Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban ordered police to prevent protests and rallies that would disturb the World Jewish Congress General Assembly being held in Budapest.
PM Orban issued the ban on Tuesday, Reuters reported, including the anti-Zionist demonstration which was planned for Friday, the first day of the international conference.
The demonstration, called an “anti-Bolshevik and anti-Zionist people’s gathering,” was announced earlier this month by Lorant Hegedus Jr., a Calvinist priest and member of the ultra-rightist, anti-Semitic Jobbik party, which has nearly 15 percent of the seats in Hungary’s Parliament.
The WJC assembly is being held in Budapest – the first time in many years it is outside of Jerusalem – in an expression of solidarity with Hungary’s Jewish community, which in recent years has faced an increased threat of anti-Semitism.
Of course, the WJC could have helped Hungarian Jews a whole lot more by inviting all of them to Jerusalem—permanently, but that would require references to the unhappy events of a few decades ago in Hungary. And who wants that.
JTA content was used in this report.
