Enikő Bollobás, “The Two Doors of Sándor Scheiber – The Scholar Rabbi Born a Hundred Years Ago.” Hungarian Review IV/4 (2013). 87-102.
Sándor Scheiber
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In her commemorative essay published in the July issue of the Budapest based international journal Hungarian Review, Enikő Bollobás remembers Sándor Scheiber, rabbi, scholar, and friend.
Professor of literature at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Bollobás places Scheiber, director of the Rabbinical Seminary (Jewish Theological Seminary) of Budapest, in the tradition of Hungary’s scholar rabbis, emphasizing the key role he played in resuscitating Jewish life in Hungary. He lived and worked in a particular historical situation: after the losses perpetrated by the Holocaust and under the watchful eyes of hostile communist authorities. As he said in his oft quoted remark on his 70th birthday – “I am not a great scholar, just a lone survivor; those who were better than me either did not return [from the death camps] or else left us” – the Holocaust decimated many of the best scholars, while communism forced some highly trained rabbis to leave the country or abandon their Jewish identity.
Bollobás gives a meticulous survey of Scheiber’s scholarly output in various fields – the history of Jewish culture, folklore, Geniza studies and the history of Hungarian literature and culture – which all required a lifetime commitment. Scheiber’s international reputation rests on his Geniza studies primarily – and on such findings as his authentication of the signature, misidentified for 800 years, of Maimonides, the Sephardic philosopher of the 12th century.
As Bollobás claims, “Sándor Scheiber always opened two doors: with one hand, the door of Judaism for non-Jews and with the other, the door of non-Jewishness for Jews, thereby making the point that the two are inclusive. While welcoming non-Jews in the Rabbinical Seminary, he sent his own students to institutions of Hungarian culture; while offering the accomplishments of Jewish culture to non-Jews, he conveyed the appreciation of Hungarian culture towards his Jewish students, friends and readers.”
Finally, Sándor Scheiber comes alive as a person in this piece peppered with anecdotes, reminiscences, and the rabbi’s bons mots. Especially memorable is the closing section, where the author gives a moving account of their last meeting, when she, accompanying the dying rabbi to the resting place of Hungarian historical figures, witnessed his conversation with his favourite poet János Arany.
Bollobás’s essay makes a fitting contribution to the world wide celebration of one of the greatest rabbis of the 20th century
hungarianreview.com/article/the_two_doors_of_scheiber_s%C3%A1ndor
