As the World Jewish Congress prepares to convene in Budapest, Paul Berger covers the increasingly hostile conditions under which Hungarian Jews — one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe with an estimated population of around 85,000 recorded in 2012 — are forced to reside. Primarily, the problem in Hungary is a political problem. With…
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban ordered police to prevent protests and rallies that would disturb the World Jewish Congress General Assembly in Budapest. Orban issued the ban on Tuesday, Reuters reported, including on an “anti-Zionist” demonstration planned for Friday, the first day of the international conference. The demonstration, called an “anti-Bolshevik and anti-Zionist people’s gathering,”…
The World Jewish Congress’s upcoming quadrennial assembly, scheduled for May 5 in Budapest, Hungary, promises to be a complicated affair. It arrives just one month after WJC President Ronald Lauder’s public condemnation of his host country’s prime minister for presiding over “a xenophobic and increasingly anti-Semitic country.” In fact, Lauder says proudly, this is precisely…
Tens of thousands of Hungarians rallied on Sunday to protest against what they said was growing anti-Semitism in the country which will host the plenary meeting of the World Jewish Congress next month. The annual March of the Living, which remembers the victims of the Holocaust and usually has a few thousand participants, attracted a…
A Hungarian lawmaker called the Holocaust “part of Hungarian history,” during ceremonies marking the country’s Holocaust Remembrance Day. “The Holocaust is part of the Hungarian history,” said Zoltán Pokorni, from the ruling right of center party Fidesz, during a ceremony Tuesday at the memorial site Shoes on the Danube Promenade in Budapest. “Those who were…
On a corner in the heart of the former Jewish ghetto, David Popovits sits down for some matzo ball soup and supersized dumplings at his newly-opened kosher style restaurant. A burly, 40-year-old Hungarian Jewish businessman, Popovits used to eat here as a boy, when the restaurant’s former owners ran a “dirty little place that smelled…
A far-right Hungarian priest said an “anti-Zionist” demonstration will be held in Budapest on the first day of the World Jewish Congress’ General Assembly. Lorant Hegedus Jr., a Calvinist priest and member of the ultrarightist, anti-Semitic Jobbik party, announced that an “Anti-Bolshevik and anti-Zionist people’s gathering” will be held in the Hungarian capital on May…
A Hungarian television journalist said he would return an award he was given last week after he was accused of anti-Semitism and the government said it gave him the award by mistake. In a clip of one of his programmes from 2010, posted on YouTube, Ferenc Szaniszlo said on a programme on private Echo TV…
100% of profits support our journalism
