Pécs, a beautiful city in southwest Hungary, has a Jewish community with a significant heritage and a promising future. The Pécs community organizes religious life for the Jews in the vicinity of the city and runs several charity programs, including a nursing home named after the late community member dr. László Szántó. As all homes for the elderly worldwide, the house needed to make severe adjustments due to the COVID19 situation. As the pandemic is far from over, the adjustments and restrictions are prevalent and will stay with us in the long run. Hungarian health authorities demand that residents who return from an outside treatment must stay isolated for 14 days. Presently, there are only a few beds suitable for isolation. The returning residents must move from room to room; their comfort and daily routine are disturbed to meet the isolation requirements. This program aims to create a new, well-equipped isolation facility to correspond to the quarantine rules without compromising the dignity and comfort of the residents. The Old Age Home has an unused garage with some adjacent facilities. The plan is to make these into a modern isolation building with a safety airlock system, bathrooms, etc., that will fulfill all epidemic safety rules while support the well-being of the residents. The plan is to cover the renovation costs partly by raising funds and partly from own resources. Sadly, the Home's income dropped because of the COVID situation, as only a restricted number of new residents was enrolled, and the operation became more expensive due to the severe alertness and increased safety measures the pandemic has introduced. The Home asks for your help fund four modern hospital beds with side tables for the new isolation building. Website Facebook page

It is time to return to Israel the support, the help, the financial resources and the moral strength that the Jews of the Diaspora have received from the Jewish State! The leadership of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Hungary (Mazsihisz) and the Jewish Community of Budapest (BZSH) decided to start a collection for Kibbutz Be'eri, where more than 1000 people used to live, but after the murderous terrorist attack more than 100 bodies were found. The population of this kibbutz suffered a terrible disaster: on 7 October, some 400 terrorists attacked the settlement, indiscriminately shooting people and incinerating their houses. Their indescribable destruction left the kibbutz in ruins, some five hundred of the survivors were moved to the Dead Sea, but about a hundred survivors are still displaced. "We found the bodies of a family member in the first house in Kibbutz Be'eri. A father, mother, a little girl and a little boy. Their hands were tied behind their backs. They had been tortured. Their eyes were gouged out. The fingers were missing from their hands. And finally they were shot. In another house we found a pregnant woman with a huge pool of blood. Her belly had been cut open. Her baby had been stabbed. The woman was shot in the back" (Jossi Landav, volunteer from the Zaka group.) We gratefully accept donations from our fellow Hungarians, Jews and non-Jews! We share common roots and common pain. Am Israel Chay!

The Robert Deutsch Memorial Foundation of the Bet Kneszet Heichal Jehuda, also known as the Bethlen Square Synagogue community, pursues the legacy of its beloved late rabbi by reviving and spreading traditional Jewish values and customs, Yiddishkeit. Judaism is not only about religious revelations and services. It also focuses on daily life, the customs of the weekdays and the holidays we cherish, known as Yiddishkeit. For centuries, the generations passed down Yiddishkeit to their children, watchfully adapting it to times and locations. The Holocaust and the following decades of political rule, which was hostile to every tradition, cruelly broke this process. This project wishes to introduce and endear traditional values, customs, tastes, and spirits long forgotten in many Jewish homes. Yiddishkeit Rebooted incorporates the experiences of the pandemic: it provides loving care to the community not only in the synagogue, but also online.

• Yiddishkeit Reloaded incorporates the experiences of the pandemic: it provides loving care to the community not only in the synagogue, but also online.
• It helps families in need to gain access to the necessary technical means of online communication.
• It organizes in-person and online courses, issues leaflets, and operates webpages about the rules and customs of weekdays and holidays.
• It teaches how to keep a household kosher.
• It shares the best recipes of kosher cuisine.
• It offers bar, and bat micva education.

The venue of the program is the home of Rabbi Peter Deutsch’s community, the Bethlen Square synagogue, and its virtual space. Duration: throughout 2022 Costs: HUF 2,500,000

In Jewish schools and kindergartens, as in all educational institutions, some children may fight with learning and behavioral challenges. Symptoms can be persistent, often causing irreversible damage to their lives, and those of their families and institutions. Scientific research suggests that often the late prevalence of the so-called newborn reflexes is at the root of such issues. Newborn reflexes are inherent, help the baby to be born and survive the initial difficulties of extrauterine existence. They fade in the later months to give way to more complex reflexes that coordinate our movement and sensory processes. If newborn reflexes prevail, they may cause serious attention, movement, behavioral, and learning abnormalities, hindering development and well-being. Children afflicted with such problems might seem non-attentive, clumsy, or even disobedient. In the worst cases, they are falsely diagnosed, and the therapy - instead of helping them - makes things worse. The self confidence of these children can be affected, damaging their later development. The prevalence of newborn reflexes, however, is treatable by relatively simple physical therapy. The earlier this therapy begins, the more effective it can be. Our project aims to organize screening and therapy for the prevalence of newborn reflexes in our students. The institutional framework would provide each pupil equal access, ease the parents' possible reservations, and help them set up a family-friendly routine. Experts will teach the screening methods to the teachers. Therapy will be organized within the institutions, during the after-school hours. Professionals will treat and train the children until the newborn reflexes disappear, giving way to peaceful, uninterrupted development. No medication or pain is involved in this program, which will open new horizons and give many of our children better chances at a successful life. Timing: 2022/2023 school year Cost: HUF 2,000,000 Website (Hungarian) Facebook page

Hundreds of people arrive in Hungary seeking shelter and protection. They are tired and shaken; they lack the very basic personal needs. The Federation of Jewish Communities in Hungary - in close cooperation with its member organizations, the JDC, the JAFI, the Bálint House, the Maccabi movement, and many other Jewish NGO-s to care for our fellow Jews who escaped from the war in Ukraine. According to our Law, if one person can help another who is in danger shall help: "Neither shall you stand idly by the blood of your neighbor." We all sense that being a refugee is part of our collective memory. The Federation extends its brotherly care for the Jewish refugees. - We operate a crisis hotline to monitor both the needs and the pledges. - We are present at the Ukrainian-Hungarian border stations and at the Budapest head stations to help. - We distribute food packages and provide shelter to refugee families. - In cooperation with the significant humanitarian rescue organizations, we send aid to the mainland of Ukraine. - We organize medical care. - We help in the administration and in translation. Now we invite you again to take part in our shared efforts to help refugees. Whether you can give less or contribute more to our shared efforts, we gladly thank you for your pledge. Follow our aid work on our webpage: www.mazsihisz.hu and control the settlement of our support activities you made possible by your donation.

Millions of voluntary DNA tests worldwide have revealed that Hungary is second only to Israel in terms of percentage of citizens with Jewish ancestry. Here, 130,000 people have at least one Jewish grandparent. Still, only about 10,000 of them affiliate themselves with Judaism in any form! For the rest, at times, their Jewish heritage is more or less just afact. At the Limmud Hungary Foundation, an independent Jewish NGO, we are addressing this issue. We offer personal pathways to Judaism through voluntary learning for everyone. We support those knowledgeable in the field and those with limited understanding. From the well-connected community member to the more secularly minded, we are there for you! We organize learning events to study Judaism, look at matters through a prism of Jewish wisdom, and enjoy each other's company. Our events vary from afternoon sessions to multiple-day events, involving participants of a few dozen to even a few hundred, all of whom want to take a step toward their heritage. Our new program is called USPIZIN, after those spiritual guests who visit celebrating communities during the festival of Sukkot, as tradition holds. Though we cannot schedule our ancestors, such as Abraham or King David, to teach us, we can evoke their lives, wisdom, or even mistakes, so that we may learn from them. To get the party started, we organize host teams of 20 people together with Uspizin teams of experts and Limmud volunteers. The conversations will center around one of the following themes:

• Messiahs of troubled times – How and why do false messiahs rise and fall in times of uncertainty?
• Great Jewish women – Historically, the Jewish world was dominated by men. Of course, in all generations, there were great women who excelled. We introduce some of the lesser-known Jewish heroines of the past.
• The mental aspects of isolation – The Allmighty punished Jonah by hiding him alone in the belly of a whale. During the COVID pandemic, we experienced isolation – and it was as bad as a punishment. How can we best endure social distancing? How can we handle the mental aspects of the pandemic? How can our heritage and community help us during these times?
• Biblical cuisine – We cook a traditional Jewish dish with a modern kick. While the lentil is cooking, we have time to talk about menus, spices, and habits of bygone times.

We advertise the gatherings on our website and Facebook page, and invite the first 20 applicants. The relatively low number of participants will allow authentic discussions to emerge. We wish to reach 200 participants in the first run. All topics will be discussed two times, with a host team of 3-5 people and 20 participants. Timing: throughout the year of 2022 Costs: 1 500 000 HUF info@limmud.hu