Thirty-five trees are planted in
Tzora-Presidents’ Forest in a ceremony with representatives of the Hungarian Jewish Community, diplomats, and the KKL-JNF leadership. Another 35 trees will be planted in Budapest, totaling 70 trees in all, in honor of Israel’s 70th birthday.
A planting event to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel and strengthen links with the Jewish community in Hungary took place last Thursday (March 22nd) in Tzora -President’s Forest, near Beit Shemesh. The ceremony was attended by KKL-JNF’s world chairman, Hungary’s deputy head of mission to Israel, the president of the Jewish Federation in Hungary and the Mayor of Budapest.
All in all, seventy trees are to be planted in Israel and Hungary, one for each year since the State of Israel was founded: thirty-five mastic trees (Pistacia lentiscus), a bush common to local woodland, were planted in Israel’s Tzora Forest, and in around two months’ time thirty-five ornamental trees will be planted in Budapest’s popular Szent István Park.
“Planting these trees symbolizes life and rebirth, and also gives us an opportunity to strengthen ties between the two communities,” said the Hungarian Deputy Head of Mission to Israel
János Lastofka.
This symbolic gesture was initiated by President of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Hungary
Andras Heisler, in conjunction with the KKL-JNF Board of Directors, Israeli Foreign Ministry representatives in Hungary, and Budapest Mayor
István Tarlós.
KKL-JNF World Chairman
Danny Atar delivered the opening speech at the ceremony: “Our bonds to Jewish communities throughout the world are at the top of the KKL-JNF agenda,” he said. “For a long time now we have wanted to renew our connection with the Jewish community in Hungary, and this encounter today is an emotional one for me. Planting trees in Israel and Hungary will bring the two countries and
communities closer. For me personally, the event has great family significance. My wife’s parents were born in Poland and Hungary, and my daughter is studying medicine in Hungary and bringing up my first grandchild there.”
President of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Hungary Andras Heisler recounted in his speech how he had been inspired to take this initiative after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s historic visit to Budapest last July. “Our objective is to bolster relations between the two countries, and the planting ceremony is a symbol of the strength and stability of these relations,” he explained.
Chairperson of the Jerusalem branch of the World Association of Hungarian Immigrants
Esther Meron told those present: “After our release from the camps we immigrated to Israel seventy years ago to help found a state of our own in the land of the patriarchs. We worked and fought for this country, for this parcel of land, and we helped to develop the Zionist enterprise. This land, the soil of the Land of Israel, is drenched with the blood of our comrades and friends who fought in the War of Independence seventy years ago and fell in the Battle of Latrun on the way to Jerusalem, in the Yehiam Convoy at Kabri Junction in the
north, and during the liberation of the city of Ramla.”
Director General of the Memorial Museum of Hungarian-Speaking Jewry Roni Lustig told his listeners: “The Jewish community that lives in Hungary today is the fourth largest in Europe, and it preserves a legacy of cultural institutions, education and welfare that dates back over a very long period of years. The Hungarian government regards the Jewish community as an inseparable part of the Hungarian nation and generously cherishes it and protects its status. Today, more than ever, Hungary also strives to deepen its relations with the State of Israel in order create a shared mutual foundation for cooperation between the two countries.”
Before setting out to plant, Deputy Head of Mission János Lastofka and Director General of the Memorial Museum of Hungarian Speaking Jewry Roni Lustig recited the Planter’s Prayer in Hungarian and Hebrew.
Hungarian Embassy staff members, members of the Hungarian community in Israel and students and tourists from Hungary all took part in the planting. Ceremony participant
Tomás Nad, who was paying a brief visit to his sister in Israel and intends to participate in the May planting ceremony in Budapest, said: “For me, this event symbolizes the friendship between the two nations and the two communities.”
Keren Anthony attended the ceremony together with her eight-year-old daughter Maya. “I immigrated to Israel from Hungary twenty years ago,” she said. “I saw the ceremony publicized in social media, and it was important to me to come here and help my daughter connect with the Hungarian community.”
The first official documentation of Hungarian Jewry in Israel dates back to 1555. A population survey conducted in Tzfat that year under the auspices of the Ottoman Empire reveals that the community comprised some 1,200 Jewish families, of which twelve were from Hungary. In the second half of the 19th century, when they attained equal rights in Hungary, many young people began to look for ways to consolidate their Jewish identity. Among them were Binyamin Ze'ev Herzl and Yehoshua Stampfer. Stampfer, who was one of the founders of Petah Tikva, also helped to initiate the construction of Jewish neighborhoods outside the
Jerusalem city walls.
At the end of the 19th century, a group of ultra-orthodox and Hassidic Jews from Hovevei Zion (“Lovers of Zion”) immigrated to Israel and established the Batei Ungarin neighborhood for Hungarian Jews adjacent to Mea Shearim in Jerusalem. The outbreak of anti-Semitism that followed the end of the First World War brought another hundred Jews, mainly professionals such as doctors, engineers and technical experts, from Hungary to the Land of Israel. The most significant surge of immigration, however, took place after the Holocaust, when hundreds of thousands of members of the community arrived in Israel in two waves: the first took place immediately after the war ended, and the second after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. These Hungarian immigrants played an important role in the development of the Israeli state and participated in the establishment of some seventy communities throughout the country. Among the Hungarian immigrants who have left their mark on Israeli society and culture were journalist and politician Yosef (“Tommy”) Lapid, author and dramatist Ephraim Kishon and author Avigdor Hameiri, director of HaKumkum, Israel’s first satirical theater.