THE MEMORIAL BOOK OF PÁPA JEWRY - JewishGen

OUR OUTSTANDING SONS
Professor Dr. JACOB KATZ, Rector
He was born in 1904 at Magyargencs, near Pápa. He spent his childhood in this village
where there were hardly enough Jews for a minyan. They lived on the modest income supplied by
their grocery store. The rising star of the village child was marked by the following stations: after
elementary and higher elementary studies he went to the yeshiva in Pozsony/Pressburg, and then
continued his studies at the yeshiva of Frankfurt where he received his smichah as a rabbi, but he
did not want to work as a rabbi.
He received his doctorate at the University of Frankfurt.
In 1936, he worked in England as a teacher at a high school and a teacher training college,
both religious institutions.
In 1950 he taught in the Departments of Sociology and Jewish History of the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem.
In 1956-57 he was a visiting professor at the Institute of Jewish Studies in Manchester.
From 1958 on, he was Dean at the Hebrew University for four years. In 1961, he became
a full professor at the department in memoriam Bella and Israel Unterberg.
In 1969, he was elected rector of the Hebrew University.
(His books published in Hebrew and English: Tradition and Crisis, Jewish Society at the
End of the Middle Ages, Exclusiveness and Tolerance: studies about Jewish-Christian relations,
Out of the Ghetto.
DEZSŐ KOREIN
An outstanding figure of Hungarian orthodoxy, he was born in 1870 in Pápa into a
distinguished family of the Pápa Jewish community. Even in his youth he gave signs of his ability
as an excellent organizer. When he was a student, he organized a torchlight procession of Jewish
youth, in honour of the election of Dr. Salamon Breuer, who became a famous chief rabbi. Dr.
Breuer later occupied the rabbinical seat of Frankfurt that had become vacant after the death of
his father-in-law and the founder of German orthodoxy, Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch. Korein
remained life-long friends with chief rabbi Dr. Breuer. After finishing his studies, he set out in
business; he married the daughter of the highly respected community president, Adolf
Lőwenstein, and opened a textile business in Szombathely where he soon became the president of
the Jewish community. He had connections with distinguished figures in the county and on a
national scale. He visited the PM Kálmán Széll several times on his estate in Vas County. His
wife, who was the daughter of the great national poet Mihály Vörösmarty, also received him with
great respect. The PM honoured his guest and had a great regard for the strictly traditional,
educated Jew. Subsequently, he moved to the capital and there also participated in Jewish public
life. He was a national dignitary. After the lost war, he was sent to Sopron by the right-wing
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