Bible Project Hungarian

[Marva Richardt]

ThroughoutHis lifetime, Yeshua worshiped in the Temple in Jerusalem and consistently attended the synagogues where He participated in the Torah readings, giving His own teachings on Scripture. Like Him, the first-century Jewish Believers in Yeshua also maintained their faith in an authentically Jewish context.

Streets and public squares are named after her throughout Israel.\r\nShe is the author of the famous but somber tune, \u201cMy God, my God\u201d; in Hebrew, \u201cEli, Eli\u201d known both by Israelis and Jewish music lovers across the globe.\u00a0 It is often played at Holocaust memorial events:\r\nMy God, My God, I pray that these things never end,\r\nThe sand and the sea,\r\nThe rustle of the waters,\r\nLightning of the Heavens,\r\nThe prayer of Man.\r\nWhat is less known in the non-Jewish world is the story behind the song.\r\nA lone 23-year-old woman who refused to give away Allied intelligence to the Nazis, even under torture to herself and her mother, as well as eminent execution is certainly a winning candidate for remembrance on International Women\u2019s Day, which is being held tomorrow, March 8, around the world.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_58883\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"544\"] Women and men work alongside each other in the cotton fields of Kibbutz Shamir, on the western slopes of the Golan Heights in northern Israel. (Wikiocmmons, c. 1958)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nInternational Women\u2019s Day began in 1909, and this year\u2019s theme for 2018 is \u201cTime is Now:\u00a0 Rural and urban activists transforming women\u2019s lives.\u201d\r\nWomen living in rural communities make up over a quarter of the world\u2019s population and 43% of its agricultural workforce.\r\nHannah Szenes was one of them.\r\nAlthough privileged, well-educated, and a gifted writer, she chose to leave her friends and family in her birthplace of Hungary to become a hard-working, builder of the Jewish homeland.\r\nAt 18, she enrolled in an agricultural school in Israel and later a kibbutz, where she worked from 6 am to 6 pm.\r\nYet, her heart\u2019s desire was to bring fellow Jews home at a time (in the 1940s) when the British were severely restricting Jewish emigration to pre-state Israel, which was ruled by the British at the time and called British Mandate Palestine.\r\nLet\u2019s discover the remarkable story of this woman who helped to reignite a sense of Jewish identity in a people who had been assimilated into the nations of the world.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_58878\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"325\"] Hannah Szenes at Kibbutz Sdot Yam, 1942[\/caption]\r\n\r\nThe Making of a Zionist\r\nHannah Szenes (pronounced Senesh) was born on July 17, 1921 into a middle-class, assimilated Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary.\u00a0 Her father, Bela Szenes, was a well-known journalist and playwright.\r\nHe died unexpectedly when Hannah was just six years old, leaving her mother Katherine to raise her and her brother Giora.\r\nHannah dictated her thoughts about her father\u2019s death while her grandmother wrote them down\u2014that was her first poem.\r\nFollowing in her father\u2019s writing footsteps, she began writing poems about other children and how happy they were.\r\nHer mother paid three times the price of Protestant children, due to their Jewishness, to send Hannah to a good school.\u00a0 Catholic students paid double. Hannah managed to win a scholarship, though, which meant her mother only had to pay double, not triple the fees.\r\nAt age thirteen, Hannah began keeping a diary. Later, she was elected president of her school\u2019s literacy society, but lost the position when anti-Semitism became so strong that Jews were not allowed in any kind of leadership.\r\n\u201cYou have to be someone exceptional to fight anti-Semitism ...,\u201d Hannah confided to her diary.\r\n\u201cOnly now am I beginning to see what it really means to be a Jew in a Christian society, but I don\u2019t mind at all \u2026 we have to struggle.\u00a0 Because it is more difficult for us to reach our goal, we must develop outstanding qualities. Had I been born a Christian, every profession would be open to me.\u201d (Hannah Senesh: Her Life and Diary, 26)\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_58880\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"544\"] Hannah Szenes and her brother Giora, 1924[\/caption]\r\n\r\nHannah\u2019s brother Giora left for university in France. He later made it to Israel (British Mandate Palestine) and was briefly reunited with his sister.\r\nThrough all of this mounting hatred in her teen years, Hannah realized that the Jewish homeland urgently needed support.\r\nAt the end of October 1938 at age 17, she wrote in her diary:\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ve become a Zionist.\u00a0 This word stands for a tremendous number of things.\u00a0 To me it means, in short, that I now consciously and strongly feel I am a Jew, and am proud of it.\u00a0 My primary aim is to go to Palestine [Israel], to work for it.\u201d\u00a0 (Diary, 67)\r\nGraduating at the top of her class in March 1939, she could easily have secured a place at a university; her teachers even tried to dissuade her from moving to Palestine.\u00a0 Determinedly though, at the age of 18, she made Aliyah (immigration) to attend the Girls\u2019 Agricultural School at Nahalal.\r\nShe wrote to her mother, \u201cThere are already far too many intellectuals in Palestine. What they need are workers to help build the country.\u201d\u00a0 (Diary, xxiv)\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_58881\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"544\"] Hannah Szenes (4th from left) with members of Kibbutz Sdot Yam.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nThe Making of a Heroine\r\nHannah needed an outlet for her zeal, so in 1942 she joined the Haganah (Jewish defence force) of pre-state Israel taking classes in wireless communications.\r\nWhile there, she heard about an opportunity that she felt she could not refuse.\r\nDesperately wanting to help the Jews in Europe, and having unsuccessfully tried to obtain emigration papers for her mother to leave Hungary, Hannah joined the British Army Women's Auxiliary Air Force as an Aircraftwoman 2nd Class and volunteered for a secret mission behind enemy lines.\r\nOn December 26, 1943, Hannah wrote, \u201cDarling Mother, I\u2019m starting something new. Perhaps it\u2019s madness; perhaps it is dangerous.\u00a0 There are times when one is commanded to do something, even at the price of one\u2019s life.\u201d\u00a0 (Diary, 164)\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_58876\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"325\"] An Israeli postage stamp commemorating Jewish paratroopers, issued March 31, 1955[\/caption]\r\n\r\nThough parachuting into Europe during WWII would be extremely dangerous, a brave group of just over thirty Jews went ahead with their paratroop training in Egypt.\u00a0\u00a0Hannah was one of only three women Special Operations Executive paratroopers in the British Army at the time.\r\nIn the Spring of 1944 at age 22, Hannah parachuted along with her small group into Yugoslavia.\u00a0 They stayed there for three months before crossing the border into Hungary.\r\nAlthough Hannah did not have a religious Jewish upbringing, she diligently studied Hebrew, writing in her diary, \u201cI want to read the Bible in Hebrew. I know it will be very difficult but it is the true language and the most beautiful; in it is the spirit of our people.\u201d\r\nBy age 18, she was able to write Hebrew without a dictionary and wrote that \u201cthis makes me happy.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 (Diary, 78)\r\nShe had likely read the words of the Lord to the Prophet Isaiah during her small group Bible study at the kibbutz, where she read a chapter of Isaiah at each meeting.\u00a0\u00a0(Diary, 151)\r\n\u201cWhom shall I send?\u201d Isaiah heard the Lord ask (Isaiah 6:8).\u00a0 Hannah answered the\u00a0call.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_58882\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"323\"] Hannah Szenes in British uniform in Yugoslavia, 1944[\/caption]\r\n\r\nThe goal of the mission was to make contact with Jews in Hungary and to find means of rescuing them, but the timing was quite unfortunate.\r\nThe parachutists landed in Yugoslavia on March 14, 1944, and German troops entered Hungary just five days later.\r\nEven more tragically, an informer gave Hannah away and she was arrested almost as soon as she entered Hungary.\r\nShe withstood severe beatings and threats at the hands of the Gestapo, never giving away the mission\u2019s transmitter codes.\r\nIn a further bid to extract information, Hannah\u2019s mother was also imprisoned, which must have been horrifying, but perhaps also a source of comfort.\u00a0 They had not seen each other since 1939 when Hannah first left for Israel.\r\nDespite the threats of the interrogators to torture and kill her mother in front of her, to which Hannah still never gave in, Katherine was released, while Hannah was put on trial for treason.\r\nWhen Katherine visited her daughter in prison, the only thing Hannah asked for was a Hebrew Bible.\r\nKatherine looked all over Budapest for one, but with no success, as Jewish businesses had closed months earlier and those who had a Bible didn\u2019t want to part with it, she recalled.\u00a0 (Diary, 285)\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_56959\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"544\"] The Great Synagogue on Doh\u00e1ny Street in Budapest, Hungary is the largest synagogue in Europe. It seats 3,000 people.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nThe Germans were losing the war when the Soviets entered Hungary in September, 1944.\u00a0\u00a0The next month, still in jail, Hannah was tried for treason by a closed military tribunal.\r\nInterestingly, the judges did not sentence her at this point, and they themselves fled the country.\u00a0\u00a0It seemed that she might at last go free.\r\nThere was one man who wanted Hannah dead, however. And he made sure that she was executed.\u00a0\u00a0On November 7, 1944, she was tied to a stake, refused a blindfold, and looked up to the sky as three rifles fired.\u00a0 (Diary, 250)\r\nA week later, her mother Katherine was put on a death march to Austria. Miraculously, she survived, and eventually made it to Israel.\r\nThis sad little poem was later found in her daughter\u2019s cell:\r\n\u201cOne - two - three... eight feet long, two strides across, the rest is dark... Life is a fleeting question mark. One - two - three... maybe another week; Or the next month may still find me here, but death, I feel is very near. I could have been 23 next July; I gambled on what mattered most, the dice were cast. I lost.\u201d\r\nHannah was one of seven parachutists who died, out of thirty-three brave souls who attempted the operation.\u00a0 Little is known about the lives of the other six. We do know of Hannah, as she kept writing till the day she died.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_58879\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"325\"] Memorial stone to Hannah Szenes (1921\u20131944) in the park bearing her name in Budapest. On the stone is a quote from her poem: \u201cDie... an early death... No, I didn't want. I loved the song and the light, The warming sun, two shining eyes. War, havoc, I didn't want, No, I didn't want.\"[\/caption]\r\n\r\nIn 1950, Hannah\u2019s remains, along with those of her six comrades who died, were brought to Israel and re-interred at the military cemetery on Mount Herzl in\u00a0Jerusalem.\r\nOn November 5, 1993, Hannah\u2019s family in Israel received the Hungarian military court\u2019s verdict, exonerating her of the treason charges for which she was executed.\r\nA film has been made about Hannah\u2019s life, Blessed is the Match, which is the name of one of her poems.\u00a0 In the movie, fellow Gestapo prisoner Susan Beer says that Hannah was \u201csuch a combination of courage and gentleness.\u201d\r\n\u201cBlessed is the match consumed in kindling flame,\u201d wrote Hannah, just prior to her crossing into Hungary.\r\nShe asked a comrade, in the event of her capture, to be sure to deliver the poem to the chaverim (friends) at Kibbutz Sdot-Yam.\u00a0 Even the little piece of paper has a drama attached to it, the film reveals.\r\nThe now famous poem continues:\r\nBlessed is the flame that burns in the secret fastness of the heart.\r\nBlessed is the heart with strength to stop its beating for honor's sake.\r\nBlessed is the match consumed in kindling flame.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_54936\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"544\"] For you were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. (Ephesians 5:8)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nA comrade wrote about her:\r\n\u201cHer behavior before members of the Gestapo and SS was quite remarkable. She constantly stood up to them, warning them plainly of the bitter fate they would suffer after their defeat.\u00a0 Curiously, these wild animals, in whom every spark of humanity had been extinguished, felt awed in the presence of this refined, fearless young girl.\u201d\u00a0 (Diary, 241)\r\nHannah Szenes's life is an amazing story of heroism in a Jewish woman who revered the Word of God and helped to reignite the true identity of the Jewish\u00a0People.\r\n \r\n ","post_title":"Hannah Szenes, Hungarian Jewish Paratrooper, Poet, Heroine of Israel","post_excerpt":"Hannah Szenes - streets and public squares are named after her. In her poetry and diary, we see the makings of the heroic idealism of a young Zionist martyr. Who was she?","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"hannah-szenes-hungarian-jewish-paratrooper-poet-heroine-israel","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2022-11-28 14:17:51","post_modified_gmt":"2022-11-28 14:17:51","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/free.messianicbible.com\/?post_type=feature&p=58874","menu_order":0,"post_type":"feature","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"};var $post_thumbnail = " -content/uploads/2018/03/887_paratroopers_USAF-150x150.jpg";Hannah Szenes in 1939 at age 16 (Background paratroopers, courtesy US Air Force)

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