Congregation B’nai Torah Congregation in Boca Raton, Florida invited Mr. Csanád Szegedi to speak on April 15 at their Holocaust remembrance Yom HaShoah commemoration. His appearance was widely advertised, the Sentinel had a piece about it, and the event was financed by the Sari Singer Holocaust Survivor Endowment Fund. Two days before the evening, a memo was sent out: “Due […]
How does one broach the painful history of the Holocaust with children, especially when there is a family connection to this tragedy? Hungarian Canadian children’s author Kathy Clark’s book The Choice serves as one way to introduce teens and pre-teens to the Shoah. The Choice is Ms. Clark’s second children’s book that weaves her own family’s experiences during World War […]
The opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) joined Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz and the Christian Democratic Peoples’ Party (KDNP) in voting to send 150 soldiers into Iraq, in order to bolster the American-led campaign against the Islamic State (ISIS). While Fidesz, KDNP and DK supported the mission, the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP), the Politics Can Be Different (LMP) green party, the […]
Many of us in the United States are disturbed that the Hungarian Postal Service has recently issued a stamp commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Zita Szeleczky. She is not a role model for today’s Hungarian youth, her support of Hungarian fascism was nothing less than shameful, and as an actress she did not exhibit unusual talents. Who […]
Hungary’s far-right Jobbik party put aside its usual antisemitic and anti-Roma rhetoric, campaigning instead on an anti-corruption platform. This strategy paid off, with the party’s candidate appearing to win in a critical by-election held in western Hungary’s Tapolca riding, long dominated by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party. With 98% of the votes counted (approximately 500 votes cast at embassies […]
Someone quickly phone Andy Vajna, aspiring Hungarian oligarch and pro-regime filmmaker. There’s a great idea coming out of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s inner circle and it is sure to resonate in Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Hungary as well. The Russian government has confirmed that it is pumping $13 million (or 680 million rubles) into launching a national and patriotic fast […]
The fact that Hungary’s pro-Moscow foreign policy has managed to alienate key partners like the United States, Germany and regional allies within the Visegrád Group isn’t much of a success story for Budapest. But at least Hungary’s 36 year old Minister of Foreign Affairs, Péter Szijjártó, got an admittedly warm reception in Tatarstan this week, where he inaugurated the Hungarian […]
A group of local Hungarians and liberally-minded Romanian allies in the Transylvanian town of Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca) are attracting some international attention, thanks to their flash mobs and a creative use of social media that call for the municipality to replace unilingual Romanian road signs with trilingual ones, featuring Romanian, Hungarian and German. The group calls itself Musai-Muszáj (the Romanian/Hungarian word […]
Attila Z. Papp, a researcher affiliated with the Hungarian Academy of Sciences’ Minority Studies Institute, presented research findings on significant demographic changes in Hungary that made headlines in the Hungarian media. The conservative Heti Válasz weekly magazine wrote about a “demographic revolution” and how there are now 298 schools in Hungary where Roma students form the majority of the pupil […]
Every Tuesday I have my morning coffee with a group of friends. We talk about politics, sports, films and other unimportant things. A couple of weeks ago, one friend mentioned a gorgeous woman he knew in the 1960s when he was a student at the University of California Berkeley. “She was beautiful. Every boy wanted to be in her class […]
