Theodore Herzl was born and grew up in Budapest in a rapidly growing Jewish community situated in a rapidly emerging European metropolis. He lived in the heart of the most Jewish part of the city and a stone’s throw from the large Dohany Street Synagogue. Although he was religiously lax and largely indifferent to religious observance, he came of age in a vibrant world of Jewish ideas, lifestyles, and identities. In addition, he grew at a time when there was little or no antisemitism in Budapest, and later referred to the city as “an oasis in an antisemitic desert.” His life in Budapest epitomized that ways that living in a big city was simultaneously helpful and detrimental to Jewish identity. Detrimental because the anonymity of the bog city facilitated disaffection and drift away from the Jewish community; helpful because the concentration of several hundred thousand Jews in a compact urban space invigorated Jewish life by providing a large constituency for a variety of Jewish communal institutions.”

Professor Howard Lupovitch is Professor of History and Director of the Cohn-Haddow Center for Judaic Studies at Wayne State University. He was educated at the University of Michigan, and Columbia University (earning a Ph.D. in History from the latter). Over his career, Prof. Lupovitch has taught at Cornell University, Colby College, the University of Western Ontario, and the University of Michigan, where he was also a fellow at the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies. Prof. Lupovitch is the author, most recently, of Transleithanian Paradise: A History of the Jewish Community of Budapest, 1738-1938, and is presently completing a history of the Neolog Movement and researching a new history of the Jews of Detroit.

CSP Partners: Beth Israel (San Diego, CA), Brotherhood Synagogue (Gramercy Park, NYC), Congregation Adath Jeshurun (Elkins Park, PA), Congregation Beth Shalom (Seattle, WA), Congregation B’nai Tzedek (Fountain Valley, CA), Congregation B’nai Israel (Tustin, CA), Jewish Collaborative of Orange County, Shomrei Torah Synagogue (San Fernando Valley, CA), Temple Bat Yahm (Newport Beach, CA), Temple Beth David (Westminster, CA),Temple Beth El of South Orange County (Aliso Viejo, CA), Temple Beth Emet (Anaheim, CA), Temple Beth Ohr (La Mirada, CA), Temple Beth Tikvah (Fullerton, CA), Temple Beth Shalom (Needham, MA), Temple Beth Sholom (Santa Ana, CA), Temple Emanuel (Newton, MA), Temple Judea of Laguna Woods, CA, The Boston Synagogue (Boston, MA), Town & Village Synagogue (NYC, NY), University Synagogue (Irvine, CA), Valley Beth Shalom (Encino, CA) & Walnut Street Synagogue (Chelsea, MA)