Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Hungary Anti-Semitic Jobbik Party Plans Rally in Shuttered Synagogue

Efforts are underway to prevent Hungary’s far-right Jobbik party from holding a political rally in a former synagogue.

Last week, the chairman of the local chapter of the opposition Hungarian Socialist Party sent an open letter to the mayor of Esztergom urging her to bar the rally from the synagogue.

“The choice of location for the event is an unworthy, ugly, and cynical desecration of the memory of the victims of the Holocaust and the sentiments of the survivors,” the Socialist leader wrote.

The synagogue, in a city located 29 miles north of Budapest, is operated by the local government as a cultural and meeting center.

On Wednesday, The Jerusalem Post quoted the president of Mazsihisz, Hungary’s official Jewish umbrella organization, as saying that if the rally went ahead, Mazsihisz “and Jewish civil organizations will protest and physically hinder the Jobbik rally on the spot.”

The rally is part of Jobbik’s campaign ahead of elections in April. The party’s ultranationalist platform is laced with anti-Semitism and anti-Roma policy.

Jobbik is the third largest party in Hungary with 43 of the 386 seats in Parliament.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.