The Hungarian Jewish Archives
The Hungarian Jewish Archives (HJA) is one of Europe’s richest Jewish archival collections, keeping materials from the foundation of the local communities (end of the 18th century) until now. The HJA is a public archive, and belongs to the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities. Its main aim to collect and organize documentary evidences, and made them available to the public. The Archive was founded after the Holocaust, while collecting the abandoned Jewish community materials, and all documentation concerning the history of the Jews in Hungary. The HJA collects all documentary evidences which were created by Jewish Organizations (Communities, Central Boards, Associations, Jewish Schools, Hospitals, Elderly Homes etc.). It collects the written and visual evidences of Jewish personalities if they were employees of the Community (Rabbis, Chazans, Bookkeepers, Librarians etc.) The HJA also collects all materials concerning anti-Semitism, anti-Jewish Laws and the Holocaust, but not collects contemporary anti-Semitic literature. The HJA follows the Hungarian law concerning public Archives (1995: LXVI.), data protection law (1992: LXIII.) and the regulation of the Ministry of Culture (10/2002) as well, as the main halachic issues concerning documentation, archives, genizot etc. In accordance with UNESCO regulations, the HJA doesn’t accept materials of uncertain origin, and never accept or buy stolen documents. After 1999, the provenance-research and the restitution of documentation is one of the main tasks of the Archive.
In 2010 new facilities were added to the original archival locations, in order to display the Archival content in a “museum-like” setting. We opened a permanent exhibition, which is based on the maps and conscriptions kept in the Archives, complemented with original documents and artifacts also preserved in the Archives. The exhibition is displaying the history of the Jewish quarter, telling a story of more than eighty houses and its inhabitants between 1785 and today. There are twenty objects on permanent display and a touch-screen google-map layered with historical maps, completed with documents and photographs. The exhibition is only a selection from the Archives, the main collection is stored in a visible storage, which is accessible by guided tours, when we have a possibility to teach about the archival materials, Jewish values or local Jewish history. The staircase between the storage area and the exhibition is equipped with a timeline displaying the history of the Jews between the Exodus from Egypt until the modern era. The illustrations of the timeline are selected mainly from our collections. We opened also a family research center, equipped with data-bases and digitized archival content, where the non-professional researchers could search after their family stories. The Archives is well visited, (more than 500 researchers and cca 100.000 tourists per year) justifying our aims about an open, transparent archive, which is highly important in a post-communist country, where the archives are supposed to be secretive and uncanny.
In 2010 new facilities were added to the original archival locations, in order to display the Archival content in a “museum-like” setting. We opened a permanent exhibition, which is based on the maps and conscriptions kept in the Archives, complemented with original documents and artifacts also preserved in the Archives. The exhibition is displaying the history of the Jewish quarter, telling a story of more than eighty houses and its inhabitants between 1785 and today. There are twenty objects on permanent display and a touch-screen google-map layered with historical maps, completed with documents and photographs. The exhibition is only a selection from the Archives, the main collection is stored in a visible storage, which is accessible by guided tours, when we have a possibility to teach about the archival materials, Jewish values or local Jewish history. The staircase between the storage area and the exhibition is equipped with a timeline displaying the history of the Jews between the Exodus from Egypt until the modern era. The illustrations of the timeline are selected mainly from our collections. We opened also a family research center, equipped with data-bases and digitized archival content, where the non-professional researchers could search after their family stories. The Archives is well visited, (more than 500 researchers and cca 100.000 tourists per year) justifying our aims about an open, transparent archive, which is highly important in a post-communist country, where the archives are supposed to be secretive and uncanny.
