Contact: sara.yanovsky@mail.huji.ac.il (unconfirmed)
PhD Candidate at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Institute for European Studies.
MA in History of International Relations from the LSE, London. Thesis: Hungary's response to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and the dilemma of Hungarian Jews (passed with high merit).
BA (hons) Media Studies (passed with First Class) from the University of Westminster, London, pathway: print journalism. Thesis: Sunshine; Reception and Identity – the role of identity in the audience's understanding of European Historical film.
Languages: Hungarian, German (native language), English (fluent), Hebrew (fluent), French and Yiddish (intermediate), Arabic (basic).
Research Grants: Leo Baeck Fellowship, Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes (2009–10), Research Grant of the Center for Austrian Studies at the European Forum – Hebrew University, Jerusalem (2008–09), Research Grant of the ministry of absorption, Israel, in cooperation with the Keller Foundation and the European Forum at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem (2006–09).
Research Interests: Urban Jewish History, History of Jewish education, Austria, Hungary
Abstract:
Facing the Challenge of Jewish education in the Metropolis – A Comparative Study of the Jewish Communal Organizations of Budapest and Vienna, from 1867 until World War II
This study seeks to investigate how Jewish communities responded to the challenges posed to their Jewish identity and to their institutional coherence by the urban environment in two of the largest urban Jewries in pre-Holocaust Europe: Budapest and Vienna. Jews in Budapest and Vienna created powerful kehila organizations, and that was one of the outstanding features of Jewish life in these cities, as compared to some other modern metropolitan centers. These Jewish communal institutions formulated policies and strategies, weighed alternatives, set priorities and sought to achieve their goals in response to the particular challenges they faced.
I will explore in depth the realm of Jewish education, this being one of the key functions undertaken by these kehillot. In projecting education as a public, communal function, Jewish communal leaders in Budapest and Vienna directly intervened in cultural and ideological issues facing Jews in the modern city.
Moreover, while these two Jewries had much in common, given the ways that the urban environment acted to speed up the processes of social and cultural integration, insofar as the two communities faced different challenges over time they also presented distinct patterns. By comparing how the issue of Jewish education was treated in the two metropolitan Jewries, I hope to highlight the distinctive alternatives chosen or rejected in each case.
