The powerful and inspiring story of 102-year-old Agnes Keleti, one of the most successful female Jewish Olympians of all time, was told by her cousin’s daughter during an international conference on tracing Jewish family history held in London this week.
Judi Gyory Missel described how Keleti, despite becoming Hungarian national champion at 16, was repeatedly denied the opportunity to compete internationally because she was born Jewish.
Through “sheer force of will” she overcame the numerous anti-Jewish laws of late 1930s Hungary, where 70 per cent of Jews were eventually murdered, including her father.
She went on to compete in the 1952 and 1956 Summer Olympics and in the latter became the most successful athlete to participate — and all after the age of 30. She had children in her early forties and settled in Israel and coached the country’s national gymnastics team well into the 1990s.
Today, living in Hungary, she is the oldest living Olympic champion and holds more medals than any other individual with Israeli citizenship. Missel said: “She was told it was too late for her to do many things in life, but her experiences and survival made her fearless.”
The International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, which was being held in London for the first time since 2001, attracted more than 400 family history experts and amateurs to over 200 sessions from more than 100 speakers.
Agnes Keleti
Ágnes (Agi) Keleti performing the splits (Credit: Judi Missel)
Chuck Weinstein, co-chair of the conference, said it was “great” to see so many familiar faces again after four years of the conference taking place remotely. “There are particular challenges in tracing Jewish genealogy that other demographics don’t run into, but for that reason and others it is endlessly fascinating. There are so many stories here waiting to be told.” Genealogy is undergoing an “explosion in interest”, according to Weinstein.
Among the various talks on offer were sessions on DNA tracking, Jews in the British armed forces and Hong Kong’s Jewish cemetery.
Genealogist Caroline Gurney of the University of Bristol spoke on her project to digitally map Bristol’s Jewish community between 1724 and 1881, a difficult history to track because the city’s Hebrew congregation’s records were destroyed in the Blitz.
Gurney discovered that Bristol’s Jewish community began in the 1720s instead of the previously thought 1750s. She has been able to glimpse into the lives of Jews from all backgrounds and document how the population spread through the city.
She described the many ways in which genealogists investigate history through newspapers, court and synagogue records, electoral registers, deeds, censuses and more.
She said: "I realised that much of Bristol's Jewish history and heritage had been lost and that a public history project of this nature would reach many more people than an academic thesis, article or book ever could. I also wanted to document the significant Jewish contribution to Bristol's institutions and culture.
"Above all, I hoped to make Bristol a city far more aware of its Jewish past and, by so doing, help to confront the antisemitism which has re-emerged in the city in recent years.'
The digital map can be found at maps.bristol.gov.uk/kyp and selecting “Historic Jewish Population” in the list of information layers. Gurney encourages anyone with Jewish ancestry in Bristol to reach out to her to add to the growing picture.
