Pilgrimage and State-Security: Visiting the Tombs of Tzadikim in the Socialist Hungary—Before 1989

Abstract Visiting the graves of the (Hasidic) Rebbes of Bodrogkeresztúr, Nagykálló, Olaszliszka, Sátoraljaújhely and other (Hasidic) places of worship are unique manifestations of Jewish popular religiosity in Hungary. These visits are mainly made on the anniversaries of the deaths of the great Rabbis (“Yahrzeit”). The literature does not pay much attention to the fact that these customs were still alive during the decades of Socialism, and even after 1957, although to a limited extent, foreign citizens also took part in these pilgrimages. The pilgrims were monitored by State security. The increase in the intensity of state security surveillance was not related to religiosity, but to the anti-Zionist state policy that emerged in Eastern Europe after the Six-Day-War, which saw all Jewish organizations as Zionism. The study gives an account of the Rabbis behind the custom, the religious significance of the visit and its role in local society. At the same time, it also shows how the memory of the Hasidic “wonder rabbis” was passed on during the decades of the Hungarian Socialist Kádár regime. Moreover it presents how (from the point of view of the Socialist regime) the pilgrimage (peregrinatio religiosa) and participating in it became elements of the power-relationship system and what it meant for the church politics of the period.