‘I myself believe that extreme politics, whether right-wing or left-wing, is equally half-hearted, harmful and dangerous.’

Perhaps few in Hungary know why a Hungarian Jew who helped Jews in Budapest during the Holocaust and was later executed by the British is so revered in Israel today.

It is a fact that even between the two wars, what Hungarian Jews remembered about the Habsburgs between the two world wars was the inclusive liberalism of a bygone era, the period of the first Jewish minister, as well as Jewish emancipation and acceptance.

Left-wing Zionism is barely alive, while right-wing secular Zionism has been dominant until now, but the previous Israeli prime minister was already something Nordau could never have envisioned: a kippah-wearing ex-officer of the IDF, Naftali Bennett.

The “Jewish world conspiracy” behind the Jewish swindler from Baltavár sounds like a bad joke, even though Istóczy was not joking: he became the most decisive and perhaps the only truly famous antisemitic politician of Dualist Hungary.

Sometimes post-war transformative justice did catch real war criminals, but sometimes completely innocent men like Antl were caught in its machine.

The question was posed as follows: was Hungary truly occupied, or did enough of Hungarian sovereignty remain to label the country “independent”?

Few know that he spent his final years not battling Jews, but the Nazis, and most likely ended his life as an anti-Nazi resistance fighter, like his well-known friend, Endre Bajcsy-Zsilinszky.

During this period, both sides tried to quote the writings of the Budapest-born founder of political Zionism, Theodore Herzl, and both sides seemed to find their own version of Herzl that fit their arguments.

In this piece, we will present an interesting albeit largely forgotten debate that raged in the early ‘40s about Prohászka’s legacy and the expression Hungarianism.

Ukrainian Jewish community leader Rabbi Mayer Tzvi Stambler has sent a letter to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán expressing his gratitude for Hungary’s help in hosting Ukrainian Jewish refugees

‘A destructive press campaign was launched against me and I was just charged with vile fascist crimes, I, who not only suffered from the persecution of the fascists, but whose relatives were all killed by Fascism.’

In this article, we analyse various testimonies and depositions made during István Zadravecz’s many trials along with his speeches and articles appeared in the daily press at the time.

A comprehensive study conducted by the European Jewish Association (EJA) in cooperation with the British Institute of Jewish Policy Research found that Italy and Hungary are the friendliest countries to Jewish life in Europe; Poland and Belgium are lagging behind.

We can see Prohászka as a fascinating yet divisive author whose works are still being debated today.

How was it possible for the situation of Jews in the Western world to deteriorate to such an extent that one Jewish media outlet senses a return to the anti-Semitism of the 1930s? And what has been the reaction of the international left?