The New Past and Future

Short summary of articles
Space. Jewish space. Loss of space. Jewish loss of space. This volume deals with the issue – as did also the previous double issue. What about the sixtieth anniversary of the Holocaust, you may ask. These two events, and these two terms, are closely interconnected.
The Hungarian Holocaust ploughed the Jews out of the space they had built around themselves on the Hungarian black earth. The question being asked for the past 60 years is whether this one period of ploughing was to be the final one for the remnant Hungarian Jews. That is, could they hold on amidst the ruins? Instead of vacuous words and declarations that do not commit anybody to anything, the presence in space gives a more valid diagnosis to our questions, however bitter and disturbing it may be to face this judgment or to accept it.
The 60th anniversary of the Hungarian Holocaust failed to properly commemorate Hungarian Jews and to present in an honourable manner the memento of their tragedy.
A narrative unspoken in space logically tries to dispel people’s natural memories. This is what is happening in the Jewish quarter of Budapest today – the last space radiating a Jewish presence – even if the influence of this presence on the formerly Jewish area is more intellectual than real in form.
Eva Amichay’s thorough piece examines the issue of reconstructing the Seventh District of Budapest, the former Jewish quarter of the city. She discusses the vision for the future of the district, while describing the “sins” of the past and present. Addressing the problems of architecture and urban planning, she touches upon concealed aspects of history and the dilemmas of the anomalies of new democracies and thus the social issues faced by Hungarian society ever since the country’s democratic transition. When Past and Future accepted and encouraged the writing of the Hungarian author, who lives in Israel, it knew that it was taking part in a Don Quixote plan. Our periodical likes to join battle against windmills, for it itself is such an enterprise. Péter Marinov’s summary presents the work of the civil society organisation “Óvás” (Preservation), which is struggling against the destruction of the Jewish quarter. András Mayer’s pictorial report titled Jollification on the Ruins shows there is public interest for endowing the Jewish quarter with a contemporary content.
Ágnes Heller’s essay Postscript to the Irresolvable Nature of the “Jewish Question” continues her thoughts (presented in the previous volume) on Jewish time and space in history, seeking an answer to the new but familiar problems of Jews in the third millennium. (Antisemitism, dependence on “global” changes in the world, Israel’s threatened existence, and preserving the identity of Jews)
Katalin Fenyves and János Kôbányai’s piece entitled A Hungarian Perspective on the Auschwitz Album analyses the scandalous Hungarian edition of the Auschwitz Album. János Kôbányai’s interview with Jitzhak Gershoni gives a background history to the people from Técsô in the Auschwitz Album.
Júlia Vajda and Andor Tooth Gábor’s work (“Our Holocaust”, “Your Holocaust”, “Their Holocaust” and Responding with the Strength of Art. Waldsee 1944) analyses the visual reception of the 60th anniversary of the Hungarian Holocaust. Three Hungarian Jewish women living in Israel (and belonging to three generations) discuss the Holocaust from a women’s perspective. The anthropologist Ilana Rosen, a professor of Beer Sheva University, examines the special women’s features of remembering the Holocaust and lays down the foundations for a new scientific approach. The piece by Zsuzsa Shiri summarises the life’s work of the researcher, who is writing for our periodical for the first time. Sára Reuveni, a senior member of staff at the Yad Vashem seeks to understand why more women than men took part in actions to rescue Jews and offers a portrayal of two women that assisted such actions. Hava Pinchas-Cohen, the Israeli poet and chief editor of the quarterly magazine Dimuj, narrates a rather odd journey to Auschwitz, the joint “great journey” of Israeli Arabs and Jews, with the second intifada in the background.
Béla Sarusi Kiss and Péter Szegedi’s article “without Jews, reborn...” describes how Jews were excluded from football, Hungary’s most popular sport. The serious tone of this volume is supplemented by the Holocaust poems of Ágnes Rapai.

Qty

Content

Ágnes Rapai: A Psalmic poem

Ágnes Heller: A long postscript to my essay on the “Irresolvable Nature of the »Jewish Question«”

Júlia Vajda: “Our Holocaust”, “Your Holocaust”, “Their Holocaust”

Ágnes Rapai: Poems by Ágnes Rapai

János Kőbányai: János Kôbányai interviews Jitzhak Gershoni, who identified people in the Auschwitz Album from Técsô

Ilana Rosen: Woman and time in the life histories of Holocaust woman survivors from Austria and Hungary

Shiri Zsuzsa: Hungarian Jewish women remember the Holocaust; an anthology of life stories

Sári Reuveni: Women among the Righteous Persons in Hungary

Hava Pinchas-Cohen: All Jews should know that they are not alone

Gábor Andor Tooth: Responding with the strength of art. Waldsee 1944

Eva M. Amichay: The chance of real rehabilitation

Péter Marinov: What has been done for the protection of the old Jewish quarter of Pest?

András Mayer: Jollification in the ruins

Order

Here you can order books published by Past and Future Publishing House (Múlt és Jövő)

	journal \| book \| authors \| about us \| news \| links \| Foregin Rights \| Hungarian