The Revolt of Job: Salvaging the Lost World of Rural Hungarian Hasidim

Abstract

Abstract:Although the 1983 movie Jób lázadása (The Revolt of Job) garnered an Oscar nomination for best foreign language film, it has fallen into relative obscurity outside of its native Hungary. Reflecting co-director Imre Gyöngyössy’s sympathy for marginalized minorities, gratitude to a Jewish couple who sheltered him during World War II, and Catholic humanism, the movie salvages the memory of the Hasidim in rural Hungary by depicting their customs, referencing biblical stories, and employing imagery from the paintings of Imre Ámos. Sensing they are doomed in Hitler’s Europe, an elderly childless Hasidic couple adopt a Christian boy to assure they will have an heir to remember them and their Jewish heritage. They educate him by celebrating Jewish holidays and endowing mundane activities with spiritual meaning, introducing him to Christianity to protect him from persecution, and modeling cordial relations with their gentile neighbors. Their sudden deportation personifies the decimation of rural Hungarian Jewry and implicates Hungarian fascists and gendarmes in this egregious injustice. As the only feature film to portray how Hasidic Jews lived before the Holocaust, The Revolt of Job merits renewed scholarly attention.