A protester wears a yellow Jewish star as thousands attend a demonstration against Nazism in Budapest in December
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Hungary's history of anti-Semitism is long and sadly not that unusual--especially among other Central and East European countries. Even before it joined with Nazi Germany in World War II, Hungary established a quota limiting the number of Jews in certain professions. An estimated 560,000 of the country's 800,000 Jews perished in the Holocaust, and another 20,000 left during the 1956 revolution. Under communism, public religious expression was banned and anti-Semitic sentiment dropped off, but it began rising again in 1990 after the regime fell.
For some scholars, that return was a reactionary response to the rapid economic and social changes that Hungary was experiencing; others argued that new civil liberties of the postcommunist era had simply made it possible to express old feelings. Jews are not the only victims of this new freedom of bigotry: the Roma community has also suffered from greatly increased persecution. Inevitably, politicians have harnessed public sentiment. "It has to do with the appearance of a new radical right in Hungarian politics," says Kovacs. "They introduced anti-Semitism into politics, and that in turn made it O.K. for those who harbored anti-Jewish prejudices to express them publicly."
The standard bearer of the radical right is Jobbik, or the Movement for a Better Hungary. The party won 16.7% of the vote in the 2010 national election, making it the third largest in Hungary. Though its strong showing was widely attributed to its anti-Roma platform, Jobbik's members have made no secret of their anti-Jewish feelings. In one notorious incident in November, Jobbik MP Marton Gyongyosi--who has said he is concerned that Hungarian foreign policy unduly favors Israel--called for a survey of "how many people of Jewish origin there are in Hungary and in government who may represent a risk to national security."
As outrage grew over his call for what the media quickly deemed a "list"--a term especially radioactive in a country where community lists were used during World War II to deport Jews to concentration camps--Gyongyosi backtracked, claiming that he had meant that only dual-nationality Hungarian Israelis in government should be identified. Yet in an interview with TIME in early February, he characterized a 2007 speech by Shimon Peres--in which the Israeli President noted that empires today could be founded "without settling colonies" and jokingly remarked that his fellow citizens were "buying up Manhattan, Hungary, Romania and Poland"--as evidence of Israel's nefarious intentions. "[Peres] said that what you need to subjugate another people and colonize them is money and business," said Gyongyosi. "It's not conspiracy theory to say, I live in this country and I look around me and I see this kind of colonization."
Ferenc Kumin, the Hungarian Deputy State Secretary for International Communication, argues that the government--led by the center-right party Fidesz--is doing everything it can to fight racism. The new constitution that was drafted under Prime Minister Viktor Orban includes a provision that makes it easier to prosecute hate speech. Another law has made Holocaust denial a crime. In response to Gyongyosi's speech, Orban received Peter Feldmajer of Mazsihisz and spoke against prejudice. "I would like to make it clear that ... we Hungarians will protect our Jewish compatriots," said Orban.