One of the largest Jewish communities of Europe live in Hungary, that
is cca. 100,000 people. From the dream of many years, this Hungarian
Jewish community actually regained strength after the change of the
political system. However, the Jewish organizations only reach 1-2 %
of the Jewish people living here.
JMPoint Foundation with its unique solutions has already contacted
20,000 people and this number is still on the increase continuously
and reliably. The people joining us find company for themselves via
our projects and can also expand their knowledge of the
Jewish community. With our help they can once again become part of
the Jewish reality with new vistas opening up for them. Non-Jewish
people can find every bit of information here to make a realistic,
positive image of us.
The activity of JMPoint Foundation is a large circulation, which
people can join anywhere to be an active participant of the Jewish
society.
orgs.jmpoint.hu
In 2002 Gábor Kürti and Csaba Kürti founded the flagship of JMPoint
Foundation, a Jewish Social Network named Jewish Meeting Point.
This initiative was a unique one and not only in Hungary.
Facebook now covering the whole world was only launched in 2004.
The projects of our Foundation are in Hungarian and they are
primarily targeted at Hungarian-speaking Jews. However, some of
our internet-based projects shall be accessible also in English language
in the future.
Year by year more than 100,000 people visit our internet-based
projects and those programmes of ours realized in the real world also
reach several thousands of people.
Launched as a Jewish dating site, it has developed into a Jewish
community network covering the whole world completed with
internet-based education, training, cultural, lifestyle and heritage
protection projects.
Growing beyond the sphere of the Internet, it has generated a large
variety of multicoloued family and community programmes.
In the year 2009/2010 JMPoint Foundation was selected as one of the
12 most innovative Jewish projects in Europe.
The Westbury Group – Compass Europe: www.compasseurope.org
I. Community building
Jewish Meeting Point – Jewish Social Network, JMPoint meetings and
excursions, local and international trainings, chanuka party,
community balls…
II. Formal and informal education
JMPoint Academy, participation in Jewish and non-Jewish festivals,
lectures, discussions, workshops…
III. The spread of cultural values
Jewbox – music and cultural magazine, Jewish music net radios,
JMPoint Film Club, regular publications in Jewish newspapers, …
IV. Protection of heritage
Virtual Jewish Museum
V. Lifestyle
Family camps, community programmes, Babies and Mums Club,
charity concert, CookingShul, Green Israel, eco-bio-kosher,…
www.jmpoint.org
The first and largest Jewish Social Network of Hungary was launched
in 2002. The number of members increased to almost 20,000
throughout the years, and every year at least 100,000 people visit the
website with contents accessible for everyone. The website is
exclusively in Hungarian language now, but our members join
community life here from all over the world, some 40 countries.
Why is it worth joining?
- Because this is the largest Hungarian Jewish dating site
- There is a Hungarian and international job market
- For community area (forum, chat, blog, groups, sharing ideas…)
- For an adviser area: Ask the rabbi, Ask the experts…
- For the latest news
- For recommended programmes on offer
- For a large number of photos made at community events
- For many useful information about the Hungarian Jewish
community and Israel.
- And mainly for the fact that there are several thousands of
Hungarian-speaking Jews here in the community area!
www.jmpoint.hu
The three-year eLearning based Jewish Studies programme starts with
the basics and is open to everyone. Our internationally acknowledged
17 lecturers introduce students into the depths of Jewish studies in
30 subjects, covering 3,000 pages of teaching material.
More than 500 students have participated in JMPoint Academy since
it was launched in 2008.
Why is this training programme a unique one?
- because one can join it from any part of the world,
- because one can learn about topics which are not dealt with by any
other university in Hungary,
- it is independent of religious trends and organizations,
- it is easy to keep in touch with the trainers and the students,
- it helps students to find their own roots and to strengthen their
Jewish identity.
akademia.jmpoint.hu
JMPoint Foundation has represented Hungarian Jews at the largest
music festival in Europe since 2007 as a civilian organization.
The main objective of the programme is that the many hundreds of
young people daily visiting the tent of Jewish Meeting Point should
have a realistic picture of the Jewish community and Israel. Prepared
for this task for years now, our team of volunteers tries to pass on as
much information as possible with means of informal and
experience-based education. We have here the largest map of Israel
in Europe (8x3 metres) laid on the ground so that young people can
make a tour of the country from historic sites to the most modern
solar energy centre, discovering the past and present of Israel. During
the quizzes we can introduce people into the seemingly closed world
of Jewish history, culture and religion in a playful way.
The NGO island is also that of tolerance. Even non-Jews with some
prejudices visit our tent and leave us as friends after receiving
answers to their questions. What is even more important: many
Jewish people find us who have never been in touch with any other
Jewish organization before and thus they make their very first step
towards their Jewish identity whilst helped by us.
Since 2008 we have been digitalising Jewish religious and cultural
relics found all over Hungary. After processing and making a
catalogue of them the images are made accessible to everyone via the
internet as a collection on a website in three languages.
As we are now in the very last hours to do so, we started the
programme by digitalizing and making photographs of the
materials owned by religious communities in the countryside. Our
team to archive the collections makes a tour of the country to
digitalize the relics possessed by religious communities, private
individuals and others with a mobile object photo studio. We are
running against time, as with every clearing out junk an irreplaceable
part of our past is lost.
In 2010 with more than 1,000 digitalized items the Virtual Collection
was opened with a continuous growth of the collection. Besides
images and pictures studies, articles and books shall also be available
here in a digitalized form.
We would like to preserve for posterity the relics of a community of
Hungarian-speaking Jews once flourishing here.
www.vzsm.hu
The pimary objective of this programme is to show the other face of
Israel to everyone which is rarely seen even by people actively
participating in the Jewish community. News about Israel tend to
focus on conflicts almost exclusively. No wonder hardly anyone
knows how unique fauna and vegetation Israel has, and what kind of
green technology improvements she has got to help humanity with as
such.
With exhibitions, lectures, conferences, trainings, films, workshops
and voluntary programmes we bring closer the green face of Israel
unknown to many people so far.
In focus:
The relationship between ecological responsibility and the Torah,
Israel’s scientific and technical achievements in the service of mankind,
Israel’s geography, fauna and national parks,
Environment-consciousness,
Making people aware of volunteerism,
The presentation of the eco-kosher trend.
www.zoldizrael.hu
Gastronomy is found all over our life, kosher cuisine is inseparable
from Jewish people, and this is the reason why it has a priority
compared to our other projects. We provide glatt kosher food for
every programme and family camp of ours from the beginning so
that every member of the Jewish community could take part in them.
It is very important for us as a community building organization.
Projects:
Lativ Kolel – the magazine titled Forrás (Source) – independent
column on Jewish cuisine
JMPoint Academy – First grade – The subject titled Jewish cuisine
Eco-Bio-Kosher lecture series: Lativ Kolel, Tikva Hungary, Limmud
Hungary
JMPoint CookingShul – a cookery course, kosher cooking and baking
in practice
Thematic collection of recipes: zsidokonyha.hu
Judafest Gastrofest: joint baking and competition
www.zsidokonyha.hu
Since 2006 our thematic Jewish music radios have been continuously
operating. Since 2008 we have had a Jewish music and cultural
magazine updated every day. Besides Hungarian and international
curiosities the notes of Jewish songs, lyrics, biographies, photo
galleries and many other things of interest are found here.
As the majority of Hungarian Jews define their own Jewish identity
on a cultural base, our magazine can reach a wide layer of society
which is inaccessible for religious communities and other classical
Jewish organizations. As the magazine regularly reports about
community events, secularized members of the Hungarian Jewish
community can also be lead back to their own roots and community
step by step.
Music as an international language can bridge over cultural
differences and bring people closer to each other as well as open up
the seemingly closed world of the Jewish community. This way we
give an insight into the culture, the music and everyday life of a
community with a past of several millennia.
www.jewbox.hu
Some 50 volunteers help the work of our Foundation. Their
achievements mean immensely much for us and also for the whole
community. By getting to know other cultures as participants of
international trainings our character is enriched. Tolerance,
acceptance and respect to each other are the basis for a peaceful
future. Our Foundation contributes to this and thanks for the
precious work done by its volunteers by delegating them to
international trainings in countries all over the world.
We are co-organizers of a number of international trainings in
several European countries that stress the importance of the
dialogues between religions, the significance of volunteerism,
environment-consciousness and making the world a better place.
Cooperating with people with a different way of thinking, mentality
and background is always a big challenge for us but also the source of
joy. Learning new approaches and getting information greatly help us
to solve problems to which we had no solutions yet. This is one of the
engines of our organization that guarantees the chance of continuous
revival empowering us day by day to do our jobs.
- Launching and maintaining Jewish family daycare
- Founding an incubator house for New Jewish Ideas
- Green Expo in Budapest for Israeli companies
- The continuous extension of the collection of the Virtual Jewish
Museum
- Accrediting JMPoint Academy as a training acknowledged
by the state
- Jewbox radios and music cultural magazines in multilingual form,
the making of their international versions
- Filmclub, Israeli and Jewish topics
- Organizing team-building trainings
- Organizing Jewish family programmes and camps
- Organizing an international training
- Informal education at Sziget Festival and for 3 other big Hungarian
youth festivals at their NGO sections.
- European Voluntary Service, the reception and delegation of
volunteers from 2012
Institutions sponsoring us:
Alliance of the Jewish Communities of Hungary
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Office for Hungary
British Embassy
Dutch Jewish Humanitarian Fund
Hungarian National Civil Fund
Hungarian National Cultural Fund
Jewish Agency for Israel
Jewish Heritage of Hungary Public Endowment
L. A. Pincus Fund for Jewish Education in the Diaspora, Israel
Norwegian Civil Fund