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Tens of thousands of Hasidic Jews flood tiny Hungarian town for ‘miracle rabbi’ pilgrimage
(JTA) — As many as 50,000 Jews traveled to a Hungarian town for the anniversary of a noted rabbi’s death this week, marking significant growth for the annual pilgrimage and generating what the town’s mayor called “culture shock” for non-Jewish locals.
Since the fall of communism in 1989, Jewish pilgrims have been visiting Bodrogkeresztur, known as Kerestir in Yiddish, in April, timed to the death of Rabbi Yeshaya Steiner, a Hasidic rabbi known as Reb Shayele whom some believe had special powers. The number of pilgrims has swelled in recent years, thanks in part to efforts by the rabbi’s descendants to elevate his profile.
The estimated 50,000 visitors this year — other estimates placed the number lower, but still in the tens of thousands — would be over 60 times the number of the town’s year-round population. It also would likely set a new record for a Jewish pilgrimage in Europe, outpacing even the famed gatherings in Uman, Ukraine, at the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov.
“It’s all a bit surreal,” Istvan Rozgonyi, mayor of the town in northeast Hungary, told Agence France-Presse this week. “Christians and Jews co-existed peacefully here for centuries, but the sudden influx in the last decade of so many foreign Jews has been a culture shock for some locals.”
(Barnabas Horvath)
In fact, Kerestir has not had a significant Jewish population since 1944, when the town’s Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. Some of Reb Shayale’s family members were among them, though the rabbi himself died in 1925 and others in his family, including a brother and some of his children, had previously made their way to the United States, where his brother’s Staten Island grave is a pilgrimage site of its own.
Reb Shayele is considered in some Hasidic circles to be a “miracle rabbi” who had supernatural powers of healing. He also famously advised a follower about how to rid his granary of mice, leading to the practice of affixing a picture of the “Mouser Rabbi” in one’s home to keep mice away.
“People call me every day to ask if I have the power from my grandfather,” Israel Grosz, the rabbi’s grandson and oldest living relative, told AFP.
Grosz lives in the United States. He believes, as many of the pilgrims do, that access to Reb Shayele’s powers is strongest at his grave. Many of the Jewish pilgrims to Kerestir, mostly but not exclusively men who gather in the town a few days before the anniversary of his death, go to the grave to ask for help with personal issues or for blessings. They visit his former house and the local Jewish cemetery where he is buried.
In recent decades, family members have worked to build up a Jewish infrastructure in Kerestir. They purchased the family’s home and erected a permanent tent over Reb Shayele’s grave, then bought the building next door to serve as a guesthouse. During the pilgrimage season, they add more tents to accommodate visitors to the grave and run shuttles to and from the airport in Budapest. Dozens of buildings in the town of about 1,100 have been purchased by people affiliated with the pilgrimage.
United Hatzalah, a Jewish emergency service based in Israel, sent a delegation to Kerestir. It treated well over 100 people this week, mostly for minor injuries and illnesses, it said in a press release.
The influx briefly changes the town — police had to close it off for three days so fleets of buses full of Jewish pilgrims from across the globe could proceed through its narrow streets — and has induced tensions among locals who are divided on whether the pilgrimage is good for Bodrogkeresztur.
“They should go back to where they came from. I do not care that they used to live here,” one woman told the Christian Science Monitor in early 2020, arguing that Jews were driving up housing costs by buying buildings to serve as guesthouses. Another villager disagreed, telling the outlet, “They have the right to be here as their ancestors were unjustly taken away and killed in 1944.”
Orthodox Jews make other yearly pilgrimages to the burial sites of prominent rabbis across Europe, including in Turkey and elsewhere in Hungary. The most prominent of the pilgrimage sites is Uman, where the Rosh Hashanah event is known as a raucous affair. It took place last year despite the dangers of the Russia-Ukraine war and against the wishes of authorities, with a lower-than-usual number of visitors.
The highest estimate for Uman attendance was 40,000, in 2018. This week’s Kerestir pilgrimage could have topped that, according to its organizers.
“We are proud that more people than ever came to Hungary this year to commemorate my grandfather’s memory and his influential teachings,” Menachem Mendel Rubin, who organized the event from his home in the United States, said in a press release. He thanked local police and the Hungarian government for their support.
As large as this year’s pilgrimage was, it’s unlikely to be the largest: Organizers expect record crowds in two years, for the 100th anniversary of Reb Shayele’s death.
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Israel to Reopen Jordan Border Crossing for Passage of Aid, Goods After Terror Attack
Israeli police officers stand next to their cars at the scene of a fatal shooting at the Allenby Crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, Sept. 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon
Israel is set to reopen the Allenby Crossing with Jordan to the passage of goods and aid on Wednesday, an Israeli security official said on Tuesday.
The border crossing has been closed to aid and goods since September, when a driver bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza opened fire and killed two Israeli military personnel before being killed by security forces.
The security official said the crossing would have tightened screening for Jordanian drivers and truck cargo, and that a dedicated security force had been assigned to the crossing.
The Allenby Bridge is a key route for trade between Jordan and Israel and the only gateway for more than 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank to reach Jordan.
The crossing reopened to passenger traffic shortly after the attack, but had remained closed to aid trucks. The UN says the crossing is a major route for bringing food, tents, and other goods into Gaza.
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US Imposes Sanctions on Network It Accuses of Fueling War in Sudan
A bronze seal for the Department of the Treasury is shown at the US Treasury building in Washington, US, Jan. 20, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The US on Tuesday imposed sanctions on actors it accused of fueling the war in Sudan, taking aim at what it said was a transnational network that recruits former Colombian military personnel and trains soldiers, including children, to fight for the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The US Treasury Department in a statement seen by Reuters said that it imposed sanctions on four individuals and four entities that were part of the network, which it said was largely comprised of Colombian nationals and companies.
The Treasury said that since at least 2024, hundreds of former Colombian military personnel have traveled to Sudan to fight alongside the RSF, which the US has accused of committing genocide.
The Colombians have provided the RSF with tactical and training expertise and served as infantry and artillerymen, drone pilots and instructors, among other roles, with some training children to fight for the paramilitary group, according to Treasury, which added that Colombian fighters have participated in battles across Sudan, including in the capital Khartoum and al-Fashir.
“The RSF has shown again and again that it is willing to target civilians — including infants and young children. Its brutality has deepened the conflict and destabilized the region, creating the conditions for terrorist groups to grow,” Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, John Hurley, said in the statement.
Among those targeted was Alvaro Andres Quijano Becerra, who the Treasury said was a dual Colombian-Italian national and a retired Colombian military officer based in the United Arab Emirates. It accused him of playing a central role in recruiting and deploying former Colombian military personnel to Sudan.
The UAE has been widely accused of arming the RSF, an accusation it has denied.
“The United States again calls on external actors to cease providing financial and military support to the belligerents,” Treasury said in the statement.
The conflict between the Sudanese army and the RSF erupted in April 2023 out of a power struggle and has triggered famine, ethnic killings, and mass displacement. In November, US President Donald Trump said he would intervene to stop the conflict.
The United States, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia – known as the Quad – earlier in November proposed a plan for a three-month truce followed by peace talks. The RSF responded by saying it had accepted the plan, but soon after attacked army territory with a barrage of drone strikes.
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When Is a Wedding Too Extravagant?
A wedding ceremony, illustrative. Photo: Jason Hutchens via Wikimedia Commons.
It has been part of my life as a rabbi to attend weddings — more often than not, to “perform.” I reckon that I have attended approximately 100 weddings of various sizes, styles, numbers, and traditions. Some I have enjoyed, but I am finding it increasingly hard to feel comfortable about many of the religious weddings I have attended.
They are getting more and more protracted. People are forced to wait for hours. A wedding I once attended was so overcrowded by jostling relatives under the Chupah, that the father of the bride couldn’t get close enough to give his son in law a sip of the cup of wine.
One band plays for the reception, another for the Chupah, a third for Hasidic or Israeli dances, a fourth for ballroom dancing, and a fifth for a disco. One singer is for Ashkenazi cantorial style, one for Hasidic pop, one for Sephardi tunes, and another for Carlebach. As for food, a loaded reception is offered as people arrive, and sushi is a must. There are multiple servings and meals, and if there’s a Hasidic Mitzvah dance at the end, you’ll get a complete breakfast too.
It is fashionable in the Diaspora to fly in rabbis from Israel. An oligarch recently hired an airliner to ferry over musicians, artistes, and security alone. Consider the millions being spent each year on religious weddings. And then consider how much charitable and educational work could be accomplished instead of a one-night bash that disappears into photo albums a few hours after it is over, to be glanced at perhaps once a year thereafter. The cost and the waste is mind blowing.
Successful businessmen have to invite business contacts, flaunt their success to attract new capital, and invite gaggles of rabbis to prove their religious status and legitimacy. It is not just spoiled daughters who clamor for excess; it’s magnates, too.
Over the past 50 years of rising Jewish affluence, as well as continuing Jewish poverty, many religious leaders of all denominations have tried hard to limit excessive expenditures on weddings, to absolutely no avail. Desperate parents have offered apartments and cars instead of huge weddings. Occasionally, you hear of a couple who elope to Israel or just take a rabbi and two witnesses into Central Park, but the pressures are great — and in most Jewish circles, it is simply not an option.
Recently, I entertained a relatively humble Rosh Yeshiva from Israel with 10 children who has personal debts of $500,000 because of marrying off his five daughters. It was not just the cost of the wedding itself or all the celebrations. It was the need to buy an apartment for each that left him staggering under such a heavy load of debt. And at the same time, he must help and support his five sons who are also married but are studying full time. This is not atypical. A rented apartment is unacceptable nowadays. And the chances of someone with no serious secular education getting a good job are massively reduced in Israeli society, indeed in any society nowadays.
Judaism is expanding because of its families blessed with many children. And it is true that social welfare (incidentally a product of the secular culture they despise) enables this mindset. But eventually, at some point, social welfare will have to be cut back as fewer enter the workplace to fund all this with their taxes.
For our own good as a people, we must call a halt to throwing so much money away on pure self-indulgence. If we care for our future, we must give as much attention to supporting Jewish education as we do to celebrating occasions. And the place to start is weddings. Make your calculations. Then set budgets, be realistic, and divide the sum evenly between your needs and those of others.
It is a huge mitzvah to rejoice at weddings and to help couples get married. Every day in our prayers, we are reminded how important Hachnasat Kala is. But that doesn’t mean we should go overboard. There should be limits.
The author is a rabbi and writer based in New York.