of ideas and ideologies. While borderlands are generally perceived as spaces of transit, a catchment area is primarily a place of collection. Thus Munkács experienced overlapping networks as well as unique social dynamics and cultural development.

My frame for viewing intellectual trends and the movement of ideas with migration departs from two prevalent meta-narratives in scholarship on Hungarian Jewry. One narrative focuses on the distinction between 'Oyberland' and 'Unterland', envisaging a porous internal border within Hungary. Oyberland communities in the west of Hungary were populated by Jews who migrated from German-speaking lands: they were generally wealthier, tended towards modernity, and were educated in secular studies. Unterland communities in the east of Hungary were populated by Jews who had migrated from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and two of its successor entities, Congress Poland and Galicia. They spoke Yiddish, were generally poorer, less educated, and influenced by hasidism. This approach often proceeds to narrate tales of competition or tension between the two outlooks or ways of life.4 [End Page 200]

A second approach to researching Hungarian Jewry uses a centre–periphery model. Orthodox and Neolog ideologies spread from centres such as Pressburg (Bratislava) or Budapest. Outlying towns encountered these ideologies in diluted forms.5 As those who crossed the border into Hungary moved closer to the centre, their former cultural identities were blurred as they assimilated the ideologies of Hungarian Jewry.

The frame suggested by this study does not controvert the two prevalent metanarratives: the present analysis seeks to enrich the discussion by describing an additional framework that has yet to be brought into sharp relief. In this narrative, what might be perceived as a geographical periphery functions as a catchment area by dint of its borderland status and develops its own unique religious microclimate.

Jewish communities formed in the Carpathian region in the second half of the eighteenth century,6 and as they developed, the need for rabbinical leaders emerged. As with other regions with developing Jewish communities, home-grown rabbis were not available, and, given that Jews were a non-state, trans-border people, filling leadership positions by looking beyond political borders was a natural option. The need to import rabbis necessitated a decision: From where to recruit?

This question was loaded with significance, because the rabbi was often a product of his place of origin. The question was broader than a query about a particular candidate's...

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