As I have described before, the Hungarian Jewish community was trying to resolve questions such as who they should affiliate with and what is the role of religion. Of course, people within the community had different opinions regarding this issue. In the end, they tried to reach some sort of a unified solution. This aligns with the message of Sándor Petőfi’s poetry as well. He wrote about values which were of utmost importance to the Jewish community of Hungary during the mid 19th century.

In this period, important questions arose within societies all over Europe, such as nationality, identity, social justice and economic equality, and these topics appeared in Petőfi’s works as well. The Jewish community could relate to Petőfi about all these fundamental questions. His literary work dealt with the very basic needs of human morals. Based on this, it was natural for the Jewish community of Hungary to sympathise with the ideas of Petőfi’s writings. Therefore, Petőfi is regarded as a wild, very honest, emotional type of poet with an essential message.

Our Israeli national poet, Hayim Nahman Bialik, asked his colleague Avigdor Hameiri to assume the role of translating Petofi’s poems, as he was convinced that this would add a rather vivid dimension to the poetry scene in Israel in the 1950’s. Hameiri took Bialik’s advice and indeed published the first book of Petofi’s poems translated in Hebrew. The two intellectuals took up the challenge of translating Petőfi’s poems into Hebrew, because they thought it was essential for Israeli culture.  Petőfi’s work was necessary, as it added a very important layer to Hebrew literature. According to Bialik, the message of Petőfi’s legacy was apparently missing from Israeli poetry and literature at the time, and there was a deep need within local culture for that.