Hungary Slammed for Award to ‘Racist’ Far-Right Journalist Zsolt Bayer
– The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum slammed the decision by the Hungarian state to grant a prestigious award to Zsolt Bayer, a journalist long criticized for articles deemed racist and anti-Semitic.
The state awarded Bayer the Knights Cross of the Order of Merit last week.
“This award is intended to recognize individuals who demonstrate excellence in service to the country and ‘the promotion of universal human values,’” the museum said in a statement. “Bayer has a long record of racist speech and has written highly provocative anti-Semitic and anti-Roma articles in the Hungarian media.”
“He has referred to Jews as ‘stinking excrement’ and has written hateful pieces about the Roma, calling them ‘animals’ that ‘should not be allowed to exist,’” the museum statement added.
The museum called on Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who heads the Fidesz party, and President Janos Ader to rescind the award “immediately.” Presenting it, the museum said, “reflects the long-standing refusal of the leadership of Hungary’s ruling Fidesz Party to distance itself from Bayer, in spite of Bayer’s repeated pattern of racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic, and anti-Roma incitement.”
On Monday, Andras Heisler, the president of Hungary’s main Jewish umbrella organization, Mazsihisz, joined at least two dozen Hungarian recipients of the same honor who returned their own awards in protest.
“I was proud of this award and thought that it would serve to strengthen the moral values that spring from a diverse range of people, people of different faiths, people who support different political sides; I received this award together with representatives of a broad range of religious institutions,” Heisler, who received his Knights Cross in 2011, wrote on Facebook. “This represented to me the value of diversity; and valuing each other’s views represents the future of Hungary.”
“The presentation of the honor to Bayer contradicted these values,” he wrote. “I value diversity, but not destructive extremism. I do not wish to belong to any community to which Zsolt Bayer belongs, even virtually.”
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
