BELED

BELED , village in Györ county (in 1944, Kapuvár district of Sopron county), western Hungary. The first Jewish settlers came to Beled in the mid-18^th century, mainly from the neighboring village of Vásárosfalu. Their number ranged from 61 in 1784 to 336 in 1930. According to the census of 1941, the last before the Holocaust, their number was 320, representing 11% of the total of 2,909. The community was organized in 1785; its synagogue and cemetery were established around 1790. A Jewish school was established in 1861 and a ḥevra kaddisha under the leadership of Lipót Kohn in 1884. The congregation identified itself as Orthodox in 1876. Among the rabbis who served the community were Joel Fellner (1902–22) and Áron Silberstein (1925–44). Organizationally, the Beled congregation also served the spiritual and communal needs of the Jews in the neighboring smaller villages, including Babot, Bogyoszló, Cirák, Csapod, Csáfordjánosfa, Dénesfa, Egyed, Garta, Iván, Kapuvár, Kisfalud, Mihályi, Szil, and several others.

In May 1944, the Jews were first placed in a local ghetto set up in and around the synagogue. The ghetto also included the Jews from the neighboring communities of Csapod, Mihályi, Páli, and Vitnyéd. At its peak the ghetto held 360 Jews. It was liquidated on June 17, when about half of the ghetto population was transferred to Szombathely and the other half to Sopron, from where they were deported to Auschwitz on July 5, 1944.

Forty-two survivors returned in 1945. Most emigrated or relocated soon thereafter; in 1968 there was still one Jewish resident in the village. The synagogue was destroyed during the German occupation.

bibliography:

M. Stein, Magyar Rabbik, 3 (1907), 1f.; 5 (1909), 3f.; M. Raab, in: Soproni Szemle (1957), 244–52. Braham, Politics; pk Hungaria, 170–71.

[Randolph Braham (2^nd ed.)]