KECSKEMÉTI, GYŐRGY

KECSKEMÉTI, GYŐRGY (1901–1944), Hungarian journalist, born in Makó, the son of Rabbi A. Kecskeméti. From 1929 to 1936 Kecskeméti taught at the Jewish secondary school of Budapest and in 1931 joined the staff of the government's German newspaper Pester Lloyd. From 1936 he was editor in chief, and held the position in spite of anti-Jewish legislation until the Nazi occupation. He wrote a book of poems Változatok hat témára ("Variations on Six Themes"), and contributed to periodicals. When the Germans occupied Hungary, he was among the journalists deported to Auschwitz, where he died. He left several manuscripts. KECSKEMÉTI, LIPÓT KECSKEMÉTI, LIPÓT (1865–1936), Hungarian rabbi and scholar. Kecskeméti was born in Kecskemét. He studied at the rabbinical seminary and the University of Budapest and at the Lehranstalt fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin. He served as rabbi of Nagyvárad from 1890 to his death. Kecskeméti, a magnificent orator and a highly respected leader, was a convinced anti-Zionist and assimilationist and a Hungarian patriot, courageously resisting attempts to Romanianize Nagyvárad and the other Hungarian regions transferred to Romania after World War I. He founded a Jewish high school there. Among his published works are Zsidó költőkből ("By Jewish Poets," 1887), an anthology of medieval Jewish poetry; his Ph.D. thesis, A pokol a középkori zsidó költészetben ("Hell in Medieval Jewish Poetry," 1888); Egy zsidó vallás van-e, több-e? ("Is There One Jewish Religion or More?" 1913); Az   izraelita vallás története ("History of Jewish Religion," 4 vols., 1932); Jeremiás proféta és kora ("The Prophet Jeremiah and His Age," 3 vols., 1932); Ezsajás ("Isaiah," 3 vols., 1935); and many articles in Hungarian-Jewish periodicals. He also translated the Prophets for a Hungarian edition of the Bible. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: F. Fischer, Das Buch von Dr. L. Kecskeméti " Gibt es blos eine juedische Religion oder mehrere" (1934); Emlékkönyv Dr. Kecskeméti Lipót (1936). (Alexander Scheiber)