Lorant Hegedus, a well-known member of Hungary’s far-right Jobbik party, has called an “anti-Zionist” demonstration to be held in Budapest on the eve of the World Jewish Congress Plenary Assembly. Hegedus (pictured center at a 2009 rally) is a Calvinist vicar and was a member of the Hungarian parliament for some time during the 1990s. He said an “Anti-Bolshevik and anti-Zionist people’s gathering” would be held in the Hungarian capital on 4 May.
The WJC is convening the gathering of its highest decision-making body, which meets every four years, in Budapest to show solidarity with Hungary’s Jews, who are facing growing anti-Semitism.
Péter Feldmájer, president of Mazsihisz, the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities, said on Wednesday in a radio interview that “the Hungarian Jewish leadership condemns the demonstration to be held during the WJC session in Budapest.” He added that the WJC assembly would go ahead as planned.
Hegedus called on the WJC to condemn “the Judeo-Bolshevik, anti-Christian and anti-Hungarian terror, and its Jewish leaders during the years of 1919 and of 1945.” Both years are significant in Hungarian history, characterized by the Hungarian far right as the revenge of the Jews against Hungarians.
The demonstration is seen being by some as a revenge of sorts for the Hungarian government’s ban of the ‘Give Gas’ rally planned to coincide with a Holocaust memorial march in Budapest on 21 April.