receive equal civic rights until they reformed their religious practices. This reform had been first demanded in the session of 1839–1840. From this session onward, the press and general assemblies pushed for religious reform. Several counties instructed their representatives not to vote for the emancipation of the Jews until they desisted from practising the externals of their religion. For the purpose of urging Jewish emancipation, all the Jews of Hungary sent delegates to a conference at Pest on July 5, 1848. It chose a commission of ten members to lobby with the Diet for emancipation. The commission delegates were instructed not to make any concessions related to practicing the Jewish faith. The commission soon after addressed a petition to the Parliament for emancipation, but it proved ineffective. The national assembly at Szeged granted emancipation of Jews on Saturday, the eve of the Ninth of Av (July 28, 1849). The bill, which was quickly debated and immediately became a law, fulfilled the hopes of the Reform party. The Jews obtained full citizenship. The Ministry of the Interior was ordered to call a convention of Jewish ministers and laymen for the purpose of drafting a confession of faith, and of inducing the Jews to organize their religious life in conformity with the demands of the time, for instance, business hours on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. The bill included the clause referring to marriages between Jews and Christians, which clause both Lajos Kossuth and the Reform party advocated. The Jews' civic liberty lasted for just two weeks. After the Hungarian army's surrender at Világos to Russian troops, which had come to aid the Austrians in suppressing the Hungarian struggle for liberty, the Jews were severely punished by new authorities for having taken part in the uprising. Field Marshal Julius Jacob von Haynau, the new governor of Hungary, imposed heavy war-taxes upon them, especially upon the communities of Pest and Óbuda, which had already been heavily taxed by Alfred I, Prince of Windisch-Grätz, commander-in-chief of the Austrian army, on his triumphant entry into the Hungarian capital at the beginning of 1849. Haynau punished the communities of Kecskemét, Nagykőrös, Cegléd, Albertirsa, Szeged, and Szabadka (now Subotica, Serbia) with equal severity. Numerous Jews were imprisoned and executed; others sought refuge in emigration. Several communities petitioned to be relieved of the war taxes. The ministry of war, however, increased the burden, requiring that the communities of Pest,