THE FIRST WORLD WAR IN THE "HUNGARIAN ISRAEL (MAGYAR IZRAEL)", THE MONTHLY JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL RABBINICAL ASSOCIATION, 1914-1918

The article analyses the main issues that appeared in the Hungarian Israel, the journal of the National Rabbinical Association of the Neolog and Status Quo Ante rabbis of Hungary, about the Great War. In the first years of the war, it concerned itself with the legitimization of the war from the Hungarian-Jewish point of view. Then, when the war did not end quickly, it focused on a professional issue: the functioning of the institution of the army chaplains. However, crucial topics that concerned Jews and non-Jews at the time did not come up in the journal. The topics avoided included popular anti-Semitic accusations that Jews evaded conscription, and that those who served were usually not front-soldiers but army contractors in the safety of the hinterland.