קהילת יהודי אוראדיה

Yehuda Amital (1924-2010), rabbi, yeshiva head, communal leader and member of the Israeli government, born in Oradea, Romania, as Yehuda Klein. He studied Torah in cheder and yeshiva, but received very little formal secular education. In 1944, with the Nazi invasion of the area, he was taken to a labor camp, while his entire family - parents, sister and brother - were murdered in Auschwitz. After his liberation by the Soviet army in October 1944, he made his way first to Bucharest, Romania, and then to Eretz Israel.

Amital continued his yeshiva studies at the Hebron Yeshiva in Jerusalem and received his semicha from Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer. While in yeshiva, Amital joined the Haganah. The following year he married Miriam Meltzer, daughter of the Chief Rabbi of Rechovot and granddaughter of Rabbi I.Z. Meltzer. Amital fought in the Israeli War of Independence, in the battles of Latrun and the Galilee. After the war he became a rabbinic secretary in the Rabbinical Court in Rechovot and two years later, he was appointed as a teacher in Yeshivat HaDarom.

Rabbi Amital predicted that the exemption of yeshiva students from army service would increase friction between the religious and secular community and would lead to emotional and ideological distance between yeshiva students and the State of Israel. He believed that the Religious Zionist community needed to have its own institutions of high level Torah study. He therefore helped formulate the idea of yeshivot hesder, and took an active role in developing the first hesder group at Yeshivat HaDarom.

After the Six Day War, he was asked by a survivor of the 1948 battle for Gush Etzion to found a Yeshivat Hesder in Gush Etzion, south of Jerusalem. In 1968, the yeshiva opened in Kfar Etzion, not far from the settlement of Alon Shevut, with 30 students. It has since grown into an institution with hundreds of students from Israel and abroad, with a women’s division in Migdal Oz, and a teacher’s college. From the outset the yeshiva was headed by Rabbi Amital together with Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein. Their joint leadership resulted in the unique development of the yeshiva and its ability to spiritually influence Israel and abroad. As exemplified by its leaders, the yeshiva is open to a variety of opinions and approaches. For many years Rabbi Amital represented Yeshivot Hesder in the IDF, holding the rank of captain in the Armored Corps.

A prominent public figure in Israel, Amital founded the Meimad movement in the 1980’s in order to give voice to the moderate camp within Religious Zionism. After the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, he was asked by Prime Minister Shimon Peres to join the government as Minister without Portfolio in order to bridge the growing divide between the religious and secular populations in Israel. Rabbi Amital returned to the yeshiva in 1996. Amital continued to be a prominent public figure in Israel, with a broad impact on matters of religious and national concern. His students and disciples are leading figures in many walks of life. He has developed an educational philosophy which combines deep faithfulness to tradition together with ethical responsibility to society at large. He formally retired from the yeshiva in 2008.

Amital’s published works include Jewish Values in a Changing World, Commitment and Complexity: Jewish Wisdom in an Age of Upheaval, and A World Built, Destroyed and Rebuilt, Rabbi Yehudah Amital's confrontation with the memory of the Holocaust.

Eliezer Berkovits (1900-1992), rabbi and theologian, born in Oradea, Romania (then part of Austria-Hungary). He studied for the rabbinate at the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary. After serving as a rabbi in Berlin, he moved to England in 1939 and from 1940 to 1946 was rabbi in Leeds. He then went to Sydney, Australia for four years, and officiated in Boston from 1950 until 1958 when he was appointed to the chair of philosophy in the Hebrew Theological College in Chicago. After his retirement, he settled in Jerusalem. Berkovits was a thoughtful orator and an original theologian, concerned with relations between religion and secularism and especially with evolving a Jewish theology in the light of the Holocaust.

1798 – 1858
חלוץ בתחום רפואת העיניים, פעיל הומניטרי

נולד בנאגיוואראד, הונגריה, אז חלק מהאימפריה האוסטרית, כיום אורדיה ברומניה.

ב- 1816 קיבל תואר דוקטור בפילוסופיה מאוניברסיטת פשט והמשיך ללימודי רפואה בווינה. הוא התמחה במחלות עיניים. עשה התמחות בטלץ', מורביה (1825 – 1829) והקים שם בית חולים. כששב לנאגיוואראד נתמנה גרוס למנהל בית החולים היהודי והקים בו מרפאה ללא תשלום לעניים, שהחזיק על חשבונו עד מותו.

מספרים כי הוא טיפל אישית ביותר מ 40,000 חולים וביצע 1,500 ניתוחים מוצלחים להסרת קטרקט.

ב- 1856 העניק הקיסר האוסטרי פרנץ יוזף לגרוס מדליה עבור מפעלותיו בבית החולים. ציור שמן של גרוס נרכש על ידי המוזאון הלאומי בבודפשט כדי להנציח את תרומתו לאומה. הקהילה היהודית בנאגיוואראד הקימה בבית החולים המקומי לוח שיש לכבודו.

גרוס הרבה לכתוב על רפואת עיניים. בין מאמריו הראשונים שיצאו לאור:

"Dissertatio inaug, chemico-pharmacologico-medica de chinina" (1826);
"Statisztikai adatok a Nagyvaradon 1830 ota letezo szegeny vakok gyogyintezete mukodeserol" (1846);
"Die Augenkrankheiten des grossen Ebenen Ungarns" (1857).

Simon Tolnai (1867-1944), publisher, born in Nagyvarad, (Grosswardein in German, Oradea in Romanian), Hungary (then part of Austria-Hungary, now in Romania). He became self supporting at the age of eight. His first enterprise consisted in buying up from the coffeehouses’ old newspapers and magazines, which he resold. In 1898 he published “Tolnai Vilaglapja” ("Tolnai's World Magazine"), which imparted news and information in a popular form to wide circles of readers. This magazine proved a great financial success, and enabled Tolnai to start a printing press of his own.

In addition to several other magazines concerned with the world of theatre and fashion, he published an encyclopedia in several volumes, “Tolnai Vilaglexikona”; “Muveltseg utja” (a dictionary of knowledge; 15 vol.); and “A vilaghaboru tortenete” (History of the [First] World War; 12 vols.).

Tolnai died in the Holocaust at Mauthausen concentration camp.

Moritz Rosenthal (1833-1889), neurologist, born in Nagyvarad (Grosswardien), Hungary (Then part of the Austrian Empire, now Oradea, in Romania). He studied medicine at the University of Vienna, where in 1863 he became a lecturer. Rosenthal, together with Dr. Benedikt, were the founders of electrotherapy (1865) for treating nerve and muscle diseases. From 1875 he was assistant professor.

His "Klinik der Nervenkrankheiten", published in the same year, has been translated into English, French, Italian an Russian, and was a standard work of the time. Rosenthal published over seventy treatises in medical journals. Other books he wrote dealt with brain tumors, cervical paraplegia, the cortical centers of the brain, post-luetic myelitis and tabes, the affection of the stomach, stammering and apparent death. Moritz Rosenthal died in Vienna in 1889

Erno Osvat (born Ezékiel Roth) (1876-1929), critic and editor, born in Nagyvarod, Hungary (then part of Austria-Hungary, now Oradea in Romania). Early in his career he wrote for various magazines in order to encourage a new style of Hungarian language literature. He was one of the founders and editors of the review Nyugat ("West"; 1908-42), and his constructive criticism helped to stimulate the flowering of a literature on a par with the best of French writing. A jubilee volume was issued in his honor on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of Nyugat.

Osvat committed suicide in Budapest at the grave of his daughter in 1929.

Samu Kelemen (1862-1916), politician, born in Nagyvarad, Hungary (then part of the Austrian Empire, now Oradea, Romania). He studied law at the University of Budapest, Hungary) and then practiced law in the city of Szatmar (now Satu Mare, Romania), where he became especially known as a criminal lawyer.

In 1905, he was elected to parliament as a member of the Hungarian Independent party and later became a cabinet minister. In parliament he became known for his advocacy of Magyar being made the language of instruction and command in the Hungarian regiments of the Austro-Hungarian army, and also for the establishment of a separate Hungarian state bank. Later, when the party of the Independents was split on some issues, Kelemen joined the uncompromising Justh party, and in 1910 was reelected as one of its candidates for the constituency of Szatmar.

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זמר בריטון. נולד בנאג'יוואראד, הונגריה, למד משפטים באוניברסיטה של וינה ולמד זמרה בשיעורים פרטיים. שר בלהקות האופרה של גראץ (1916-1914), פראג (1918-1916), קלן (1923-1918) והאופרה הממלכתית של ברלין (1931-1923). ב-1938 הגיע לארה"ב ושר במטרופוליטן אופרה, ניו-יורק. התמחה בגילום דמויות באופרות של ואגנר והופיע בפסטיבל ואגנר בביירות ב-1925, 1927, 1928 ו-1930. נפטר בפרמינגטון, קונטיקט (ארה"ב).

Kalman Osvat (1880-1953), author and editor, born in Nagyvarad, Hungary (then part of Austria-Hungary, today Oradea, in Romania). He was a brother of Erno Osvat, literary critic and editor. After graduating from medical school, he settled at Tirgu Mures, Romania (formerly Marosvasarhely, Hungary) where, after 1919, he published a review, "Zord idok" ("Bleak Times"). His aim was to take advantage of the the pressure of the Romanian regime to assist the Hungarian speaping Jewish minority to achieve more self-confidence by improving its level of cultural achievement.

Osvat contributed to the Zionist daily newspaper published at Cluj (Kolozsvar), "Keleti Ujsag" ("Oriental News"). He published: "Levelek a fiamhoz" ("Letters to My Son"; 1923); "Feljegyzesek mulo es nem mulo dolgokrol" ("Record of Things Ephemeral and Lasting"; 1923); "Romania felfedezese" ("The Discovery of Romania"; 1923); "Erdelyi levelek" ("Letters from Transylvania"). He edited and wrote in a large part the "Erdelyi Lexikon" ("Transylvanian Lexicon"; 1928).