Hungary-Timelines

2,000 YEARS OF HUNGARIAN JEWISH HISTORY

Family history is more than a series of names and dates. Knowing about the events that occurred during our ancestors’ lifetimes helps us to gain a better understanding of their world and the decisions they made that shaped their lives. This timeline integrates key events in world and Jewish history with important dates in the history of Hungarian Jews.

8	Emperor Tiberius claims lands west of the Danube for Rome
70	Romans destroy the Second Temple in Jerusalem and bring about 5,000 captives to Rome
103	Trajan divides the province creating Pannonia Inferior with its capital at Aquincum
203	Groups of Jews begin to settle in Pannonia
600	Founding of the Khazar kingdom
711	Golden Age of Jewish culture in Spain begins with Muslim invasion of the Iberian peninsula
850	Jewish Kabars and Khazars arrive in the Carpathian Basin with the Magyars
1092	Council of Szabolcs issues the first anti-Jewish laws in Hungary
1095	Beginning of the Crusades
1135	Birth of Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (Maimonides)
1141	Yehuda HaLevi urges Jews to return to Palestine
1241	Mongols invade Hungary
5 dec. 1251	King Bela IV issues grants extensive rights to Jews in Hungary
1279	Synod of Buda requires Hungarian Jews to wear an identifying red patch
1290	King Edward I expells Jews from England
1291	King Endre III grants full rights to the Jews of Pressburg (Bratislava)
1306	First of several Jewish expulsions from France
1343	Casimir the Great invites Jews to settle in Poland
1347-1351	Black Plague kills about a third of Europe’s population
1349	Jews are expelled from Hungary and then readmitted
1360	King Lajos I expels Jews from Hungary after failed attempt to force conversion
1360	Jews expelled from Hungary settle in Austria, Moravia, and Poland
1492	About 200,000 Jews are expelled from Spain; Bayezid II invites them to settle in Ottoman Empire
1516	Ghetto of Venice, the first in Europe, is established
29 aug. 1526	Turks defeat the Hungarians at the Battle of Mohacs
18 june 1623	Prince Gabriel Bethlen of Transylvania grants privileges to Spanish Jews from Turkey
1630	Jews settle in Recife, Brazil
1648	Chmelinitzki massacres 100,000 Jews in Poland
1654	Following Portuguese recapture of Brazil, 23 Jews, mostly refugees from Recife, arrive in New York and establish Congregation Shearith Israel, the first in North America
1655-1656	Dutch West India Company allows Jews to trade, travel, and own property in New Netherland
1670	Leopold I expels Jews from Vienna
August 1690	Habsburgs expel Jews from Sopron after taking over all of Hungary
1698	Leopold I orders a census of Hungarian Jews
1700	Jewish population of Hungary is 4,071, about 90 percent live in counties bordering Austria and Moravia
1712	Jews are expelled from Esztergom
1726	Charles III decrees only one Jewish male in each family in Austrian provinces can marry resulting in significant migration into northwestern part of Hungary
1730	Jews build a synagogue in Lower Manhattan, the first in the present U.S.
1738	Jewish census (Conscriptio Judaeorum) counts 11,621 Jews in Hungary, two-thirds of whom are immigrants, primarily from Moravia
1743	Rabbi Matityahu Gunsburg of Belgrade is elected rabbi of Obuda
2 dec. 1763	Congregation Jeshuat Israel of Newport, R.I., the second oldest in the U.S., dedicates the country’s oldest standing synagogue
22 sept 1772	Prussia, Russia, and Austria divide Poland making most of Galicia part of Austria-Hungary
4 july 1776	Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia
1776-1783	American Revolution
1780	Jewish population of Hungary reaches 46,166 as Joseph II becomes Emperor
13 mar. 1783	Emperor Joseph II grants substantial rights of Hungarian Jews
1783	Jews are granted permission to return to Buda and settle in Pest. First kosher restaurant in Pest opens.
1784	Jews are granted permission to settle in Szeged
23 july 1787	Emperor Joseph II decrees that all Jews must select a German family name
1787	Jewish population of Hungary is 80,775, two-thirds of whom live in counties bordering Austria, Moravia, and Poland.
1789	French Revolution; Joseph II requires Jews to serve in the Austro-Hungarian military
1791	France grants rights to Jews and allows them to become citizens subject to some conditions
1828	Jewish population of Hungary is 185,075, a third of whom live in counties bordering Poland
1848	Many Hungarian Jews join the fight for freedom from Austria
28 july 1849	The National Assembly meeting in Szeged votes to emancipate Hungarian Jews
1858	British Jews are emancipated
25 nov. 1867	Hungarian Parliament approves the Act of 1867 granting full rights to Hungarian Jews
1877	New Hampshire becomes the last state in US to grant Jews equal political rights
28 june 1914	Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to Austro-Hungarian throne, is assassinated in Sarajevo leading to start of World War I.
31 oct. 1918	The new nation of Czechoslovakia is created and Transylvania becomes part of Romania with the dissolution of Austro-Hungary
11 nov. 1918	World War I ends
1919	Miklos Horthy comes to power after initiating a series of pogroms called the White Terror
4 june 1920	Hungary loses more than two-thirds of its territory and about two-thirds of its inhabitants with the signing of the Treaty of Trianon in Versailles, France
1920	Horthy’s government passes a series of anti-Jewish measures including the Numerus Clausus, a quota limiting Jews to no more than 5 percent of the enrollment in universities.
15 sept 1935	Nuremberg Race Laws strip German Jews of most rights
1938	Hungary restricts the number of Jews in professions, administration, and commerce to 20 percent of all positions
15 oct. 1938	Nazis invade Sudetenland
2 nov. 1938	First Vienna Accord forces Czechoslovakia to cede almost 19,000 square miles of formerly Hungarian territory back to Hungary.
9-10 nov. 1938	Kristallnacht
1939	Anti-Jewish quotas reduce the number of Hungarian Jews in professions, administration, and commerce to 5 percent of all positions
15 mar. 1939	Nazis take over Czechoslovakia
19 apr. 1939	Slovakia passes anti-Jewish laws including Aryanization of Jewish-owned businesses
1 sep. 1939	Nazis invade Poland
nov. 1940	Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania join the Axis
1940	Second Vienna Accord returns part of Transylvania to Hungary
july-aug. 1941	Hungary deports 20,000 Jews from Ruthenia to Kamenets-Podolsk where they are murdered.
7 dec. 1941	Pearl Harbor is bombed followed by US entering war
24 mar. 1942	Deportation of Slovak Jews to Auschwitz begins
dec. 1942	Soviets overrun Hungarian troops at the River Don in Russia
19 mar. 1944	Nazi forces invade Hungary.
15 apr. 1944	Nazis order Hungarian Jews to wear yellow Star of David, close Jewish businesses, bar use of public transit or visits to public places, and impose other restrictions
20 apr. 1944	Kosice Jews are imprisoned in two camps at the brick factory.
15 may 1944	Deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz begins.
22 may 1944	The last of four transports of Sighet Jews leaves for Auschwitz.
5 june 1944	The fifth and last trainload of Kosice Jews departs for Auschwitz where some 12,000 of them will perish
6 june 1944	D-Day landings at Normandy
24 july 1944	Soviet troops liberate Majdanek concentration camp
15 oct. 1944	Arrow Cross Party-Hungarian Movement takes over the Hungarian government.
27 dec.1944	Soviet troops begin the Battle of Budapest
18 jan. 1945	Soviet Army captures Budapest
26 jan. 1945	Soviet troops liberate Auschwitz
12 apr. 1945	Allied troops liberate Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen
8 may 1945	Victory in Europe (V-E) Day
15 may 1948	State of Israel becomes an independent nation.

References:

American Jewish History 1492-2004 <http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/haventohome/timeline/_flash/timeline.swf>

Jordan Auslander, Genealogical Gazetteer of the Kingdom of Hungary, Avotaynu, 2005.

Randolph Braham, Genocide and Retribution: The Holocaust in Hungarian-Ruled Northern Transylvania, Springer, 1983.

Ladislau Gyemant, The Jews of Transylvania in the Age of Emancipation, 1790-1867, Carmilly Institute for Hebrew and Jewish History, Editura Enciclopedica, Bucuresti, 2000.

History of the Jews in Hungary, Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Hungary>

The History Place-Holocaust and World War Two in Europe Timelines <http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/timeline.html> <http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/ww2time.htm>

Erno Marton, “The Family Tree of Hungarian Jewry”, Hungarian Jewish Studies, ed. Randolph L. Braham, World Federation of Hungarian Jews, New York, 1966

Pinkas HaKehillot (Romania), Vol. 1, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 1969.

Pinkas Hakehillot Slovakia, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 2003. <http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/pinkas_slovakia/slo495.html>

Raphael Patai, The Jews of Hungary, Wayne State University Press, 1996.

Peter Ujvari, Magyar Zsido Lexikon, Budapest, 1929. <http://mek.oszk.hu/04000/04093/html/index.htm>