from JTA:

Moishe House bringing community to Budapest Jews

When 29-year-old Eszter Susan announced on Facebook last September that she had moved into a Moishe House, few of her friends knew what she was talking about.

Six months later the rambling, high-ceilinged apartment she shares with two other young women has become a focal point of Jewish involvement for dozens of Budapest Jews in their 20s.

There are parties at Jewish holidays, movie nights, lectures on Jewish topics, social action meetings and a Kabbalat Shabbat service followed by a potluck dinner that attracts dozens of people each Friday night.

“It’s about being informal, and being young, and being Jewish,” Susan says while sipping tea at a cluttered kitchen table with housemates Anna Balint, 26, and Zsofia Simon, 22.

“It’s a new model, very horizontal, very grass-roots,” she adds. “It’s about exploring new kinds of Jewish identities – and this is the way things are going to go.”