The religious awakening of Rabbi Shlomo Köves, raised in Hungary in a secular Jewish family, began when he was 13. It took him through yeshivas abroad and eventually back to his home country, where he became the first Orthodox rabbi to be ordained in Hungary since the Holocaust.
Köves has forged a renaissance in Jewish life in Hungary. Under his leadership, more than 10 synagogues have re-opened in Budapest in the last 10 years. He started a Jewish high school, a university Jewish Studies department and leads the first Hungarian-language Daf Yomi Talmud class.
His next big project is the opening of a yeshiva.
Köves sees as his main purpose rekindling a connection to Judaism among Hungary’s 100,000 Jews, of whom 95% live in Budapest, and only 5,000-to-10,000 of whom have an affiliation with a synagogue or institution.
“There are 90,000 people that are still waiting for somebody to reach out to them,” Köves told JNS.
Köves serves as chief rabbi of the Chabad-affiliated Association of Hungarian Jewish Communities (or EMIH). He is also chief rabbi of the Hungarian Defense Forces.
JNS spoke with Köves at EMIH’s headquarters in Budapest in late May.
Q: CPAC Hungary, a conservative convention, is taking place in Budapest this week (May 29-30). Participants have made very pro-Israel statements. Why do you think Israel has become so important to the conservative movement?
A: There is a pragmatic reason and there is an ideological reason.
Israel, for many conservatives, is a symbol, an example of what they wish to be. It’s a nation-state with strong traditions, and at the same time, it’s up-to-date, modern and successful. And it is very much embedded in a Judeo-Christian value system and history. That’s the ideological reason.
And as Israel has become more nationalistic and conservative, for many conservatives it has grown to be more and more important.
Then there is the pragmatic reason, which differs by country. In the United States, Christian voters are around 40 million. It’s a very solid part of the conservative movement. In a place like Hungary, support for Israel is viewed as anti-establishment. The [European Union], or the general post-Second World War liberal establishment—you might say post-1990—seen as standing in the way of [Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orbán or [U.S. President] Trump, is also standing in the way of Israel.
Q: Are there unique challenges the Hungarian Jewish community faces?
A: Today, in Hungary we are in a blessed time of history—a second golden era of Hungarian Jews. The first golden era was after the consolidation between Austria and Hungary in 1867, when Jews received equal rights [the Hungarian Emancipation Law of 1867 granted Jewish people in Hungary full civil and political rights] up until the First World War.
When we look around Europe, there’s no other major Jewish community in Europe that is living with such support, such safety, with so many resources. I would never have believed that this would be.
I remember when I became religious 30 years ago. Hungary had a major issue with antisemitism. If I walked down the street with a kippah on my head, people would either look at me like I’m crazy, or they would scream at me.
Today, Hungary is the most welcoming place for Jews in Europe; for its own local Jews and for Israelis. You have eight flights a day from Israel. I would say in 2025 we’ll have 500,000 Israeli tourists. There’s practically no antisemitism in the public sphere. And there’s no antisemitism in terms of physical assaults. And this is at a time when Berlin, London, Paris, Amsterdam have daily riots—antisemitic, Muslim, or left-wing, mobs on a daily basis.
Q: How do you explain the discrepancy between the safety and security you enjoy under Orbán and the unfavorable way he’s portrayed in international media—as a far-right authoritarian?
A: After the Second World War, and after 1990, liberal, or left-wing, political figures and parties would accuse their right-wing adversaries of being fascists and antisemitic. And it had truth to it.
If you’re conservative in a place like Hungary and you look for a role model from the 1920s and ’30s, you’re not going to find too many conservatives who were not antisemitic. And it’s similar in other countries. But this historical aspect has become much less important lately.
Although Orbán was accused of being a fascist and an antisemite for the last 15 or 20 years, lately I don’t hear the second accusation. Even from his strongest opponents, though you will hear that he is non-democratic, illiberal, etc., you don’t hear much anymore that he’s antisemitic. They [the left] have a much larger issue with antisemitism.
Q: Is there one single thing Orbán’s done in terms of helping the Jewish community?
A: I wouldn’t say one single thing. I remember when I met Orbán in 2005. I was a young rabbi and for me to meet Orbán was revolutionary. People from the community were very upset at me. They said, “He’s an antisemite. You’re whitewashing him, etc.”
He was in opposition then.
We had a very interesting discussion. When we spoke about the historical background of right-wing Hungary, he said he was determined to move his political camp away from its antisemitic past. This is the way he phrased it to me: “If you’re a smart political leader, you have to take two steps forward, one step backward because otherwise you will run ahead and you’ll see that they are not behind you.”
I didn’t think he would see this much success. I don’t know if he ever thought so either. It’s not only on the political level. It’s on the level of society that we see change. Our yearly social, public survey shows that on the left there are many more antisemites than on the right. So there’s a big shift. It’s been through slow, determined actions—whether standing up for Israel, or changing the civil and criminal penalty code to crack down on antisemitic assaults.
Q: How would you characterize public perception of Jews in Hungary?
A: When I was a kid, the perception of Jews in the eyes of a typical Hungarian peasant was that the Jews are communists and the communists are the Jews—from the 1920s through the Stalinist regime after the Second World War, which was led by a Hungarian Jew, [Mátyás] Rákosi.
This meant that if you were right-wing, or if you were a Hungarian nationalist, there was no way you would be generally positive toward Jews. This has shifted and Jews are much more identified now by religion, by Israel. And I think the perception of Jews is much healthier this way.
There’s one more thing I would like to mention here, and that’s what will happen if Orbán loses power. Orbán, for the first time in the last 15 years, is facing a real challenge. There’s a new party that formed out of nowhere, an opposition party, Tisza, the party of a former Fidesz [Orbán’s party] politician. Based on some surveys, the opposition is leading, and not just by a few points. And I don’t know what’s going to happen.
Obviously, I’m looking at this from the Jewish perspective, and what ‘s unique in the last 35 years is that this is the first time there’s a race between the major parties where Jews and antisemitism is not a political issue.
In Hungary, as far as I can remember, from the first free elections of 1990 and every four years, somehow the issue of who is an antisemite, and what’s with the Jews, either from the right or from the left, was a political topic. That fueled antisemitism, and a feeling of insecurity within the Jewish community. This is the first time that it’s not on the table at all. That’s a very positive development.
Q: Is the Hungarian Jewish community growing?
A: Definitely. After COVID, it took a while until people started reconnecting, coming for social events. Now, in the last year, it’s really been picking up.
In September, we are opening a yeshiva in Hungary. It’s actually a joint project with the Austrian community. The Austrian Chabad community opened the yeshiva four years ago.
They turned to us around a year and a half ago about a move to Hungary. They’re having an issue with antisemitism in Austria, as well as with not being able to get enough finances for the yeshiva and the right infrastructure.
We’ve been working on this intensively for the last year and a half. We have managed to get an amendment in the law for higher education. Yeshiva boys will be part of our university accredited Jewish Studies program even before they finish high school. This way we’ll be able to get funding from the government for them.
We found a beautiful place right at the border of Hungary and Austria; an area of eight hectares, which is 80,000 square meters. It has four or five buildings. It used to be a hotel 25 years ago. It has been abandoned now for many years. It’s an hour’s drive from Vienna and an hour’s drive from Budapest. I think it’s going to be called the Austro-Hungarian yeshiva.
Q: In terms of the community’s growth, are you attracting secular Hungarian Jews who have started to develop an interest in Judaism?
A: Our main goal is definitely Hungarian Jews, who are 95% secular. And, yes, I do see a wave of people returning. Obviously, this is something which takes a long time—for people to change their customs, their values, their way of living and their priorities.
But to give you an example, I opened up my shul in Obuda—it had been a TV studio and 15 years ago we turned it back into a shul. Then 12 years ago, people were laughing at me when I started a minyan [Jewish prayer quorum] every morning at 6:30. They said, “Who would come to Obuda for a minyan at 6:30?”
And today, Baruch Hashem [praise God], we have a morning minyan every day, and 10 to 15 people come every morning.
Q: Is there a problem with younger Hungarian Jews going elsewhere for job opportunities?
A: I would say that this was a real issue 10 years ago, from 2010 to 2015 when Hungary’s economy was struggling and there were no job opportunities. This has changed. And I see from our own high school and people in the community, you have far fewer kids going abroad to study. And those that do go want to come back.
Q: JNS was last here in 2023 for the re-opening of the 10th synagogue in Budapest, Ohel Eszter. Have you opened any others since?
A: We have not opened one since, but we’re working currently on two more. I’m hoping in a year or two we’ll be ready to open one in the 15th district. It’s an old synagogue on the outskirts of Budapest that was built in the 1920s. It was nationalized and given to the National Library, which used it as a warehouse. We have made a deal with the National Library and paid them quite a sum to move out. The government is now passing a law to give us ownership of the synagogue. We have a similar project in the 18th district, also a building that used to be a synagogue before the Second World War.
In Budapest, we are working upside down. We create a synagogue and then create a community around it. Ohel Eszter has its own community already.
Q: Are you conflicted about living in a country with a history of antisemitism?
A: It’s a very complex relationship. My wife is Israeli. Her mother is Yemenite and her father is Polish. My kids at home speak Hebrew. So their identity is primarily Israeli, Jewish. But to me, being Hungarian is important. I’m obviously, first of all, a Jew. I always have this discussion with my kids. It’s a conflicted identity because it’s not only a country of Jewish bloodshed, but it’s also a country where Jews have played a major role in forming its modern-era society. I’m speaking about from the 19th century on. Jews were really important for Hungary, and Hungary was really important for Jews.
At the same time, the ’20s, ’30s and then the Holocaust is a major blemish. It’s a story of betrayal. I am happy that I see some type of conciliation in the way the Jewish-Hungarian relationship has been shifting in the last few years.
We Jews have learned through our 3,000-year history that we are never fully home unless we are in Israel. And to put it in even more spiritual terms, unless we are in the realm of Torah and yiddishkeit.
Q: What are your hopes for the future of the Jewish community here in Hungary?
A: The final, full redemption, that’s the hope and faith of all Jews around the world. But that’s not just up to us, obviously. My hope is that the Jewish community in Hungary will be stronger, will continue to be safe, and will continue to be vibrant and happy and full of positive energy. My real hope is that we’ll live to see a second and third generation of those people now returning who are born into a Jewish identity. That it will be for them self-understood.