Slomó Köves entered into a debate in the columns of The Jerusalem Post with an opinion piece written by Ira Forman, which questioned a study by the European Jewish Federation, according to which Hungary is one of the safest places for the Jewish community, and accused Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his government of hidden anti-Semitism.
The chief rabbi of the United Hungarian Jewish Community-Hungarian Jewish Association firstly pointed out that the author was not only an official of the United States government leading the fight against anti-Semitism between 2013 and 2017, but before that he also led a political lobby organization linked to the Democratic Party. He reminded her that this period was quite difficult for European Jewry, since
What did Forman do as special agent after these attacks?
- asks Slomó Köves in the English-language Israeli daily. "Not much," he replies.
On the 2016 Holocaust Remembrance Day, then US President Barack Obama highlighted the fact that a statue of Bálint Hóman was prevented from being erected in Székesfehérvár as a great result of their fight against anti-Semitism.
Why didn't Obama have anything to say about Belgium, where hundreds of anti-Semitic crimes are committed every year, and where Islamist terror took four innocent lives in the Jewish museum just one year earlier, the rabbi complains.
At the same time, he gives the answer: because anti-Semitism has become a political tool.
While in France, for example, 15 percent shared anti-Semitic views, 339 such crimes occurred in 2020, in Germany the same proportion was 17 percent and 1,909 crimes. In contrast, while in Hungary 42 percent had anti-Semitic views, only thirty hate crimes against Jews were registered.
Source and full article: Magyar Nemzet
Featured image: MTI/Zoltán Balogh
