Isaiah Tishby,Új Kelet ( New East ),and the Cultural Mediation of Zionism in Transylvania (1920–1930)

Introduction

While several important studies have been devoted to the history and the reception of Zionism in Hungary, ¹

Considering representative issues of the Jewish daily, Új Kelet, within 10 years of its inception (from the 1920s) will allow me to describe its key role as the foremost communications outlet for the promotion of Zionist ideas and activities in Transylvania. I will further trace the impact of this newspaper on the life and writings of Isaiah Tishby (1908–1992), one of the preeminent scholars of Kabbalah in the twentieth century, who was exposed to the Jewish daily in his youth and became indelibly transformed by it after its precipitous launch in 1918 on the heels of the World War I.

The history of Zionism in Hungary can be characterized by two competing tendencies: an initial upsurge of enthusiasm for political Zionism that drew adherents to the movement around the turn of the twentieth century, from the first Zionist Congress in Basle in 1897 to the death of Herzl in 1904, followed by a steady decline, especially, in the overwhelmingly assimilated urban centers of Hungarian Jewish life. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, political Zionist ideology in Hungary was centered in two cities: in Pressburg, a bastion for Hungarian Jewish Orthodoxy with its acclaimed yeshivah established by Rabbi Moses Sofer Schreiber (Hatam Sofer) ³

Pressburg became the hub of a significant amount of Zionist activity including the establishment of the first Hungarian Zionist society, Ahavat Zion, in 1897 by Samuel Bettelheim and served as the seat for the first Zionist Mizrachi World Congress in 1904, a movement led by the Lithuanian rabbi, Jacob Isaac Reines, Head of the religious Zionist movement (Mizrachi). ⁵

However, in the absence of a charismatic leader, a newspaper dedicated to the Zionist cause, and a national institutional body, Zionism ostensibly failed to rally a large number of followers to the Zionist cause in Hungary (Haber, 2001; Miller, 2004, p. 181). As Hungarian Jews enjoyed unprecedented economic and social mobility in the first decades of the twentieth century, their focus turned to assimilation and patriotism for Hungary, which they regarded as their “New Canaan.” The leading Jewish paper in Hungary at the time was Egyenlőség (Equality), edited by Miksa Szabolcsi, and served at the time as the main cultural platform for “assimilated Budapest Jewry” reinforcing the message of patriotism not for a future Jewish State, but for Hungary (Miller, 2004, p. 181). Szabolcsi and his newspaper represented the majority of assimilated Jews in Hungary, who viewed any promotion of Zionism as a competing and ultimately irreconcilable, ideological concept with Hungarian patriotism. ⁶

A very different political situation emerged, however, in geographical regions where Hungarian-speaking Jews found themselves as a minority within a minority after the World War I. The Treaty of Trianon, that marked the end of the War, resulted in the territorial division of the Kingdom of Hungary, with large land transfers of sizeable albeit minority Hungarian-speaking population to neighboring nations, including the Republic of Czechoslovakia, the Kingdom of Romania, Slovenia, Croatia, and the Kingdom of Serbia. Transylvania, a large and historically important region of the Kingdom of Hungary, comprised of a high percentage, and in certain areas like Székely Land the majority population, of Hungarian speakers, was annexed to Romania following the Treaty of Trianon, which reconfigured the map of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. Transylvanian Jews, now under Romanian rule, but lacking any nationalist sentiment toward their new government, found Zionism an attractive ideology that replaced their earlier Hungarian patriotism.

The foremost cultural catalyst for the dissemination of Zionist ideology in Transylvania was the newspaper, Új Kelet (New East), printed in the intellectually eclectic and vibrant Transylvanian city of Cluj (Kolozsvár). Unlike earlier Zionist publications in Transylvania, established in the first decade of the twentieth century, such as Zion (1902), Zion Zeitung (1904–1906), Ahavat Zion (1908), and Erdélyi Zsidó Lapok (Transylvanian Jewish Papers, 1910), which were in circulation only for brief periods of time, Új Kelet celebrated its centennial anniversary in 2018 as one of the oldest Jewish newspapers in history (Olosz, 2019, p. 94).

The paper was initially launched as a weekly on December 19, 1918, printed on cheap packing paper, due to severe paper shortages at the end of the war, but by 1920, on the heel of its overwhelming success, it was turned into a daily publication and ran in that format until 1940. During the 1940s, the paper’s circulation ceased, but was restarted by one of its founding editors, Ernõ Marton in 1948 in Tel Aviv, shortly after his immigration to Mandate Palestine. The circulation of the paper increased steadily from close to 3,500 copies in 1919 to robust 15,000–20,000 daily copies in subsequent years of its operation. ⁷

The creation and successful circulation of Új Kelet was not arbitrary, but needs to be considered as reflective of larger historical, political, and cultural processes taking shape in Jewish communities across Transylvania at the end of the World War I. Jewish soldiers fighting in the Austro-Hungarian army on the Eastern Front encountered and became influenced by their comrades with strong Zionist convictions. One of the founders and foremost proponents of Zionism in Transylvania, Dr. Haim Weissburg (1892–1959), was born to a land-owning family in Transylvania, studied law in Budapest, was active there in a Zionist student organization, and fought in the Austro-Hungarian army as a volunteer. Captured by the Russians, he was sent to Siberia, where he learned Hebrew and established a Zionist group among the other prisoners (Hartman, 1996, p. 201).

In 1918, shortly after his return, Weissburg founded the National Jewish Union in Cluj, with an explicit demand for national autonomy and self-governance for Transylvanian Jewry. He set three goals targeting not only the assimilated Jews of Transylvania, but at the same time communicating a clear message to the new Romanian authorities as well: the reassertion of Jewish identity, the learning and promotion of the Hebrew language, and preparation for aliyah to Palestine, which encompassed both physical and mental training. ⁸

Weissburg was relentless in taking the necessary steps to establish an outlet for the communication and propagation of Jewish nationalist ideas and activities with exacting and high journalistic standards. In the first 2 years of its operation, when Új Kelet functioned as a weekly newspaper, it barely survived with a scant editorial staff of two permanent employees, Ernõ Marton and Béla Székely, and soon became further reduced to one permanent staff as Béla Székely transferred to a more lucrative position at a competing newspaper. In order to secure the necessary funds to transform Új Kelet from a weekly into daily paper, and thus strengthen its Zionist appeal, Weissburg, supported by other leaders of the Zionist Union decided to turn the publishing house, Kadima, into a publicly traded company and subsume the operation of Új Kelet into it.

At the same time, Weissburg took advantage of his visit to Vienna to recruit from among the Hungarian Jewish émigrés living there at the time, shortly after the fall of the Red Revolution in Hungary (1919). These Jewish intellectuals, many of whom were highly qualified journalists, writers, and novelists, sought refuge in Vienna in an effort to escape the White Terror, a counter-revolutionary political suppression meant to punish those who participated and supported the communist revolution in Hungary. Motivated less by Zionism than a readiness to resume their vocation, these writers were eager to join the staff of Új Kelet and arrived in Cluj, thanks to Weissburg’s generous financial assistance and creative, albeit illegal, ingenuity in procuring fake passports on their behalf for prompt travel (Olosz, 2019, pp. 100–103). Under the editorial direction of József Fischer (editor-in-chief) and Ernõ Marton (managing editor), Új Kelet was set to become the representative voice for all of Transylvania’s Jews, irrespective of political or religious differences:

The Jewry of Transylvania does not have a representative in the Chamber of Deputies; nor does it have a senator. It has neither a protector nor a spokesperson. It has none to share its problems and troubles with. At the moment this Jewry has only Új Kelet (New East). This newspaper is its representative, its senator, its spokesperson. It is its physician, who investigates its most hidden illnesses so as to provide the proper panacea. The newspaper is a forum, a complaints office, a pulpit, and a battlefield. It awakens and strengthens Jewish consciousness. Every conscious Jew must read Új Kelet (New East), which can become strong only if it is surrounded by a multitude of readers (Újvári, 1996, p. 212). ⁹

With the successful integration of new staff of highly qualified and experienced journalists into the editorial team of Új Kelet—some of whom were born in Transylvania, but gained their experience in Budapest—Új Kelet was poised to strengthen Jewish identity in Transylvania by uniting the larger and smaller, more remote communities, with events and historical developments in the rest of the world. While many of these newly recruited writers did not self-identify as Zionists, their participation in political revolts to establish a Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919 made them particularly susceptible to the revolutionary spirit propagated by Új Kelet, which emphasized the extraordinary transformations taking place in history, particularly as reflected in the imminent prospect of the establishment of a Jewish State (Kahán, 1988, p. 194; Olosz, 2019, p. 104).

The majority of these writers were socialists or communists and while their move to Cluj on the periphery and to Új Kelet, a less prestigious Zionist Jewish newspaper, in particular, might seem unexpected, this transfer nevertheless fulfilled both an existential and a political desideratum. On the one hand, it enabled them to restore the income they had lost as a consequence of their emigration to Vienna and on the other, being correspondents of the paper, they gained access to an important platform from which they could attack the Hungarian right-wing counterrevolutionary media, which acted as the organ of the Horthy government for spreading the “White Terror” in Hungary (Benamy, 1966, p. 70 cited in Olosz, 2019, p. 104).

Set out clearly in its founding Manifesto (December 19, 1918) printed below, the editors of the newspaper aimed to frame the content of Új Kelet in such a way so as to connect the Jews of Transylvania, with the main historical and political events taking place on the national and the international stage. The opening sentence of the manifesto recalls and displays an unequivocal similarity with the Communist Manifesto, articulated by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, an editorial decision to underline the agenda that the paper emerges at a critical moment in history in order to serve as a medium that abets the transformation of Transylvanian Jewry.

The propagandistic focus of the paper to reorient attention from the West to the East and toward a Jewish national direction in an effort to provide a voice for the Zionist program is also sharply defined in the manifesto. Using the platform of culture, politics, sports, and current events, the newspaper aimed to be active, even militant, in “fighting” against any form of repression, persecution not only among Jews, but “all oppressed classes.” The editors’ weapon in this struggle to be “progressive,” while continuing to remain loyal to a “nationalistic” (Zionist) cause, was the management of information, the careful and astute presentation of events, literary sources, and opinion pieces that would shape a new communal and individual Jewish identity based no longer on passivity, inwardness, and repression but on an informed, activist self-determination, and independence.

The Manifesto of the Új Kelet:

A great revolution that is sweeping through the entire world has an explosive effect on the nations and poses new challenges to the Jews as well.

Nations, that had suffered oppression for centuries, have attained their freedom and march toward new aspirations and possibilities with renewed desire.

Amidst this grand upheaval only the Jews stand idly by and while waves of hatred enclose them, they hesitantly grope about toward their own liberation.

Jewish ingenuity confidently points the way toward the East, where a new sun rises today.

The hope of national restoration has glimmered like a torch before the Jews even throughout the millennia of exile and has illuminated the dark and arduous paths of galut. ¹⁰

Új Kelet serves this ideal; this was the goal we set ourselves when due to the severe shortage of paper we decided to use this format instead of propaganda booklets and communiqués to build a relationship with Jewish communities in rural areas.

The Új Kelet serves as the voice of progressive, nationalistic rural Jewry. We will support Jewish interests and goals.

We will keep Jewish communities in rural areas constantly informed regarding their own affairs as well as the developments of world Jewry.

Through our active and reliable news services our readers will be in regular contact with Jewish communities throughout the world. We will also ensure that we inform the world about the plight of our people.

Új Kelet will fight not only on behalf of persecuted Jews but also for all oppressed classes.

On the pages of Új Kelet, we will feature Jewish culture and will strive to recruit the best and brightest in our nation to address the Jewish community.

Jews! Our brethren! Rally under the banner of Új Kelet! ¹¹

A brief perusal of a sample edition of Új Kelet, dated January 5, 1922, reveals an interesting cross-section of reportage concerning national events, such as the Romanian Education Minister’s visit to Cluj and his position on promoting and guaranteeing educational rights in minority schools, a topic of obvious concern to the Transylvanian Jewish communities; Chaim Weizmann’s visit to the Jewish community in Vienna; a short piece about the embattled heavy industry in Austria and its struggle to remain competitive on the world market; and news from the bureau in Bucharest with a curious announcement advertising an inaugural flight between Romania and South America that can accommodate 8–10 passengers with an itinerary of six stops—Bucharest, Istanbul, Naples, Algiers, Dakar, and Rio de Janeiro—until finally passengers disembark at their final destination, Buenos Aires.

Presumably, it was important for Új Kelet to inform its readership, some of whom may have conducted commercial transactions with South America, about this new aviation route. ¹²

Hesitation and a reluctance to act decisively, the columnist further asserts, lead to adverse political consequence, citing Weizmann who stated that the League of Nations granted only the rights of Jews to return to their ancient homeland, but nothing more. The author exhorts his readers to recognize the urgency of time and act without hesitation appealing to Weizmann’s speech at the League of Nations: “the nations loaned us but a short window of time for the rebuilding of our national homeland. This was an invaluable offering from them and they cautiously monitor its progress, which is to be expected. It is also evident that they will revoke this right should they perceive that we misuse it or take it for granted” (Új Kelet, 1922, January 5, p. 4). Zionism, the author contends, is primarily an economic challenge, but with persistence Jews can overcome the limitations of history, geography, and the characteristic attitudes of the Jewish nation.

In another long article in the same issue, the editors present a detailed coverage of Weizmann’s visit to Vienna and the summary points of the resolution passed by the Executive Committee of the World Zionist Organization that met there on December 28–30, 1921. Finally, a brief anecdote in the “news” section of the paper hints again at the ideological orientation and mission of the daily to promote and strengthen the ideal of a “new Jew” who no longer deploys intellect and reason alone in navigating in the world, but also has recourse to physical strength in the pursuit of new goals. The rabbinic adage, “better to be the tail of lions, than the head of foxes,” provides an opposite traditional-religious segue for this message underlining that while the intellect separates between people, strength unifies. The editors emphatically conclude their column, “Új Kelet promotes unity—read it and you shall be strengthened” (Új Kelet, 1922, January 5, p. 6).

The message of Új Kelet was not lost on the religious Orthodox community of Transylvania and was especially successful in galvanizing the younger generation that welcomed the new ethos of strength over intellect, Zionism over diaspora existence, and traditionalism tamed by secular educational pursuits over religious exclusivity and isolation. Sándor Schwartz—who was to become Professor Isaiah Tishby (1908–1992), one of the preeminent scholars of Kabbalah in the twentieth century at the Hebrew University—was an avid reader of Új Kelet. Born in Szaniszló, a small village in Transylvania, Tishby grew up in an Orthodox, but not Hassidic, household and received traditional rabbinic education. Following the established orthodox educational program, Tishby continued his studies in yeshivas in the Transylvanian towns of Nagykároly, Szatmárnémeti, and Hunyad. The circulation of the newspaper in the Schwartz household exposed the young man to Jewish nationalist ideas, which he embraced with enthusiasm already at age 11 and at 14, he proclaimed himself to be a Zionist: “I dreamed of making aliyah (emigrate to Israel), not because of any anti-Semitic experiences, which honestly I did not encounter [personally], but simply because everything I learned about Judaism pointed me in that direction.” ¹³

A remarkable transformation in Tishby’s identity at this time is indicated by a complete change of his name from Sándor Swartz to Tishbi Illés or Eliyahu the Tishbite. He saw himself as the messianic prophet whose mandate was to preach and spread Zionism to the embattled European communities of Jews fighting against the dark forces of hatred, anti-Semitism, and assimilation. In his diary dated December 29, 1927, he exclaims about his restlessness to leave everything behind including his family and set out for Mandate Palestine:

To leave, to leave! This is the only thought that occupies me now and the daily events, unfortunately further reinforce my calling. The horrifying actions of the student Congress in Nagyvárad hasten the completion of my plans. What happened here reenacted the barbarity of the ancient Romans. They destroyed our Temples and threw our sacred books on the pyre. Jews were severely beaten having no mercy even on the elderly, who stood in their way. In modern times, only the heroes of the Ukranian and Kisecsenyi pogroms can boast of similar inhumanity as the intelligent student gentlemen. Although the government has promised both financial and moral compensation, this is of course only a formality because in reality they might even reward those who participated in the destruction. Even the judicial sentences thus far prove that the government is not serious in their intention compensating only the American citizen [who got hurt] but for the Jews empty promises would have to suffice so that they could be harmed again and again without any consequence. And I should remain in such a country, where the Jew is destroyed and killed? Should I also offer my head to the executioner like my young martyred brethren and thus help them? Perhaps even elsewhere I will not encounter great love for the Jew but I am young and not tied to any land. I will set out into the world persevering and wandering until I find a land on this earth where Jews can live not just temporarily but finding a final home for themselves. In my heart I know the name of this place—the ancient homeland, Palestine—and if my itinerary remains unchanged, I hope to reach it soon, after but a short detour. ¹⁴

Nineteen years old and having been brought up in an Orthodox anti-Zionist household, Tishby is unequivocal about his future and sees the political and social injustice around him as a clarion call to return to Zion and denounce diaspora existence as offering a viable solution the Jewish question. The reference here alludes to the violent anti-Jewish Romanian student riots of 1927, which took place in one of the historically most significant and sizeable Jewish communities of Transylvania, Oradea (Nagyvárad), and resulted in both the loss of human life—as a number of Jews were murdered—and the destruction of Jewish property. It was not the first instance of anti-Jewish agitation by Romanian students and the Új Kelet reported on a number of similar incidents that took place in 1920, when “Romanian students started a war against the Jewish residents of Cluj; broken heads and shop-windows blotted the path of the glorious youth” (Új Kelet, 1920, III, p. 62, p. 5 cited in Újvári, 1996, p. 217).

These anti-Jewish protests, perpetrated largely by Romanian youth, were instrumental in instigating a response from the Zionist movement and led to the creation of a youth wing of the Mizrachi organization, originally founded in Oradea, in 1920. In fact, numerous Zionist activities in Transylvania were organized by youth groups, such as Hashomer (1922), formed on the Anglo-German scout model (Hartman, 1996, p. 204). In 1929, this group split into two factions. One, Hashomer Hatzair, had greater ideological affinity toward the left, emphasized more separation from parents and greater social and political activism in preparation for aliyah (emigration). The other group with centrist, but liberal leanings was called, Hanoar Hatzioni. These Zionist youth organizations provided not merely ideological training and education for aliyah, but also had designated farmlands, especially in the Satu Mare, Targu Mures, Lugoj, and Cluj areas where the youth had an opportunity to acquire technical skills for farming and agricultural labor (Hartman, 1996, pp. 205–206).

Although Tishby did not participate in agricultural activities in preparation for his emigration to Palestine, he was already an active literary contributor to Új Kelet in the mid-1920s. In 1925, three poems of the young 17-year-old Tishby were published in the Új Kelet, each appearing in a special supplemental section aptly called “A Föld” (The Earth), intended to offer readers in-depth coverage on a focused topic directly related to aspects of the land and those who work it. This supplement was published weekly with the first issue printed on January 23, 1925 and was strategically placed in the Friday edition of the paper for maximum impact on readers. The section was of varied length, which sometimes reached 10–12 pages. Poetry usually concluded the section related to the topic of Zionism, Jewish festivals, and current events. One of the interesting features of this supplement was the frequent use of visual images that would either depict scenes from daily life in the “old country” Transylvania—agricultural workers, farms, rural landscapes, village markets, Jewish underprivileged manual workers—or photos taken from the “new country” of Mandatory Palestine. These visual illustrations inspired greater connection with the land (old and new), marginalized Jewish rural communities and their daily lives, fostering unity and Jewish cohesion at a basic visual level, which also strengthened Zionist sentiments (see Figure 1).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1

Source: National Library of Israel Web Archives, http://jpress.org.il/Olive/APA/NLI/?action=tab&tab=browse&pub=UJK&_ga=2.38393573.795168504.1567437501-2019269851.1567437501#panel=document

Tishby’s first poem, printed in the above-mentioned supplement of Új Kelet, was dedicated to the memory of 12 Jewish students presumably killed in the anti-Jewish student riots mentioned above and is appended at the end of an open letter penned by Avigdor Hameiri-Feuerstein of Jerusalem.

Martyrs!

Dedicated to the memory of twelve Jewish students

Wave the remains

of shattered dreams.

Hope thus like a torch blazes:

a lonely flicker.

Proclaim with pride

we are alive, we are alive!

In the throes of fierce tempests

frightened we are not.

Let thunder come and may peaks

be washed away

Yet Jacob’s house stands mightily

above the pyres. ¹⁵

The content of Avigdor Meiri-Feuerstein’s letter is of particular interest here, as it is addressed to one of the most celebrated Jewish Hungarian writers of the period, Ferenc Molnár, famous for his best-selling novel, The Boys of Pál Street. The letter was meant to probe the reasons for Molnár’s lack of patriotism toward Zion on the one hand, while for the absence of any filial motivation on his part as a Jew to visit Palestine and learn about the life of Zionist pioneers there on the other. Molnár is compared to the French non-Jewish author, Pierre Benoit, who visited the new city of Tel Aviv and a kibbutz in the Jezreel Valley in order to learn about the daily life and psychology of the Zionist pioneers as a preparation for writing his novel, Jacob’s Well, which he made into a best seller, selling close to a million copies. ¹⁶

Tishby’s next poem, The March of the Departed, featured in the December 25, 1925 supplement of Új Kelet, is unambiguous in its Zionist tone and agenda. The tenor of the poem is exhortative and aims to rouse his fatigued and disillusioned coreligionists to action. The failure of the past to return to the Jewish homeland is contrasted by the poet, with the immediacy of redemption available to all Jews in the present.

The March of the Departed

‘Time has come to leave’—

whispers the tempest

foreign land, memories of woe

we bid you farewell!

Ships without a sail we have been

upon the high seas,

wholesome seeds waiting

to be ground by the wheel.

Persecuted across the world

not a refuge to be found.

—walking stick, oh trusted friend,

the time has come, good-bye.

Enough of the wandering

for our homeland we depart,

Scorching sand—the bosom of our Eastern

Mother awaits our return. ¹⁷

Around the same time, Tishby also wrote a number of plays, novellas, and short stories, with explicitly Zionist themes, which have to this day remained unpublished. In a play, titled “Back to the Land” presented in two acts, we encounter a group of young Jewish refugees, three young men and a woman, gathered in the waiting room of a train station, with a rabbi and an old man also present. Nachum a muscular strong Jewish young man becomes a verbal advocate of leaving, but not for just any other country, exclaiming that he could never leave for South America. He explains to the others that he has heard the voice of the land (of Israel) deep within his soul, which beckoned him back to the “ancient earth.” Each of his friends responds to him in disbelief and offers prominent articulations of anti-Zionist attitudes. Beri, for instance, suggests that if Nachum makes it to Jerusalem, he will not be able to avert the endless cycle of wandering and persecution even there and will be forced to sell sundry cheap wares, like shoelaces to make a living. Beri’s arguments are grounded in the stereotypical images of Jewish professions, while Nachum looks forward toward the future as a landowner “a free person” in Zion, who lives off the land by cultivating it—watering, sowing, and harvesting. The tension between the anti-Zionism of the friends and the enthusiasm for returning to Zion professed by Nachum creates the rhetorical framework of the play and gets resolved by the eventual emigration of the entire group to the Land of Israel where even those who doubted, such as Beri, witness the realization of the Zionist dream. ¹⁸

Tishby saw himself as a prophet with a mission to preach Zionism on the written page, in newspapers and books, as well as verbally from the pulpit; it is, therefore, not surprising that his public speeches in synagogues and in other institutions in Transylvania animated a new generation of Jewish youth. Tishby’s indelible influence is faithfully recorded in the autobiography of Yosef Klein Halevi: “For my father, Tisbi Illes was indeed a messianic messenger, appearing in a forlorn corner of Transylvania to save those Jews forgotten by everyone but their enemies. Inspired by Tisbi Illes, he joined the town’s tiny B’nai Akiva group” (Klein Halevi, 2014, p. 11). Klein Halevi’s father came from a similar religious anti-Zionist, orthodox household from Nagykároly and he credits Tishby’s writings as a young journalist and his Zionist “sermons” for his own turn toward Zionism.

One day, it was announced that the famous Tisbi Illes was coming to speak in town. Tisbi Illes was a journalist who wrote passionate appeals, urging Hungarian Jews to flee to the Land of Israel before it was too late. Tisbi Illes’s real identity was hidden; his name was a Hungarian pseudonym meaning Elijah the Tishbite, the prophet who will announce the coming of the Messiah. And so, when Tisbi Illes came to Nagy-Karoly, the synagogue was filled with curious Jews; my father, still a child, was among them. Everyone was stunned: Tisbi Illes turned out to be a Nagy-Karoly boy, son of one of Reb Yoilish’s most prominent Hasidim. ¹⁹

In closing, the Jewish newspaper, Új Kelet emerged in 1918 as an important communicational medium with an explicit objective to shape a new identity for the Hungarian-speaking Jews of Transylvania, who found themselves bereft of a distinct national affiliation in the aftermath of the World War I. Territorial and political changes necessitated the self-organization of Transylvania Jewry, which resulted in the formation of social, cultural, and economic institutions that adopted Zionism as the ideological premise of Jewish continuity. Új Kelet became a nationally successful newspaper with high journalistic standards and was the primary organ for propagating Zionism to its Jewish readership. Isaiah Tishby’s fervent literary activity in Transylvania as a young man reflects the broad influence Új Kelet managed to exert upon its readers.

Tishby viewed Zionism less as a philosophical ideology and more as politically and existentially vital to the future of Judaism. Tishby, unlike other Jewish intellectuals who emigrated to Mandate Palestine in the first decades of the twentieth century, like his mentor Gershom Scholem, regarded Zionism not as a failed experiment from which one can extricate oneself, but saw it in more messianic, albeit secular terms, as the return of self-governance to the Jewish people in the ancient homeland. ²⁰

In recent years, newspapers have had to address demands for a fundamental operational overhaul due to greater technological transformations taking place in the area of communication and many publications faced painful decisions of closing completely, decreasing publication output, or going fully online. The editors of Új Kelet came under a similar attack in 2015, when the paper nearly ceased operations. However, with a renewed team of editors—the current managing editor Éva Vadász—along with a streamlined publishing schedule—the once weekly, then daily, has become a monthly in 2016—the paper continues to bring balanced reportage on politics, society, and culture to Hungarian-speaking Jews with a particular focus on Israel, faithful to its original mission. Currently, the paper circulates in 1,000 copies in Israel and 300 copies in Hungary, forming a cultural bridge, to this day, between Jews in the Land and the Hungarian diaspora.