Hungary's central Jewish community federation, contributing Hungarian Jewish archival records to European Holocaust research infrastructure since 2015.
MAZSIHISZ (Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities) is the principal umbrella body for Jewish religious and communal life in Hungary, representing dozens of congregations and institutions across the country. In the EU research context, they contribute as an archival and community content partner to the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI), providing access to Hungarian Jewish communal records, documentation of pre-war communities, and materials related to the Holocaust in Hungary — one of the most significant national cases in Holocaust history. Their value to research consortia lies in their custodianship of community memory: membership registers, congregation records, survivor-related documentation, and institutional knowledge accumulated over more than a century. They are a memory institution as much as a religious federation.
Both EHRI and EHRI-3 projects involve building a pan-European research infrastructure for Holocaust studies, in which MAZSIHISZ contributes Hungarian Jewish community records and archival holdings.
As Hungary's central Jewish federation, MAZSIHISZ holds records of congregations, institutions, and individuals spanning pre-war, wartime, and post-war periods relevant to both EHRI phases.
Participation in EHRI and EHRI-3 alongside 25 partners from 17 countries demonstrates sustained engagement in multi-national digital heritage and research infrastructure collaboration.
MAZSIHISZ's EU research participation is entirely defined by the EHRI programme — two consecutive phases of the same pan-European Holocaust research infrastructure project. Their involvement from 2015 through at least 2025 reflects a decade-long institutional commitment to making Hungarian Jewish archival materials accessible to international researchers. No keyword data is available to detect a finer-grained shift in focus, but the progression from EHRI to EHRI-3 suggests deepening integration into the infrastructure rather than a change of direction.
MAZSIHISZ is on a steady trajectory of embedding Hungarian Jewish communal archives more deeply into the European Holocaust research infrastructure, with no indication of broadening into other research domains.
MAZSIHISZ participates exclusively as a consortium member — never as coordinator — which is consistent with their role as a content and access provider rather than a research-managing institution. Despite having only two projects, they operate within an unusually large and geographically diverse network (25 partners, 17 countries), reflecting the pan-European architecture of EHRI rather than any independent network-building effort. For a potential collaborator, they are a reliable specialist contributor: they bring unique archival access but should not be expected to lead project management.
Their network of 25 unique partners across 17 countries is entirely derived from the EHRI consortium, which spans major Holocaust memorial institutions, national archives, and universities across Europe and Israel. The reach is European in scope but focused narrowly on Holocaust and Jewish heritage research.
MAZSIHISZ is irreplaceable for research concerning Hungarian Jewish history precisely because it is the institutional heir to pre-war and post-war Hungarian Jewish communal life — no university or national archive holds the same combination of congregation records, community registers, and institutional memory. For any consortium working on Central and Eastern European Holocaust history, digital Jewish heritage, or memory studies with a Hungarian dimension, MAZSIHISZ provides a legitimacy and archival access that cannot be replicated by a research institute. Their limitation is narrow specialisation: outside of Jewish heritage and Holocaust studies, they have no demonstrated research footprint.
