Tuesday, April 25, 2023
Followers of ‘miracle rabbi’ transform sleepy Hungarian village
They come in their tens of thousands by chartered plane, bus and even helicopter to the shrine of Hungary's "miracle rabbi" to pray for health, wealth and marriages for their children.
Once a year, Orthodox Jews from all over the world descend on a sleepy Hungarian village in search of divine intervention.
Yeshaya Steiner, known as Rabbi Shayele, died in 1925 after devoting his life to feeding the poor and performing wonders for Jews and Gentiles alike in the tiny eastern village of Bodrogkeresztur.
Hasidic Jews have begun flocking to the village, known as Kerestir in Yiddish, in recent years around the anniversary of his death in April to ask for his intervention in everything from business to giving childless couples a baby.
"It is said that whoever comes here will have a blessing in their life," Tobi Ash, 57, a great-great-granddaughter of the rabbi, told AFP outside his ancestral house.
Some 50,000 Jewish visitors, mostly men, attended the three-day-long pilgrimage this year — more than 60 times Bodrogkeresztur's population — up from a few thousand a decade ago.
The number is expected to double or even triple for the centenary of the rabbi's death in 2025.
Nestled among vineyards in the picturesque Tokaj wine region, Bodrogkeresztur was once home to a large Orthodox Jewish community. But during World War II 750 Orthodox Jews were deported from the village to Nazi death camps where almost all perished.
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