Queuing up for a British Airways flight to Budapest in London’s Heathrow Airport, I became aware of the sound of Hungarian being spoken in progressively shriller and more panicky accents by someone near the head of the line. The flight had been announced in English only, and an old woman laden with string bags was drowning puzzled-looking English flight attendants in a flood of colloquial Hungarian. Taking pity on both parties, I tapped the old woman on the shoulder and assured her in rusty Hungarian that yes, indeed, this was the flight to Budapest; I, too, was headed there.
On the plane we switched our assigned seats so that we could sit together, although by this time such was the lady’s effusive delight at finding a fellow Hungarian-speaker that I regretted my gesture of help. My companion invoked blessings on my head and regaled me with the history of her children and grandchildren in London. When my polite responses dried up, she asked me why I was going to Hungary.
This was mid-June of 1986, almost exactly three years after I had last been to Budapest. Then, I had spent virtually all my time in the capital researching in libraries and interviewing family members, and just barely managing a day trip to the part of the country my family came from. This time I intended to spend more time in the Nyírség, the sandy northeast of the country that originally took its name from the birch tree. I planned to start with the town of Nagykálló, the Nyírség’s oldest and most famous Jewish centre.
None of this was a secret, yet I found myself reluctant to discuss it with my seat-mate. It is common for Hungarian Jews, even expatriates like myself, even today to be slightly paranoid about our Jewish origins with Hungarians we don’t know. Frequently, Jews who work together in mutual respect in Budapest will wonder about the origins of each other’s names or about the shape of a particular nose – yet will never ask the forthright question, “So are you Jewish too?” The history of assimilation is long, anti-Semitism – covert or open – lurks around the corner. Many feel grateful to leave common backgrounds unexplored.
On the other hand, my choices were apparently to listen to more anecdotes about the old woman’s family or to tell her something about myself. In any case, I wanted no part of hiding my Jewishness. I began to explain that I was heading for the Nyírség to exhume my Jewish family’s past – feeling annoyingly aware of a nervous quickening of my heartbeat. The octogenarian babbling her gratitude next to me had the appraising eyes of a shrewd peasant. Was she more likely to cut or patronize me for my answer. I was startle by her response. The broad Slavic face with its marked cheekbones and generous mouth broke into an enormous smile. She grasped my hand in a gesture of introduction. “My name is Mrs Benjámin. I am also from the Nyírség.”
Benjámin, I thought, now really surprised – could she possibly be Jewish? We were now well-launched in the game of “guess the Jew.” I had revealed myself; in her encouraging body language and use of her name, she was telling me either that she was no anti-Semite or that she herself was Jewish. The typical response would have been to equivocate further. It’s not playing the game by its subtle and intricate rules to ask bluntly, “Is the lady Jewish?” It is far too direct – and insulting, too, if the lady is not. I broke the rules and asked.
“Of course I’m Jewish.” Mrs Benjámin nodded. “Born and bred Jewish in Nagykálló.”
Nagykálló. My destination.
