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Comments (0)Hungary’s landslide shift to the far-Right continued in the second round of parliamentary elections.
The openly anti-Semitic nationalist Jobbik party secured 47 seats in the 386-seat, single-chamber legislature, in Sunday’s elections. Jobbik deputies have threatened to march into the new Parliament session wearing the menacing black uniforms and red insignia of the banned, paramilitary Hungarian Guard organization.
As expected, the populist, ultra-Conservative Fidesz party grabbed the lion’s share of the vote by winning 263 seats. Fidesz now holds more than the two-thirds parliamentary majority required for changing the Constitution in the absence of cross-party accord.
The ruling Socialist party took only 59 seats. The Liberal party, the Socialists’ erstwhile coalition partner that used to enjoy vigorous Jewish support, lost its parliamentary presence. A new Green party won 16 seats.
The Association of Hungarian Jewish Religious Communities, the largest Jewish organization in Hungary, has formally called on the democratic parliamentary parties to defend the country’s human rights tradition by isolating the incoming racist deputies.
Political and economic analysts fear that the electoral success of Jobbik will undermine Hungary’s nascent recovery from the worst recession since World War II. Victor Orban, the head of the ruling Fidesz party, has promised to limit the damage by curbing the rise of neo-Nazis.
Goldstone Will Attend Grandson’s Bar Mitzvah
Richard Goldstone will attend his grandson’s upcoming bar mitzvah in South Africa, following an agreement with local Jewish groups.
The South African Jewish Board of Deputies brokered a deal between Goldstone and community organizations angry with Goldstone for his authorship of a U.N. report on Gaza war seen as grossly unfair to Israel. Under the agreement, Jewish groups agreed not to protest during the bar mitzvah celebrations and Goldstone agreed to meet with the leadership of South African Jewish communal organizations, according to an e-mail released late Friday by both Goldstone and the Board of Deputies.
The meeting, to be hosted by the South African Zionist Federation, is set to discuss the Jewish community’s reaction to the Goldstone report, which accused Israel and Hamas of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.
“My whole family feels joyful that we’ll be able to celebrate the bar mitzvah together,” Goldstone told JTA following the agreement.
The South African Jewish Board of Deputies said it “respectfully requests, in light of the agreement reached, that all parties immediately desist all public activities on this matter so that the young man’s bar mitzvah celebration can be returned to the privacy and dignity that it deserves.”
Goldstone originally had planned to skip his grandson’s bar mitzvah next month after the Zionist Federation threatened to protest Goldstone outside the synagogue.
Morocco Razing of Jewish Building Raises Concern
The government’s demolition of a historic Jewish community-owned building in Morocco is drawing protest from Jewish leaders.
Over Passover, authorities in Tangier began razing a building that used to house a Jewish hospital, Benchimol Hospital, and which still belongs to the Jewish community. The demolition, which was undertaken with the consent of the Jewish community, prompted a letter of protest to the governor of Tangier from the president of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Spain, Jacobo Israel Garzon.
“This is for us a very serious act against the right to the property, which was the first hospital in Tangier,” Garzon wrote in his letter, dated April 12. “I urge His Excellency to ensure that the rights of the Tangier Jewish community be restored and respected.”
The president of Tangier’s Jewish community, Abraham Azencot, reportedly was out of town when the unexpected demolition began and is planning to meet with the local governor to discuss the action.