56 Honorary degree certificate

Degree certificate of the Hungarian Israelite Teaching Association accepting Ignaz Goldziher as an honorary member, 1877

Lythography by Lajos Blumberg, printed by E. Langer

Budapest, 1869

present of Károly Goldziher, 1933

The pictures on the degree certificate of the Hungarian Israelite Teaching Association are typical symbols of educational principles of the Jewish emancipation and the Magyarization of the Jewish community. The top section of the degree certificate has pictures of two educational and civic role models of the Teaching Association, and between them Moses with the stone tablets in his hand, and symbols of modern and traditional Jewish education at his feet: a globe and Hebrew books. The message of these pictures is further emphasized by the portrait pictures in the small medallions: Maimonides, who represents traditional Jewish values, and Moses Mendelsohn, the father of Jewish emancipation; under them, the father of modern pedagogy, Pestallozi, and count István Széchényi, the visionary politician of modern Hungary. The pictures are accompanied by sentences in Hebrew, German and Hungarian – at the same time also defining the languages seen as ideal for modern Jewish education. This degree certificate was granted to Ignaz Goldziher, one of the most important figures of Hungarian Jewish academia. His son donated it to the museum in 1933.