megoszt

Victor Karády

Jews in Freemason Lodges in Transylvania and Voivodina before 1940

This is by no means a full fledged study of Freemasons and Freemasonry in the South-Eastern territories of the Carpathian Basin, but only a richly documented comment of survey results giving some socio-historical insights into patterns of regional, denominational, ethnic and social recruitment of Jewish and non Jewish members of Lodges established in the region before its temporary reannexation in 1941 by Hungary. The source of the data is strictly linked to this historical juncture. All information used here is indeed from an antisemitic document denouncing the destructive nature of Freemasonry as to Hungarian national ideals and, incidentally, the Jewish share in it. The author was a Hungarian journalist of irredentist inclinations who painstakingly endeavored to pinpoint the responsibility of Freemasons and among them the Jews in general in the dismemberment of the erstwhile "millenary" Hungarian state. In order to do this he collected and published an enormous set of prosopographic data relative to the membership of Freemason lodges in territories of the former Hungarian kingdom.[1] The documentation thus made available is paradoxically much richer for Transylvania and Voivodina (especially for the regions recapturated by the Hungarian army) than for the rest of the Carpathian Basin, since it regularly (if not always) contains references to place of birth, occupation, denomination status and office held in Lodges proper. I submitted all these information to a statistical analysis, adding to the aforementioned factors the national aspect of names as an indicator of ethnic background.

The data bank itself cannot escape criticism on at least two counts. Can such a document be regard as a reliable source to scrutinise Jewish participation in one of the major organizations intentions of civil society in the post feudal period? I do not think that the question can and should be answered dogmatically. Some of our best historical documentation concerning the social history of the Central European Jewry is due to antisemitic authors. The name of the ingenious Hungarian statistician, Alajos Kovács, former head of the Central Statistical Office of Hungary and certainly one of the finest scholars in these matters,[2] must be mentioned here , just as that of such an original Romanian author like Dr. Petru Râmneanţu[3], another avowed adept of the "purification of the race"... The incomplete nature of our source raises a more substantial problem liable to question the representative character of the data. The author himself notes that the chapter offers the list of names of Freemasons active during the occupation /Romanian rule/. I could identify from the available documentation the name of close to 1300 members of the Lodges. But this list is far from being complete, since those who judged it useful made disappear in due course the files and other documents concerning their membership and many others were active under a pseudonym or an incomplete name".[4] Since available files were gathered immediately after the take-over of Northern Transylvania and the Voivodina by the Hungarian Army following the Vienna Dictate, many of those concerned were cautions enough to remove their files from relevant lists which, in this new historical juncture, could become a source of danger.

Thus the author estimates the size of his findings at one half of the full membership list of Freemasons in Transylvania, Banat and Voivodina. For our purposes this data can be considered as a large sample the statistical representativity of which can be substantiated as probable only, even if impossible to be properly proved. Indeed we have to do with a haphazardly constituted sample due to principles of selection beyond our control. It is obvious from Table 1 that Lodges located in cities remaining after 1940 in Romania are much less represented here than other Lodges in Hungarian occupied territories. Members of one "Jewish Lodge" in Temesvár[5] for example are utterly absent from the sample. But precisely for this reason one is entitled to suppose that the sample is not systematically biassed for the Northern Transylvanian and other Lodges of the area. As for the rest, our data appear to be exceptionally rich and reliable for a population marked by the secrecy and confidential nature of its activities.

Freemasonry indeed formed private associations of local elite groups affiliated to international Freemason networks of various ideological obediences. Considered by outsiders as secret societies and though the origin of some of their collective rituals go back to Renaissance times, the Lodges carried and sustained many of the ideals of the Enlightenment with a set of universalistic humanitarian targets. These included ideals of equality of all disregarding religious, ethnic or racial differences, the defence of basic human rights, the promotion of public liberties like freedom of opinion and of the press, mutual aid among members as well as more general philanthropic commitments. In spite of the disparity (of more or less radical) ideological-political choices characteristic of the various Lodges – some remaining mainly philanthropic institutions, others having political programs proper (like universal suffrage, free elementary education, pacifism etc.) – Freemasonry functioned globally as self-selecting intellectual fraternities (or collective think-tanks) aiming at the modernization and democratization of authoritarian Central European political regimes in the post-feudal era. Jews had obviously more reasons than others to join the Lodges which could serve as local melting pots for the social integration of Jewish elite groups but also as instruments of promotion of political Liberalism in the fight against judeophobia and antisemitic discrimination. In the pre-1918 period Jews could participate without significant reservations in most Lodges founded in the Carpathian Basin. The ephemeral Soviet regime outlawed Freemasonry, just as most particularistic associations of civil society escaping from central political control. The post-revolutionary regime in Trianon Hungary maintained the ban, unlike Romania and Yougoslavia which, in this respect, proved to act more liberally. In territories attached to the latter, Freemason Lodges could continue their activities, but the earlier conditions for unlimited Jewish participation were no more fulfilled. This is why in several large cities Jewish Lodges belonging to the international B'nai B'rith network were founded, though many Jews continued to take part in other Lodges too. B'nai B'rith organizations are often considered as purely inter-Jewish philanthropic associations alien to Freemasonry proper. The Encyclopedia Judaica, for one, does not classify them among societies of masonic allegiance. Their public image, humanitarian commitments, secular and liberal ideological options bring them nevertheless close to ordinary Freemasonry and indeed often, as in our source, they were regarded as part of the Masonic nebula. Hence the inclusion of their members into the sample.

The population under scrutiny is thus composed of members of Lodges with a variety of relationship with Jewry: Jewish Lodges proper, Lodges admitting Jews and others excluding them or those which Jews would not join for some reason (notably because of their affiliation with a Jewish Lodge proper active in the same town). This gives rise to a quasi-experimental situation, whereby social characteristics of these different Freemason publics can be distinctly observed. Thereupon rest both the originality and the limitation of this presentation of survey results.

Our first observation concerns the size of individual Lodges and the denominational distribution of their members offering an overall view of regional-residential, religious and (implicitly) ethnic fragmentation of Free-masonry, as shown in Table I.

It is not astonishing to notice that the largest Freemason groups and Lodges were located in big cities, like Kolozsvár, Szatmárnémeti, Marosvásárhely, Ujvidék, Szabadka, Arad, to which Zombor must also be added. In our sample the absolutely biggest concentration of members is to be found in Kolozsvár - with exactly one fourth of the sample (and with more than one sixth of the total in the Jewish Lodge Shalom) - and in Nagyvárad, with almost one seventh of the sample population. The overall Jewish majority of 64% among rank and file Freemasons is easily verified. Even in mixed Lodges Jews make up a group oscillating between as much 45% and 56% of members, so that there are only very few Lodges without significant Jewish presence. The latter appear to he dominated by Greek Catholic or Orthodox elements (like the Mitropolit Stratimirovits Lodge in Ujvidék, Stella Polaris in Szabadka, Dacia Felix in Kolozsvár), while other mixed Lodges are mostly dominated by Jews. Members of Greek denominations (mostly Romanians and Serbians) are second largest cluster of Freemasons with more than one sixth of the total. They are followed by Catholics, Calvinists and Lutherans - all below one tenth but making up altogether another one sixth of Lodge members. This triple division allows the conclusion that Freemasonry in the region was recruited to be sure preferentially among Jewry, the rest of the Lodge membership being almost equally divided among Romanian or Serbian members of Greek denominations and Magyar Christians of both Catholic and Protestant obedience. Thus, if Jews were clearly over-represented, no unam biguous statement can be suggested about the relative representation of Christian elite groups. Their respective presence in local elites has been as yet quite insufficiently mapped. There Is, to be sure, no evidence in our data that• as it has been commonly supposed - Protestants were more inclined than Catholics to embrace such liberal causes as those promoted by the Lodges Since membership in Freemasonry demanded a measure of religious dis, engagement on account of the notorious commitment of Liberal Lodges to the idea of secularity, this could concern Catholics and Protestants alike, together manifestly, with Jews of the same disposition. Hence our data demonstrate that most mixed Lodges, especially (hut not exclusively) those filled with Catholic and Protestant partners, were places of intensive Jewish-Gentile cooperation and intellectual exchange, and it was only an exception that a few, established m large cities, implemented denominational segregation. Lodges like Budus­nost (Future) in Zombor exemplify those Lodges where most potential partners of the Freemason Fraternity, Jews, Greek and other Christians evince readiness for a well balanced participation. If other Greek dominated Lodges appear to be more "segregationist" and if there were few Greek Christians in other mixed Lodges, the reason of such phenomena of potential discrimination or self-isolation may be linked to the very internal fragmentation of local elites. In some cities Serbians or Romanians could refrain from entering local Lodges precisely because these were regarded as gathering places of Hungarian "nationalist" elites of both assimilated Jewish and Gentile background. Elsewhere Jews and Gentiles concerned could develop a similar attitude after the political turn of the Versailles Treaties. But on the whole such attitudes were more the exception than a rule.

Table 2 brings us closer to the ethnic break-up of Freemason groups of various denominational origin. It demonstrates the quasi exclusively Serbian and - to a somewhat more limited extent - Romanian background of those belonging to the Greek ritual communities as well as, concomitantly, the relative strength of Serbian (21%) and the absolute weakness of the Romanian (3,4%) participation. The latter fact can be itself related to the relative scarcity of Romanian elite groups in the regions concerned, but also to the predominantly Magyar, German or, less often, Serbian national orientation of the Lodges. Indeed Table 2 proves that the big majority of members were either Hungarian (36%) or German (36%) by background and/or by name, especially due to the presence of a large number of Jews. This also corresponds to some extent to the well known ethnic-denominational set-up of elites in the South-Eastern part of the Carpathian Basin. Elite groups of non Greek Christian background in Transylvania and Voivodina actually belonged largely to Hungarian (Calvinist and Catholic) and German (Lutheran and Catholic) clusters, unless they were Jewish. But the Jewish majority among Freemasons hides the fact that among non Jewish public's of' the Lodges there was a qualified Greek Orthodox and, more precisely, set-Han supremacy with over one half of all non Jewish members.

But the most interesting finding here concerns Jewish Freemasons, a strong minority (nearly two-fifths) of whom was bearing Magyar names. It is a well documented fact that nominal Magyarisation was a major instrument of assimilationist self-assertion of Jewish elites under the pre-1918 Liberal-Nationalist Hungarian rule. Nevertheless it is quite exceptional that such a high percentage of Magyarized Jews can be found outside brackets of specific urban professionals (like medical doctors or lawyers). Both in Nagyvárad and Kolozsvár for example 35% of members of the Medical Chamber bore Hungarian names in 1941,[6] while even among bridegrooms of Jewish-Gentile mixed marriages the proportion of Magyar names in the inter-war period appeared to be lower: 22% in Nagyvárad, 26% in Arad and a mere 18% in Temesvár.[7] Such a degree of formal Magyarisation of Jewish Freemasons in an ethnically mixed but on the whole not Magyar environment (as to the majority of the local population) suggests that Jewish membership in the Lodges was often linked to the accomplishment of an advanced level of culture change in favor of Magyarism, marked above all - before 1918 almost exclusively - by the adoption of the linguistic and political ideals of the traditional Hungarian elite. This was particularly true of baptized Jews. Most of the latter indeed wore Magyar names, not quite unexpectedly for these certified champions of Hungarian assimilation.

Further details of the fragmentation of the Freemason publics are offered in Table 3 where aggregate data have been collected on the nominal composition of members by religious background and the type of Lodges (Jewish and other). The former observation concerning the Greek Orthodox and Slav majority (of 61%) concerning Christian membership is clearly confirmed here. As to Jews a clear-cut opposition can be drawn between those in exclusively Jewish and those in mixed Lodges, the public of the latter being more often Magyarized by name (44%) than that of Jewish Lodges (35%). Degrees of assimilation and Magyarization actually do play a role, in the probability of joining (and gaining admission to) one or the other type of Masonic institutions mixed Lodges being much more "assimilationist and hence attracting the more "assimilated".

Tables 4 and 5 offer cues about two complementary aspects of Freemason careers, the probability of acceding to higher dignities in the Lodges and the risk of having been forced to leave the region in one way (mostly as a refugee) or another during the transitory period of the Hungarian (re)occupation in the early 1940s. The probability and the risk mentioned above seem both to be rather strongly connected to ethnic and denominational background. Officers of the Lodges were indeed twice as frequently Magyar Christians than others, non German and non Hungarian Christians and Jews being the most significantly under-represented among dignitaries. Calvinists and Catholics - the two dominant denominations among the local Magyar stock - are shown most frequently among those holding office in the Lodges. This fact is particularly striking as to Jews, since the majority of them participated in Jewish Lodges where, by necessity, they made up both the rank and file membership and the officialdom. Hence, by implication, Jewish presence among dignitaries of mixed Lodges must be regarded as close to negligible. At this level of Masonic integration one can perceive a measure of probably not outspoken but quite effective anti-Jewish discrimination. If Jews were liberally admitted into mixed Lodges, they could hope only in exceptional cases to be trusted with representative positions. The small number of baptized Jews remain here an exception. They belong as often to the dignitaries as Calvinists or Catholics, which indeed is a proof of their advanced degree of Masonic integration in mixed Lodges (since they remained discarded, obviously, from Jewish Lodges and/or were not prone to join such).

The risk of being obliged to flee the new Hungarian administration followed a much simpler pattern. Slays and Greek Orthodox were manifestly much more exposed to existential and/or political jeopardy under Hungarian rule than others, hence the relatively high proportion (approximately one seventh) of them declared as absent in 1941. The absolutely lowest percentage of Jews among the latter shows - with the benefit of hindsight - an almost incredible trust members of Jewish elites placed at that time in the Hungarian authorities to which they felt themselves committed culturally but also, as compared with the Romanian rule, politically. In this juncture they may not have foreseen that in a matter of four years the same administration would willingly serve its German masters by organizing their deportation into death camps.

Another important result of our survey, presented in Tables 6-8, concerns the socio-professional stratification of Freemasonry. Not only Jewish and Gentile freemasons are recruited from vastly different social strata, but significant disparities of social selection are also observable inside both their Christian and Jewish brackets. One should not forget that in this domain discrepancies in the economic stratification of denominational groups are just as much in play as the differential power of attraction exercised by Freemason ideals and the differential societal uses of membership (integration, promotion, humanist brotherhood etc.) in various social environments.

Thus it is not astonishing - as shown in Table 6 - that the two main sources of recruitment among Jews are manifestly the bourgeoisie in the broad sense, including entrepreneurs, traders and artisans on the one hand and certified intellectuals and professionals on the other hand. These were indeed the two main brackets dominating the educated Jewish middle classes. One should notice that in the small group of the baptized the lower classes and the petty bourgeoisie are almost completely absent, while civil servants and teachers appear to be normally represented, unlike among religious Jewish members. Both the pool of selection of baptized Freemasons and the general set-up of Jewish converts show a much more "educated middle class" pattern than this is the case for rank and file average Jewry in the region. However it is, one should also remark the rather mediocre participation of the Jewish commercial and industrial class in the movement, a group which appears to be somewhat even under-represented in the Lodges. Compared with their share in the active population (44% in Transylvania in 1910)[8] they make up only 38% of Jewish Masons. All the intellectual professions are, on the contrary, very strongly over-represented, since their share in the membership (some 56% among religious Jews and 70% among the baptized) exceeds more than tenfold their general share among economically active Jews in Transylvania (a mere 5,3% in 1910).8 The recruitment of Jewish Freemasons was heavily biassed in favor of the intellectual middle classes.

The same was globally true to Gentile Freemasons, but the internal professional stratification of the latter drew much more upon State employed intellectuals and graduates. Thus civil servants proper, teachers and clerics