Judaism in Hungary - Interwar Statistics

Interwar Statistics

Using data from the 1910 census, 51.7% of the Hungarian Jews lived in territories that stayed inside the "small" Hungary after 1921, 25.5% (232,000) lived in territories that later became part of Czechoslovakia, 19.5% (178,000) became part of Romania, 2.6% (23,000) became part of Yugoslavia, 0.5% (5,000) became part of Austria and finally 0.2% (2,000) lived in Fiume, which became part of Italy after 1924. According to the censuses of 1930-1931, 238,460/192,833/about 22,000 Jews lived in parts of Czechoslovakia/Romania/Yugoslavia formerly belonging to Hungary, which means that the overall number of people declaring themselves Jewish remained unchanged in the Carpathian basin between 1910 and 1930 .

According to the census of December 1920 in the "small" Hungary, the percentage of Jews increased in the preceding decade in Sátoraljaújhely (to 30.4%), Budapest (23.2%), Újpest (20.0%), Nyíregyháza (11.7%), Debrecen (9.9%), Pécs (9.0%), Sopron (7.5%), Makó (6.4%), Rákospalota (6.1%), Kispest (5.6%) and Békéscsaba (to 5.6%), while decreased in the other 27 towns with more than 20 thousand inhabitants. Overall, 31.1% of the Jewish population lived in villages and towns with less than 20 thousand inhabitants.

In 1920, 46.3% of the medical doctors, 41.2% of the veterinarians, 21.4% of the pharmacists of Hungary were Jewish, as well as 34.3% of the journalists, 24.5% of performers of music, 22.7% of the theater actors, 16.8% of the painters and sculptors. Among the owners of land of more than 1000 hold, i.e. 570 hectares, 19.6% were Jewish. Among the 2739 factories in Hungary, 40.5% had a Jewish owner.

The following table shows the number of people who declared to be "Israelite" (Jewish by religion) at the censuses inside the post-ww1 territory of Hungary. Note: it was illegal not to declare religion between 1920 and 1945. Your religion was written on your birth certificate, your marriage license (except in 1919, during the short-lived Commune, see Hungarian Soviet Republic), even on your school grade reports.

The net loss for Judaism due to official conversions was 26,652 people between 1919 and 1938: while 4,288 people converted into the faith, 30,940 left it. The endpoints of this period, 1919-1920 (white terror) and 1938 (anti-Jewish law) contributed to more than half of this loss; between 1921 and 1930, the net loss rested around pre-war levels (260 people/year).:

In 1926, the districts I,II,III of Buda were Jewish 8%,11%,10% respectively. The 19 thousand Jews of Buda constituted about 9.3% of both the total population of Buda and the entire Jewish population of Budapest. On the left (Pest) side of the Danube, downtown Pest (Belváros, district IV then) was 18% Jewish. Districts V (31%), VI (28%), VII (36%), VIII (22%),IX (13%) had large Jewish populations, while district X had 6%. The four Neolog communities of Budapest (I-II, III, IV-IX, X) had a total of 66,300 members paying their dues, while the Orthodox community had about 7,000 members paying religious taxes.

In the countryside of the post-WW1 Hungary, the Orthodox had a slight edge (about 49%) over the Neolog (46%). Budapest and countryside combined, 65.72% of the 444,567 Jews belonged to Neolog communities, 5.03% to Status quo ante, while 29.25% were Orthodox in 1930 . We can also see from this data that the Jewish communities suffered a 5.6% decline in the 1910-1930 period, on the territory of the "small" Hungary, due to emigration and conversion.

The Jews of Hungary were fairly well integrated into Hungarian society by the time of the First World War. Class distinction was very significant in Hungary in general, and among the Jewish population in particular. Rich bankers, factory owners, lower middle class artisans and poor factory workers did not mingle easily. In 1926, there were 50,761 Jewish families living in Budapest. 65% of them lived in apartments that contained one or two rooms, 30% had three or four rooms, while 5% lived in apartments with more than 4 rooms.

Education. The following chart will illustrate the effect of the antisemitic 1920 "Numerus clausus" Law on the percentage of Jewish university students at two Budapest Universities.

Those who could afford went to study to other European countries like Austria, Germany, Italy and Czechoslovakia. In 1930, of all males aged six and older,

Seven of the ten Nobel prize winners born in Hungary are Jewish. In sports, 55.6% of the individual gold medal winners of Hungary at the Summer Olympic Games between 1896 and 1912 were Jewish. This number dropped to 17.6% in the interwar period of 1924-1936.