Newtown Quakers to Hear Zoom talk: Emigrating During the Cold War

Newtown Quakers to Zoom Meet on The Immigrant Experience: From Hungary to the US in 1981

Peter Vari, member of Newtown Quaker Meeting and engineer, will speak via Zoom on From Hungary to the US: The Immigrant Experience of 1981 to the adult class of Newtown Quaker Meeting on Sunday, January 17 at 9:45 a.m. Zoom Meeting for Worship in the manner of Friends will follow at 11 a.m.

In 1981, at the height of the Cold War with the Berlin Wall and Iron Curtain still intact, Peter Vari, his wife, Eva Jakabovics MD and their young son emigrated from communist Hungary to the US. The details of that harrowing experience, the reasons behind it, and the implications for safeguarding democracy in the United States today will be discussed by Vari in his presentation.

Peter Vari graduated from the Polytechnic University of Budapest (BME) in Hungary in 1979 with degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Automation Controls. He has spent most of his career in the field of manufacturing automation, implementing process improvement based on six sigma lean principles and in the photovoltaic solar powered renewable energy industry.

Peter has established five companies in the fields of machine building, factory floor maintenance, automation, real estate, and solar power generation.

Peter Vari and his wife, Eva Jakabovics MD, live in Richboro, PA.

Newtown Friends Meeting, co-founded by "Peaceable Kingdom" painter and Quaker minister, Edward Hicks, in 1815, is currently open only for virtual sessions. Regular First Day Education classes (Sunday School) for all ages begin at 9:45 a.m. and Meeting for Worship begins at 11 a.m. – all on Zoom.