Ancient Fear Rises Anew

Resurgent anti-Semitism, coupled with a moribund economy, has many Hungarian Jews wondering if it's time to leave their country

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Janos Marjai / MTI / AP

A protester wears a yellow Jewish star as thousands attend a demonstration against Nazism in Budapest in December

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The number of Hungarian Jews who have immigrated to Israel is small--170 last year--and many leave for economic reasons as well as political. Unemployment is 11.2% in Hungary, and in 2012, its GDP contracted by 1.7%. But even those who can easily find a job are wondering where their line in the sand should be. Not long ago, Dani the architect and his wife Eszter were on a crowded city bus with a man who was yelling into his cell phone about a "'dirty Jew who wouldn't give me back my money.' The first time you hear something like that, you're really shocked," Eszter recalls. "The second time, you're just shocked. And the third time, it starts to seem normal." The two have seriously considered leaving--Dani has sent out his portfolio to a number of foreign companies--but so far, the desire to remain close to their family has kept them in Hungary. "I still believe those things can't happen again," Dani says, referring to the Holocaust. "But maybe we're kidding ourselves. You know the saying about how you cook a frog not by dropping him in boiling water--he jumps out--but by putting him in cold water and slowly turning up the heat? Maybe we're the frogs."

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