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Hungary, Seattle … The Eternal Image of the Jew

 Maybe this pair of pictures will help non Jews understand what Anti-Semitism feels like?

@@1The willingness of liberals to defend the Seattle appearance of Rapper Macklemore in Jew face was deeply hurtful.

Even Reuven Carlyle, a member of my own shul and a liberal icon in the State legislature said he accepted Maclemore’s claim that the costume was not intended to look Jewish.

Tuesday night I got the same stomach turning response from a non Jewish liberal friend who wanted me to believe that the goyische rapper  had made an honest mistake .. Thinking the nose and beard made him look like a witch?  My friend could not seem to see why  a Jew would feel offended.  Darryl even left a comment on TA saying

“Ahhhh…so it is Wikens who should be outraged at the stereotyping!!!”

Maybe Darryl and Reuven need t travel to Eastern Europe?  Anti-Semitism looks a lot like ordinary life.  In western Ukraine and Poland, anti-Semitic graffiti on walls and leaflets are commonplace.

In Hungary, where there are actually still living Jews  in  the largest surviving Jewish community in Eastern Europe, anti-Semitism sounds like this comment made in 2012 by Marton Gyongyosi, a leader of right-wing party Jobbik, who deemed it “timely to tally up people of Jewish ancestry who live here, especially in the Hungarian Parliament and the Hungarian government, who, indeed, pose a national security risk to Hungary.”  Jobbik  refers to the Holocaust as the “Holoscam”

Jobbik’s leaders, of course, deny their  party is anti-Semitic but then say:

“Given our current situation, anti-Semitism is not just our right, but it is the duty of every Hungarian homeland lover, and we must prepare for armed battle against the Jews,” wrote Judit Szima, a Jobbik candidate in the last European Parliamentary elections back in 2009.

At a Jobbik protest outside a Jewish meeting in Budapest,  party spokesmen said , “The Israeli conquerors, these investors, should look for another country in the world for themselves because Hungary is not for sale.”  ( Hungary has)  “become subjugated to Zionism, it has become a target of colonization while we, the indigenous people, can play only the role of extras.”

Jobbik is not a fringe party in Hungary.  In Hungarian Parliamentary elections Jobbik took 20 percent of the vote, becoming the second largest in Hungary.  The rise of the right is not confined to Hungary.It’s part of a wave of right-wing, ultra-nationalist parties across Europe heading strongly into the Euopean Parliament elections . 

Much of this content in based on an article from Global Post.  Read more about Hungarian politics here.

 


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