Vivian Kahn

The first Jews to settle in Hungary arrived with the Romans almost 700 years before the Magyars. Over the next two millennia, the Jewish population of the area that became the Hungarian part of the Hapsburgs’ Dual Empire grew from a handful living primarily in counties bordering Austria and Moravia, to about 910,000 in 1910. From 1650 to 1700, there were only 4,000 Jews in Hungary, primarily artisans and merchants, who came to the western counties from Germany and Austria. Between 1700-1750 another large influx from Bohemia and Moravia occurred when Habsburgs mandated only one male in each Jewish family would be allowed to marry. By 1800, the largest migration, and the one from which most American Jews of Hungarian ancestry are descended, began after Galicia came under Hapsburg rule. This session will trace the routes, reasons, and results of migration into greater Hungary and from there to the Diaspora.