Wine and thorns in Tokay Valley

This book is one of the few studies of small-town, Orthodox Jewish communities in central Europe. The author analyzes more than two centuries (1738-1950) of Jewish history. Abaujszanto is a picturesque town situated in northeastern Hungary amid vineyards and apple trees, with a cobble-stoned main street. The area is noted for its Tokay wine, which Abaujszanto's Jewish merchants were instrumental in making internationally famous. The town's history illustrates the drama of Hungarian Jewry. One of the thematic chapters focuses on the kehilla (Jewish congregation) by discussing its religious and social functions. The kehilla organization was an official tool for the government tax collection under the Habsburg rulers and was used in the deportation process of 1944. The book recounts the community's struggle and resourcefulness under the anti-Jewish laws, the steps from freedom to Auschwitz in 1944, and the disappointment after the war. The survivors returned home to find their houses occupied and their possessions taken. Requests for return of property provoked hostility as townspeople fiercely guarded their newly gained economic advantages. The author relates how denial of rights and the town's obligations to the Jewish community are evidenced as recently as 1992, when in a memorial, enacted to those who died in World War II, Abaujszanto omitted the loss of its Jewish residents. This lack of empathy with the returnees and the continuous falsification of history are the saddest chapters of post-Holocaust experience. . Based on survivors' testimonies and Hungarian archival sources, Wine and Thorns provides an authentic account of Hungarian Jewish life as it was shaped by government regulations and world politics.