THE JEWS OF PÁPA
PÁPA, town in N.W. Hungary.
A few families first settled in Pápa under the protection of
the Esterházy family; by 1714 the first synagogue was
built. At that time the tax collector of the city was a Jew.
A new synagogue was built in 1743. In 1748 Count F. Esterházy
authorised Jews to settle in Pápa and organise a community.
A Bikkur Holim society was founded in 1770. The first Jewish
private school was opened in 1812, and the community school, founded in
1826, had 504 pupils in 1841. In 1899 the first junior high
school was founded. The synagogue erected in 1846 was an important
step towards the introduction of Reform: space was left for
an organ although none was installed; the bimah was set in
front of the Ark and not in the centre of the synagogue. After
the religious schism in Hungarian Jewry in 1869 the Neologits left the
community, but returned five years later. During the Tiszaeszlar
blood libel case (1882) anti-Jewish riots broke out in Pápa but
they were suppressed by the authorities.
The first rabbi of the community was Bernard Isaac, followed by Selig
Bettelheim. The Orthodox rabbi Paul (Feiwel) Horwitz initiated
the meeting of rabbis in Paks in 1844. Leopold Loew (1846-50)
was the first rabbi to introduce Reform. Moritz Klein, rabbi
from 1876 to 1880, translated part of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed
into Hungarian. He was followed by Solomon Breuer (1880-83).
The last rabbi was J. Haberfeld, who perished with his congregation in
the Holocaust.
The anti-Jewish Laws of 1938-39 caused great hardship to the community,
and from 1940 the young Jewish men were sent to forced-labour battalions,
at first within Hungary, but later to the Russian front (1942).
The Jewish population in Pápa increased from 452 in 1787 to 2,645
in 1840 (19.6% of the total population), and 3,550 in 1880 (24.2%).
After the beginning of the 20th century a gradual decline began;
there were 3,076 Jews in 1910 (15.3%), 2,991 in 1920, 2,613 in 1941 (11%)
and 2,565 in 1944. After the German occupation on March 19
1944, the Jews were confined in a ghetto on May 24 and from there moved
to a concentration camp which was set up in a factory in the town.
On July 4 and 5 2,565 Jews of the city plus 300 from the vicinity were
deported to Auschwitz, from which less than 10% returned. In
1946 there were 470 Jews in the town (2% of the population) and by 1970
the number had fallen to 40.