Jews face down new extremism from Hungary’s far-right

Bernadett Szabo / Reuters

Balint Nogradi holds his son Shalom Doveber before the Sabbath in their home in Budapest November 30, 2012.

By Reuters

BUDAPEST - A week after a leader of Hungary's far-right Jobbik party called for lists of prominent Jews to be drawn up to protect national security, Janos Fonagy stepped forward.

"My mother and father were Jewish, and so am I, whether you like it or not," the state secretary of the Development Ministry told parliament, explaining he did not have dual citizenship with Israel and was not religious.

"I cannot choose, I was born into this. But you can choose, and you have chosen this path," he said, addressing Jobbik deputies. "Bear history's judgment."

It is only relatively recently that Hungary's Jews have celebrated their identity as openly as they did when Europe's largest synagogue was built in Budapest in the 1850s. More >>