Tagged Hungary

BUDAPEST (JTA) — In 2011, Hungary’s largest Jewish group called on the Justice Ministry to ban the far-right Jobbik party, describing it as “anti-Semitic” and “fascist.” Now some in the Jewish community, and even inside Mazsihisz, see Jobbik as a legitimate partner for effecting democratic change, despite its blunt… Read more »

SZARVAS, Hungary (JTA) — Escaping a sudden downpour in the summer of 2012, Andras Paszternak and Barbi Szendy ran to find cover inside an empty cabin at their Jewish summer camp, Szarvas, 100 miles east of Budapest. The two senior counselors, then 31 and 36, respectively, chatted as rain drenched the sprawling compound, where… Read more »

(JTA) – Hungarian officials likely anticipated some Jewish opposition to their decision to erect a monument in Budapest to a Holocaust-era lawmaker who promoted anti-Semitic legislation. What they probably didn’t expect was that the Feb. 24 unveiling of a bust honoring Gyorgy Donath would attract a protest of mostly… Read more »

Protesters lighting memorial candles at a rally in Budapest against a government plan to erect a statue presenting Hungary as an innocent victim of Nazi occupation, March 23, 2014. (Cnaan Liphshiz)

BUDAPEST, Hungary (JTA) — A lone heckler tried to disrupt him, but Hungarian lawmaker Janos Hargitai was undeterred as he spoke earlier this month at a memorial day gathering in Hungary commemorating the 1848 revolution there. The holiday marks Hungary’s attempt to break free from the Austrian Empire, and… Read more »

A demonstrator outside the New Theatre in Budapest was part of a crowd of more than 1,000 protesting the appointment of the theater's new director, Gyorgy Dornerr, Oct. 22, 2011. (B. Molnar/latogato.blogspot.nl)

(JTA) – It’s a relieved Judit Csaki from Budapest that calls journalists with the anticlimactic news: The dramatic news conference on state-sponsored anti-Semitism that she had scheduled for next week is canceled, as Budapest Mayor Istvan Tarlos has just announced the scrapping of plans to stage an anti-Semitic play… Read more »

An anti-government demonstration in Budapest, December 2011. (Ruth Ellen Gruber)

BUDAPEST (JTA) — The debate over anti-Semitism in Hungary has sharpened since the anti-Israel, anti-Jewish and anti-Roma (Gypsy) Jobbik movement entered Parliament two years ago as the country’s third largest party. Seeking scapegoats and channeling paranoia at a time of severe economic, social and political woes, Jobbik’s lawmakers regularly… Read more »

Rabbi Tamas Vero and his wife, Linda Ban Vero, outside Budapest's Frakel Leo street synagogue, where they head a growing congregation mainly made up of young families like themselves. (Ruth Ellen Gruber)

BUDAPEST (JTA) — Linda Ban is a rebbetzin, but with a mass of curly hair and chunky rings on the fingers of both hands, she hardly fits the stereotype of a Central European rabbi’s wife. A mother of two in her mid-30s, Ban is married to Tamas Vero, the… Read more »

JTA’s new “Seeking Kin” column aims to help reunite long-lost friends and relatives. BALTIMORE (JTA) — Even after seven decades, Peter Nurnberger’s most basic biographical facts remain elusive. The Slovakian doesn’t know his birth date, his natural parents’ fate or whether they had any other children. Peter’s adoptive parents… Read more »

Gustav Zoltay, left, the director of the Federation o Hungarian Jewish communities, and Peter Feldmajor, its president, at the founding of the new Hungarian Jewish Congress. (Szabolcs Panyi)

BUDAPEST (JTA) — A whistle-blowing rabbi and a reform-minded lay leader are at the forefront of new efforts to shake up Hungary’s entrenched Jewish establishment. Late last year, Rabbi Zoltan Radnoti reportedly alerted authorities to complaints of embezzlement and tax fraud in the operation of Budapest’s main Jewish cemetery on Kozma… Read more »

(Tablet Magazine) — Last May I traveled, along with about 75 ultra-Orthodox, to Mako, Hungary, for the yahrzeit of my great-great-grandfather. Specifically, I’m referring to my mother’s father’s father’s father, Reb Moshe Vorhand, aka the Makove Rav (usually pronounced roov), a minor-league but well-respected Chasidic rebbe, who died in… Read more »

The Klezmer fusion band Butterfly Effect entertaining Israelis on Herzl tour at Fogashaz, one of the "ruin pubs" of Budapest's Jewish quarter. (Alex Weisler)

BUDAPEST, Hungary (JTA) — Sometimes it takes a Zionist organization to show Israeli Jews that Israel isn’t the only place where Jews have a future. At least that’s what the World Zionist Organization and Habonim Dror, the labor Zionist youth organization, managed to do with a whirlwind trip this… Read more »

BUDAPEST (JTA) — The rise of Hungary’s far-right Jobbik Party has ratcheted up debate about anti-Semitism in this country and focused attention on the seeming paradoxes of Jewish life here. On the one hand, a recent article in Germany’s Der Spiegel described Budapest as “Europe’s capital of anti-Semitism,” where… Read more »

Regarding “Emotional journey for Tucsonans on mission to Hungary, Israel” (AJP 10/1/10): For a comprehensive review of Jewish life in pre-World War 11 Hungary and the incredibly important role played by Jews who escaped from that country and made huge contributions to the worlds of science, art and literature… Read more »

(L-R) Brenda Landau of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, Vern Kozlen of the Jewish Federation of Palm Springs and Desert Area, former Canadian Olympic swimmer Karen James and Israeli President Shimon Peres recite the Shehecheyanu blessing at Peres’ residence in Jerusalem on July 13.

In Hungary, as in other eastern European countries, many young adults are now discovering their Jewish histories and identities. Recently, four Jewish women from Tucson experienced their own journeys of Jewish discovery as participants in a Jewish Federations of North America mission to Hungary and Israel, joining 120 U.S.… Read more »