Anna Manchin Lectures on Jews, Communism, and Ethnicity in 1946 Hungary

Dr. Anna Manchin, recipient of a 2015 Fred and Ellen Lewis / JDC Archives Fellowship, gave her public lecture, “Matzo Wars: Jews, Communism, and Ethnicity in 1946 Hungary.” The lecture addressed three questions: Why did the arrival of Passover Matzo in 1946 in Budapest become the center of controversy? What does this incident tell us about the meaning of Jewishness in immediate postwar Hungary? How does this relate to the larger history of Jewishness and Hungarianess in 19th- and 20th-century Hungary?

Dr. Anna Manchin received a Ph.D. in modern European history from Brown University in 2008. Her dissertation was titled “Fables of Modernity: Entertainment Films and the Social Imaginary in Interwar Hungary.” Her research in the JDC Archives was on how Hungary’s Jewish community readjusted to life in Hungary in the immediate aftermath of World War II.

View all fellowship lectures here.