The Lauder Javne Jewish Community Kindergarten, Elementary, and High School, Budapest
During World War II, hundreds of thousands of Jews living in rural Hungary were murdered. Although many in Budapest managed to survive, the trauma of all they had been through, coupled with the subsequent oppressive hand of Communism, proved too great. Out of tens of thousands of Jews who remained in the city, most chose to turn away from their Jewish identity; they ignored it, hid it from their neighbors, and even kept it a secret from their children.

Now, in Hungary's emerging democracy, everything has changed. Jews are reconnecting themselves and their families to Judaism, and The Ronald S. Lauder Foundation is there to support and encourage their efforts.

To demonstrate our ongoing commitment to The Lauder Javne School, which was founded with a group of interested Jewish parents in 1990, The Ronald S. Lauder Foundation proudly financed a new Lauder Javne facility built in 1996 on a five-acre site in Buda hills, which the municipality of Budapest made available to us rent-free for 99 years. The state-of-the-art complex contains classrooms, a sports center, a 12,000-book library, a computer center and a modern science lab.

In 1997, the Foundation acquired a beautiful old building adjacent to The Lauder Javne School to house The Lauder Javne Jewish Community Kindergarten. This addition completes the educational complex.

Students in kindergarten through high school study with the best teachers possible. The results are clearly evident, as the students have won European-wide science contests, nationwide math competitions and sports events.

Students receive a firm grounding in Judaism. They learn Hebrew, study Jewish history, celebrate the holidays, even write and perform in their own Jewish theatrical productions.

Because their parents were not able to live openly as Jews when they were children, the Foundation has created a Jewish environment at the School. When parents come to drop off their children, we encourage them to stay for coffee and conversation. On Fridays, as each child is given a freshly baked loaf of Challah to take home, we invite parents to join our students and teachers for Kabblat Shabbat in the School's synagogue. "All I can tell you," says Eva, the mother of two Lauder Javne students, "is that it's the children who are bringing Judaism home to us."

What better name for this entire educational complex than Javne. For legend has it that as the Roman legions were besieging and burning the Holy City of Jerusalem and dispersing the Jews to the far corners of the Earth, a great rabbinical sage, Johanan Ben Zakkai approached the Roman generals. The elderly rabbi implored them to give him permission to bring only a few students to the tiny village of Javne, south of the port of Jaffa. There they would merely sit and study. The Romans granted Ben Zakkai his request. After all, what could this tiny handful of Jews really do?

They could and they did set about codifying Halakhic Judaism, studying the Torah, and invigorating Jewish law with a fervor that is legendary even today. From a village called Javne, hope was transmitted to the Jewish people. Now from a School called Javne, The Ronald S. Lauder Foundation is doing the same for the Jews of Hungary.

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"After all," Pavel went on, "I didn't know anything about being Jewish because there was no place for me to learn. So I kept telling my parents, 'no.' But I finally agreed to come. Two hours after I arrived, I realized I was in a camp with hundreds of kids exactly like me. The same problems, all the same questions, all the same spirit inside us. That's what Szarvas is giving me, the feeling of knowing in my heart that I'm a Jew, a Jew in Central Europe, and I'm making these discoveries with Jewish friends."

Since the founding of the camp in 1990, the over 14,000 Jewish youths like Pavel - including those who come again and again - have gathered at Szarvas from all over the region for two-week sessions that mix sports and leisure activities with serious Jewish learning. Indeed, they come from 19 countries of what once comprised Communist Europe including: Hungary, Albania, Bulgaria, The Czech Republic, The Slovak Republic, Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, Russia, Kaliningrad, Belarus, and the Ukraine.

At Szarvas, they perform Israeli dances, master Hebrew songs, and devour delicious strictly kosher meals in a dining hall that reverberates with the good cheer of 400 plus happy campers eating and singing. Remarkably enough, even language differences are not barriers!

For some, it may be their first encounter with Jewish traditions. "Here, for the first time," said 14-year-old Sara, "I realized that I am really part of an international Jewish community, a part of a network of other young people with a shared heritage." As proof of her observation, she pointed proudly to her blue and white Szarvas T-shirt, which had been signed by a dozen of her new friends as a souvenir of a special experience in her life.

Visit the Szarvas website.

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Beit David Dedication - Synagogue and Multi-Purpose Center
In July, 1998 the first new synagogue to be built in Hungary for more than 60 years was completed and dedicated at Szarvas. The synagogue is a state of the art building that combines a praying space with an educational complex including a library, study rooms, and a computer center. The complex was named Beit David, The House of David, after David Ben Rafael, the Minister of the Embassy of Israel in Buenos Aires who was killed in a terrorist bombing of the embassy on March 17, 1992.