Hungarian Conservative

Marking 80 years since over 550,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, the 20th March of the Living was held in Budapest on 5 May. This year’s march also honoured those murdered during the 7 October Hamas massacre.

16 April has been observed annually since 2001 as the Memorial Day of the Hungarian Victims of the Holocaust. On the 80th anniversary of the ghettoization of Hungarian Jews state dignitaries, including the Hungarian prime minister, and leaders of the Jewish community commemorated the victims.

In an interview with Hungarian news website Index, Mazsihisz Chief Rabbi Róbert Frölich declared that Budapest and Hungary as a whole are ‘an island of peace’ for the Jewish community.

The Hungarian Jewish leaders and the Israeli Prime Minister discussed issues of Jewish communal life in Hungary and the events that may accompany the possible relocation of the Hungarian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.  With the potential move of the Hungarian mission to Jerusalem Hungary would become the first EU country to recognize that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital.

Mazsihisz head Andor Grósz expressed his view to Minister Gulyás that some of the recent remarks about Regent Miklós Horthy made by Fidesz officials at the 30th anniversary of Horthy’s reburial do not fall in line with the government’s principle of zero tolerance of antisemitism.