SIMON, JOSEPH

SIMON, JOSEPH (1844–1915), Hungarian lawyer, secretary of the national council of Hungarian Jews. Born in Kapocs, he became a member and secretary of the Hungarian Jewish Congress of 1868–69, and from 1871 directed the National Council of Hungarian Jews (the neologist trend), a position he held through 25 years of stormy conflict. Simon first launched the struggle for opening a rabbinical seminary in 1877. He took up the defense for the accused during the tiszaeszlar blood libel case in 1882, and played an active role in the struggle for official recognition of the Jewish religion. Simon initiated a scholarship fund for needy Jewish students in institutions of higher learning, and organized a pension and relief scheme   for families of the communal employees. He was among the founders of the Hungarian scholarly periodical Magyar Zsidó Szemle and the Jewish literary society Israelita Magyar Irodalmi Társulat (IMIT). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: M. Eisler, in: IMIT (1916), 226–37; L. Venetianer, A Magyar Zsidóság története (1922), 304–6; S.K. Endrei, in: Magyar Zsidó Szemle, 44 (1927), 230–4; L. Blau, ibid., 50 (1933), 186–7. (Jeno Zsoldos)