In May of last year, Rabbi Yankel Eckstein was due to fly to Budapest from London to become the rabbi of Hungary’s traditional Orthodox Jewish community. Arriving on a Friday, he would lead the Shabbat services, a gala kiddush would be held in his honour and he would begin to get to know his congregants.

Then, he received a call from Robert Deutsch. He should not come, the community’s ousted president told him, because the government had ruled against them. The institutions and central synagogue of Budapest’s Orthodox Jews had been handed over to the Chabad Lubavitch movement.

Over a year later, the dispute over who has the right to lead the community is set to be heard by Hungary’s highest court this September. If that case fails, it may move to the EU level, where European jurists could decide the future of an historic Jewish institution.

Chabad say they are merely trying to rebuild a dying community whose membership has largely died off or emigrated. As in other countries, they have said, they aim to revive Jewish life after the Holocaust and communist rule almost extinguished it. “Our goal is solely to preserve and operate the historical institutions of the Jewish community in a dignified manner,” they told the JC this week.

Rabbi Eckstein, however, speaking to the JC last week, insisted that the Autonomous Orthodox Jewish Community of Hungary (MAOIH) has thrived for years. Were Chabad  allowed to retain control, it would “completely destroy” the denomination’s heritage, he said.

The struggle between the two groups began at the fall of communism. As in other post-Soviet states in central and eastern Europe, Chabad sent emissaries to Hungary to attempt to rebuild Jewish life in the wake of totalitarian repression.

After narrowly surviving the Holocaust,  Lubavitch Chabad, which was  founded in the 18th century in what is now Belarus, has established a global network of shluchim, emissaries sent out across the globe to promote Jewish life.

The first to arrive in Budapest was Rabbi Boruch Oberlander, who was born in New York to Hungarian parents. In 1989, he and his Italian wife moved to the central European country’s capital and, according to an account published by Chabad, began nurturing the Jewish community, “one Shabbat meal at a time, one soul at a time,”  founding schools, humanitarian organisations and publishing houses.

In the decades since, though, critics have claimed that Chabad developed close ties with the Hungarian government, run since 2010 by Victor Orban, who has been accused of repressing civil liberties.

“Before the Second World War there were three communities in Hungary: Orthodox, Neolog and status quo,” said Deutsch, who was elected as president of MAOIH at the beginning of 2021.

The  entire Jewish community of Hungary was devastated by the Holocaust, in which almost half of all Hungarian Jews were murdered by the Nazis, following the German invasion of Hungary in 1944. After the war the three communities were merged into one, but then redivided with Chabad taking the place of the status quo community.

Deutsch claimed:“Chabad jumped on this opportunity to claim that they are the status quo community, and this way they are a legitimate Hungarian community with many years of history and then they are entitled to some compensation [from the government] also.”

Registered in Hungary as the United Hungarian Jewish Congregation (EMIH), Chabad have gradually assumed control over MAOIH over the past several years, their opponents allege.

The process is said to have begun in the middle of 2021, when an influx of Jews working for a Chabad-affiliated kosher slaughterhouse applied to join MAOIH.

According to Deutsch’s allies, these new “phantom members” split the community down the middle between those for and against Chabad.

In October of the following year, an MAOIH board meeting was held online at which new representatives loyal to EMIH were voted into place and statutes were changed to allow just three board members to convene a general assembly.

Then, in February of 2023, a new president, Gábor Keszler, and secretary general, Shmuel Oirechman, a Chabad rabbi himself and the brother-in-law of Chabad’s chief rabbi in Hungary, Slomo Koves, were elected.

One Chabad critic, Sinai Turan, told The Times of Israel last year: “Chabad is carrying out a lucrative takeover of Hungarian Orthodoxy…

“Chabad replaces Hungarian Orthodoxy with Chabad Tourism and PR Hungary Ltd, and replaces local liturgical tradition and customs with their own. As it did almost everywhere in the synagogues that they took hold of in Hungary.”

Deutsch said he regretted allowing Chabad into his community in the first place.

“I made many mistakes. Number one, being too naive and trusting, I thought you can trust another yid,” he said. “I hope it wasn’t a mistake, it was an honest naivete because we should be able to trust each other.”

Deutsch added: “Chabad would like to create a Chabad environment all over the place. And this has not only happened in Hungary.

“It’s a mission that they are doing, it’s a very important thing in places where they have absolutely no local community, no local followers of the past.

“But to go into a place and destroy it, take over the existing one and create and build a Chabad there, I think it shouldn’t be the way that they should conduct business.”

Rabbi Eckstein, by contrast, has been presented by Deutsch and his supporters as an ideal alternative community leader with authentic ties to Hungarian Jewry.

“I don’t think there’s a family alive today that has a longer connection to Budapest than we have,” Rabbi Eckstein said.

While he was raised in Manchester, and now lives in London, where he works as a kashrut inspector, his family were long established in central Europe.

“This rival group of Chabad rabbis have no historical connection to this community,” he said.

“My ancestors were amongst the founding rabbis of this community and my great, great-grandfather was the first dayan.

“Obviously, this is very close to my heart.”

Born into what was then a thriving Budapest Jewish community, Rabbi Eckstein’s father moved to Britain before the Second World War, narrowly escaping the Holocaust in the process.

“He felt that there was no future for the Jewish people in Hungary at the time,” Rabbi Eckstein said.

“I’m actually number nine of ten children, so my oldest sisters were born during the war and then my father passed away in 1979, so we didn’t live in Hungary, but the connection was always there… We never got disconnected from Budapest. It’s in my DNA.”

Before Rabbi Eckstein could travel to Budapest and take up his role last year, however, the Hungarian government sided with Chabad and recognised Keszler and Oirechman as the rightful leaders of MAOIH.

Three months after taking power, MAOIH’s new leaders shut down the city’s ornate Kazinczy Street Synagogue for what they claimed were vital repairs. Photos of congregants praying on the street outside were picked up by media around the world.

For a year, Kazinczy shul has remained shut, while its congregants have been praying in a kosher restaurant within the synagogue complex.

Chabad strongly rejects the claims of a “takeover”. Rabbi Shmuel Oirechman told the JC: “Mr. Gábor Keszler and myself were elected as leaders of the MAOIH in February 2023.

“Since our election, together with the gabbai of the community, Reb Zev Pashkes — who has been one of the leading figures of the community throughout the last four presidents, including Mr Deutsch — we have been working tirelessly to pay off the debts of nearly two million euros left behind by the previous president(s) and breathe new life into the institutions of the community.

“For the first time in ten years, the Kazincy Street synagogue — the only functioning synagogue in the community — has gotten a rabbi. The rabbi is an Amshinover Chasid, he is not Chabad. We reopened the Hanna restaurant after being renovated.

“We are currently working on the renovation of the synagogue in Kazincy Street. This will be followed by the mikveh, which is in terrible condition.”

Rabbi Oreichman added: “Old members of the community, as well as those who were worried at the beginning, unanimously agree that the institutions of the community are moving in such a positive direction of a development that has not been seen in 50 years.”

He insisted: “Our goal is not to change the synagogue to Chabad rite. [There are 10 Chabad synagogues in Budapest.] Our goal is solely to preserve and operate the historical institutions of the Jewish community in a dignified manner.”

The battle is now set to reach Hungary’s highest court, where Deutsch intends to bring a case next month. In the meantime, Rabbi Eckstein remains living in London, where he is committed to his career as a kashrut supervisor.

“I’m not in limbo because I have my work cut out for me. I’m working full time in kashrus, which is a major asset to have the ability to reestablish the Orthodox kehillah kashrus. So that’s my profession,” he said.

“And I’m active in my profession. I’m just trying to help out with the case as much as possible. But I could move back to Budapest at any moment.”