About Mazsihisz

About us

The Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities (MAZSIHISZ) – one of the four big historical church – is the representative organ of the local Jewry. Its highest level is the council, with 121 members from all around the Hungarian synagogues, and the rabbis. Every four year they are electing the president, the managing director and the board of governors.

In Hungary – by different estimations – there are more than 120 thousand Jew lives, most of them in Budapest. There are around forty synagogues working under the supervision of the Federation, twenty in the capital with at least weekly religious services. In the countryside there is a renaissance of the active Jewish cultural and religious life.

The MAZSIHISZ’s role is not only to keep up the judaism, but to provide social services and to conserve the Jewish heritage and improve the traditional Jewish education. 

The MAZSIHISZ represents the survivors of the Holocaust in the restitution projects inside and outside Hungary and they achieved great success in these arguments.

After the area changing in 1989 a new chapter has opened in the history of the Hungarian Jewry. The atheist state stood barriers’ disappearance provided free religion again. The revival of the religious and community life flourished the public: lots of us started dealing again with the religious life, learning Torah, observing the Jewish moral laws and taking care of the social services. 

The MAZSIHISZ keeps up good relation with the local and international Jewish organizations: member of the World Jewish Congress, the European Jewish Congress and the European Council of Jewish Communities. Important partner of the State of Israel, the Claims Conference, the Joint Distribution, the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Zionist Federation. 

The MAZSIHISZ has a leading and central role in the million colored cultural and community life of Hungary and concerned to provide a living and attractive cultural and religious atmosphere. We also act as a bridge between the non-jewish Hungarian population and the jewish community in culture and religion. 

Under our social work we send 600 warm food portions to the neediest and in every year we are shipping 2500 cold food packages. The social network kept up by the MAZSIHISZ makes the everyday life better for more than 3000 people. In our hospital and elders’ homes we are providing medical care for more than 1000 people every year. In our kindergarten, school and university more than 700 students are preparing for life. The Federation also takes an important part in the organization of Jewish cultural life. We are proud of our Europe-famous event the Jewish Summer Festival, our changing exhibitions and the exciting cultural and educational activities what we organize in every year. 

The Hungarian Jewish culture and heritage is very rich, colorful and exciting. The roots of the Hungarian Jewry are leading back before the foundation of the State of Hungary. After the ordeals of the medieval times there were spectacular changes in the 19th century when the emancipated Jewry got a chance to flourish freely its talent. Notable scientists, doctors, writers, artists and wise men who brought up the Hungarian economy were born in Hungary in these times.

But in the deepest point of our joint history, most of the Hungarian Jews were killed, more than 600,000 people. The wounds of our soul don’t heal fast, but we have the hope that the last years renewal of the Hungarian Jewry makes a firm base for our future life.

The most important goals of MAZSIHISZ

Passing on the Jewish religious education, and tradition as well as building and maintaining a lively Jewish community, keeping up its liveliness and relevance, ensuring the proper conditions for religious community practice.

Building well integrated communities within a strong, open and sustainable environment Strengthening Jewish culture, environment, lifestyle and identity.

Maintaining social activities as a Jewish value in the Jewish community – with special attention to the needs of the first and the second generation of Holocaust survivors – and beyond, practically speaking, protecting the dignity of every single human being.

Jewish advocacy, which includes every human’s freedom of religion, democratic rights and the protection if minority rights