Samuel Kohn (1841–1920) was a Hungarian rabbi in Budapest from 1866 to 1905, time he was the
Chief Rabbi of Budapest. He is remembered today as the author of ''A szombatosok, történetök, dogmatikájok és irodalmok'' ("The Sabbatarians: a complete history and dogmatic literature", Budapest 1889, German translation ''Die Sabbatarier in Siebenbürgen'' Leipzig 1894) concerning
András Eőssi and other 16th Century Transylvanian
Szekler Sabbatarians. Kohn's study coincided with Jewish interest in the sect, and in the following years most were absorbed into
Judaism
Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...
.
Kohn was a prominent champion of the pro-
Magyarization
Magyarization ( , also ''Hungarization'', ''Hungarianization''; hu, magyarosítás), after "Magyar"—the Hungarian autonym—was an assimilation or acculturation process by which non-Hungarian nationals living in Austro-Hungarian Transleithan ...
program of
Neolog Judaism
Neologs ( hu, neológ irányzat, "Neolog faction") are one of the two large communal organizations among Hungarian Jews, Hungarian Jewry. Socially, the liberal and modernist Neologs had been more inclined toward integration into Hungarian society ...
and in order to bolster this program he argued for the mixed
Khazar
The Khazars ; he, כּוּזָרִים, Kūzārīm; la, Gazari, or ; zh, 突厥曷薩 ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a semi-nomadic Turkic people that in the late 6th-century CE established a major commercial empire coverin ...
and
Magyar ancestry of
Hungarian Jews
The history of the Jews in Hungary dates back to at least the Kingdom of Hungary, with some records even predating the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in 895 CE by over 600 years. Written sources prove that Jewish communities lived i ...
, as opposed to Israelite ancestry, during the 1880s.
[Mari Réthelyi, "Hungarian Jewish Stories of Origin: Samuel Kohn, the Khazar Connection and the Conquest of Hungary." ''Hungarian Cultural Studies: e-Journal of the American Hungarian Educators Association'' 14 (2021): pp. 52-64.]
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Kohn, Samuel
Rabbis from Budapest
1841 births
1920 deaths
Khazar studies