page_title: Neolog Judaism
section_title: Religious strife
hierarchical_section_title: Neolog Judaism / Coalescence / Religious strife
caption_attribution_description: Magyar: Szeged Új zsinagóga Az oltár előtt A diadalíven a felirat magyarul és héberül. Somorjai Ferenc felvétele Polski: Nowa Synagoga w Segedynie
context_page_description: Neologs are one of the two large communal organizations among Hungarian Jewry. Socially, the liberal and modernist Neologs had been more inclined toward integration into Hungarian society since the Era of Emancipation in the 19th century. This was their main feature, and they were largely the representative body of urban, assimilated middle- and upper-class Jews. Religiously, the Neolog rabbinate was influenced primarily by Zecharias Frankel's Positive-Historical School, from which Conservative Judaism evolved as well, although the formal rabbinical leadership had little sway over the largely assimilationist communal establishment and congregants. Their rift with the traditionalist and conservative Orthodox Jews was institutionalized following the 1868–1869 Hungarian Jewish Congress, and they became a de facto separate denomination. The Neologs remained organizationally independent in those territories ceded under the terms of the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, and are still the largest group among Hungary's Jews.
  A Neolog is also called a "Neologist", and the ideology is Neology. The terms are ultimately derived from Greek, meaning "new speech".
context_section_description: During the 1848 Revolution, Ede Horn, a disciple of the radical German rabbi Samuel Holdheim, headed the Pesth Reform Association, where he abolished circumcision and moved the Sabbath to Sunday. Löw and Schwabb condemned him sharply, and demanded the authorities close down the Association – now headed by David Einhorn, who arrived to replace Horn after the latter fled the country – and similar groups that sprung up at the time of the revolution. In 1851, the victorious Austrians requested Jewish leaders to propose means to govern itself. The authorities did not favor Horn's extreme measures, but were not keen on the Orthodox either. Eventually, a committee chaired by Löw drafted a general constitution, which mandated the forming of a seminary as the only certified institute for training rabbis, sought to apply the aesthetic modifications practiced in Pesth across the country and aimed at creating schools for public education at the communities. The committee defined the Association as "a cult, similar to Hasidism", and had the government disperse it. Jacob Katz viewed the constitution as an important testimony to the "emerging Neolog tendency": while it opposed any changes in the laws of religion pertaining to Sabbath and the holidays, marriage and divorce, dietary regulations etc., it also refused to apply any coercion to enforce them, whether by legal or social means. Rabbi Meir Eisenstaedter, representing the Orthodox, opposed public education and wished that Jewish children continue to be privately tutored in Cheders. He also requested that the government insure that only conservative rabbis be appointed, and that they will be granted jurisdiction to deal with "heretical elements". The Austrians closed the Association but refrained from enforcing the constitution, which was severely opposed by the Orthodox. A network of German-language schools was set in many communities, and it switched to Hungarian in 1860, greatly increasing the acculturation of the Jews. By the time of the official schism in 1868–1871, most of the young were already graduates of these. In the cultural sphere, the Neolog elements tended to embrace Magyarization, while the Orthodox Oberlander Jews in the northwest of the Kingdom were more inclined toward the German culture. The Unterlander Jews in the northeast, even more conservative and barely acculturated, remained Yiddish-speaking. However, after the 1867 Austro-Hungarian Compromise, the Orthodox leadership was quick in declaring its support of Magyar nationalism; by the turn of the century, most Hungarian Jews, regardless of affiliation, viewed themselves as "Magyars of Israelite faith".
  In 1851, a new challenge appeared before Löw and his circle. The modern Orthodox Azriel Hildesheimer arrived from Prussia to serve as rabbi of Eisenstadt, bringing with him the philosophy of Torah im Derech Eretz. While the Neologs did not perceive the "Old Orthodoxy" of Moses Sofer's disciples as a potent competitor for the loyalty of the educated Jews, Hildesheimer signaled a different approach. Neolog publications, especially Löw's Ben Chananja, launched constant tirades against the "Pest of Neo-Orthodoxy", castigating the Eisenstadt rabbi for merely presenting a shallow facade of modernity. His school, which introduced secular studies, was condemned as a "Polish yeshiva under a different name". The Neologs and Hildesheimer often came to public dispute, with the most important taking place in 1863, after Heinrich Graetz was sued for dismissing the traditional concept of a personal Messiah. The affair occurred at a time in which the rift between the modern Orthodox in Germany and Zecharia Frankel's Positive-Historical School was widening. While many still regarded him as an ally, his 1859 treatise Darche ha-Mischna ("Ways of the Mishna") was severely condemned by Samson Raphael Hirsch. Hildesheimer, who was bothered that public opinion did not perceive a difference between both groups in regards to observance, used the Graetz controversy to prove the existence of a dogmatic chasm. He had hundreds of rabbis 
caption: The hall of the Szeged Synagogue.
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