Neo-Nazi With Jewish Roots To VIsit Auschwitz
Hungary Change: Csanad Szegedi stepped down from leadership in the openly anti-Semitic Jobbik Party after admitting Jewish ancestry. Image by getty images
A far-right Hungarian politician will reportedly visit Auschwitz after recent revelations that he has Jewish ancestors.
Rabbi Shlomo Koves told JTA that he had met with Csanad Szegedi, in Budapest on August 3, and the Jobbik party member had said he would take the trip.
Szegedi apologized for any comments he had made against the Jewish community, according to the Hungarian daily Nepszabadsag. The paper also reported Szegedi is planning to set up his own political party.
Szegedi could not be reached for comment for this article.
The Anti-Defamation League and other groups considers Jobbik an anti-Semitic party.
Szegedi wanted to go to Auschwitz – where he has said his grandmother had been imprisoned – to “pay his respects to the Holocaust martyrs,” Koves added.
On 28 July, Szegedi resigned most of his positions within Jobbik, though he remains a party representative at the European Parliament.
Jobbik officials said they asked for Szegedi’s resignation because in 2010 he reportedly had allegedly tried to bribe a person not to reveal his Jewish identity. Szegedi denies this.
Koves, executive Rabbi of the Chabad-affiliated Unified Hungarian Jewish Congregation, said he was “stunned” when Szegedi asked to meet him. “As a rabbi, it is my duty to receive anybody requesting spiritual advice or seeking information about Judaism,” he added.
After the meeting, Koves said that both of Szegedi’s maternal grandparents are Holocaust survivors who had an Orthodox Jewish wedding after the war.
“Afterwards they decided to keep it all a secret from their children and grandchildren. Their attempt was successful for over six decades and their descendants have just recently discovered their Jewish roots,” Koves told JTA.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
