The New Past and Future

Short summary of articles
We must admit that our issue compiled for the 60th anniversary of Israel was not an easy birth; the reader may notice this from the significant delay. It is hard to issue on time a thematic volume that hopes to ‘stop time’: to discuss a theme in such representative depth that it remain valid and up-to-date even a hundred years later. This time we did not give up: we waited for each article and translation ordered and each busy interviewee. Putting aside the constraints of time had its results in terms of quantity, too: we are honouring the anniversary that is so crucial to us with a double issue.
We had already begun collecting the material for this volume when we were notified of the deaths of several of our friends and colleagues whose memories it is our duty to preserve.
The passing of András Mezei is sadly connected to the 60th anniversary since back in the spring we organized our message around his poems (about half a book) written specifically for this issue. Having left a painful space behind him, the poet is remembered by Itamar Yaoz-Kest and Ádám Tábor. An overview of his life from the perspective of the Israel experience, András seems to have sensed in these posthumous poems that they were to be published from over there, gaining a different horizon through death.
Ferenc Fejtő has also left us, when he was only a few steps away from the hundredth birthday. Writing her PhD dissertation on Hungarian Jewish literature, young French historian Clara Royer’s conversations with Fejtő also carry a posthumous message; he speaks about the literary battles and the major figures of the 1930s in a hitherto unheard style, along the dividing lines of the Jewish question. And since he spoke in France, and in French, we learn from him things we would not learn from the Hungarian media.
And gone are Tomi Lapid and Béla Németh G. who were not authors, ‘only’ supportive friends, whose spirits and help will also become a part of the history of the new Múlt és Jövő.
Wanting to celebrate Israel’s anniversary in a periodical that is Hungarian both in its culture and language, one automatically recalls the examples of the Hungarian founding fathers of the state, Herzl, Nordau and their predecessors. It is precisely for this reason that we decided not to do so. We would like to focus the commemoration on Múlt és Jövő, the periodical written and edited by Jozsef Patai (and his whole family) that played a significant role in laying the intellectual basis for the future state. This is supported by the less known but highly telling fact that Raphael Patai was the first to ever acquire a doctorate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem - another example underlining the Hungarian presence, and bonding function, in the short but fruitful history of the Israeli state. Six of our articles and documents discuss this constant presence and radiation whose impact has been felt to this day. The Zionist poems of Zoltán Somlyó and Andor Peterdi are not only statements of the hitherto unknown commitment of these two spectacular poets who have been unjustly left out of the great canon; they are also mementos of a Múlt és Jövő that inspired and transmitted such emotions.
It is from the same golden age that we meet Zoltán Kugler, the Hungarian photographer of the yishuv. Bálint Veres’ essay, ‘What is Israeli music?’ commemorates another less known founding father, Ödön Pártos, one of the most significant representatives of Israeli music.
The correspondance of André Hajdu with Erdély Miklós and his commentaries on this correspondance document the heartbeats shared by the Budapest-Jerusalem axis that went unchanged throughout the ages.

In her essay on Moses Hess’s Rome and Jerusalem, Ágnes Heller introduces the theoretical foundations of the necessity of a Jewish state laid down in the above work and influential to this day. Sidra Ezrahi’s essay ‘Jerusalem as Ground Zero in the Hebrew Imagination’ is an overview of the development of the ideal of commitment to the Holy Land throughout the millennia of Jewish poetry. Laszlo Benke depicts the portraits of two medieval authors travelling to the Holy Land, also translating excerpts from their works. Young Italian author Shulim Vogelmann’s book excerpt describes the joys of learning Hebrew in the shadow of the second Intifada.
On this occasion we are trying to represent contemporary Israeli culture not with well-known and emblematic names but rather, we are hoping to introduce to the Hungarian audience new names and colours from this highly multi-coloured palette. Ágnes Gergely has translated poems by Hamutal Bar-Yosef. A chapter from Chaim Sabato’s novel and the short stories of Etgar Keret (from whose work we have already published before) also provide a fresh tasting of the strong and flavoursome contemporary prose of Israel. One of the proofs of the quality of this prose literature is the popularity and festival successes of Israeli films the world over. There can be no good film or story without good fiction, ie. good authors. In her analysis of two new films with Oscar potentials (Beaufort, The Band’s Visit), Anette Hilber also discusses the phenomenon of the dissolution of the dramatic ‘everyday Israeli life’ into high culture. Menashe Kadishman is a classic figure of Israeli visual arts, hitherto unknown in Hungary. Sculptor, painter and installation artist, a real ‘renaissance man’, Kadishman’s work will hopefully soon be introduced to the Budapest public in exhibitions. Our Israel issue is illustrated with his artwork.