Geza Seifert, Leader of Hungarian Jewry, Dies at 70

Geza Seifert, chairman of the Hungarian Jewish Community for the last 12 years and one of the foremost Jewish personalities of Eastern Europe, died here Saturday at the age of 70. The mass circulation daily, Magyar Nemzet, described him as “An eminent lawyer and for many years one of the best leaders the Jewish community had” who “played an important role in steering the Jews in being faithful both to their traditions and teachings and to their country.”

Mr. Seifert organized the surviving Jewish community of Hungary after World War II. He negotiated an agreement with the State in 1948 which recognized the Jewish community as a legal entity for the first time in Hungarian history and explicitly granted it equal rights with the Christian church. He was also instrumental in setting up the Budapest Rabbinical School and obtained government approval for the attendance there of rabbinical students from the Soviet Union. There are no rabbinical seminaries in the USSR.

Mr. Seifert was rare among East European Jews in that he maintained extensive contacts with Jewish communities in the West. He recently visited the United States and Canada and held meetings with rabbis in New York. New Jersey and Montreal. He also maintained excellent relations with the Hungarian government and the ruling Communist Party. But he was, nevertheless, outspoken. At the last meeting of the Community he attended, he warned that anti-Semitism continues to exist in Hungary “among certain backward people.” He stressed however that “There is no danger for the Jews because the State considers anti-Semitism a crime and permits (Jews) to leave Hungary for Israel if they so desire.”