White Powder Mailed to Hungarian Jewish Leader, Substance Deemed Harmless
No to Hatred: Hungary has been hit by a rising tide of anti-Semitism. Image by Getty Images
An envelope containing white powder sent to a representative of Hungary’s Jewish communities did not contain any dangerous materials.
The envelope was mailed earlier this week to Andras Heisler, president of the Mazsihisz federation of Hungarian Jewish communities, according to a report Wednesday by the ATV station.
Separately, police in Tatabanya, which is approximately 30 miles west of Budapest, reported that swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans were daubed on several tombstones in the city’s Jewish cemetery. No suspects have been apprehended, the EFE news agency reported Friday.
On March 24, hundreds of European rabbis are scheduled to convene in Budapest for the biannual conference of the Rabbinical Center of Europe.
“The choice of Hungary as the host country for the event is designed to demonstrate to the Hungarian authorities the common concerns of European Jewry regarding the situation of the Hungarian Jewish community, as well as sending out a message of solidarity with the Hungarian Jewish community, and European Jewry as a whole,” the center’s director, Rabbi Menachem Margolin, wrote in a statement.
Last year, Ira Forman, the U.S. State Department’s envoy for combating anti-Semitism, said Hungary’s government should do more to combat the phenomenon.
Jobbik, a far-right party with a history of anti-Semitism, is the third largest party in Hungary with 43 of the 386 seats in Parliament.
Earlier this year, the Mazsihisz organization and other Jewish groups said they would not attend government-led commemorations on the 70th anniversary of Hungary’s occupation by the Nazis because the government was obfuscating the role played by Hungarians in the murder of Hungarian Jews.
The Rabbinical Center of Europe’s conference is not connected to the commemoration plans, a spokesman for the center told JTA on Sunday.
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.
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.
