Where Jews fear for their future

Gabor Vona, chairman of Hungary's far-right Jobbik party, speaks to hundreds of supporters during a rally against the World Jewish Congress Plenary Assembly in Budapest on Saturday. Photo: Reuters

As the self-declared ''capital'' of the ultra-nationalist Jobbik Party, Tiszavasvari prides itself on being a showcase for how the whole of Hungary might look one day.

Since winning control of the local council three years ago on a pledge to fight ''gypsy crime'', the party has been on a vigorous clean-up campaign, banning prostitution, tidying the streets, and keeping a watchful eye on the shabby Roma districts at the edge of town.

It even swore in its own Jobbik ''security force'' to work alongside the police, only for the uniformed militia to be banned by the national government.

Yet gypsies are not the only bogeymen that Jobbik has in its sights, as a sign on the green opposite the mayoralty building suggests. Written in both Hungarian and Persian, it proudly announces that Tiszavasvari is twinned with Ardabil, a town in north-west Iran

On the face of it, there is no obvious reason why a drab rust-belt town in Hungary should seek links to a city in a hardline Islamic Republic more than 3000 kilometres away. But this is no ordinary cultural exchange program. The real purpose of Jobbik's links to Iran is to show their mutual loathing of Israel.

''The Persian people and their leaders are considered pariahs in the eyes of the West, which serves Israeli interests,'' said Marton Gyongyosi, a Jobbik MP and the party's leading foreign policy voice.

''This is why we have solidarity with the peaceful nation of Iran and turn to her with an open heart.''

The scheme is particularly sensitive in Hungarian towns such as Tiszavasvari, where Jews were rounded up and sent to the gas chambers in World War II.

Holocaust archives show a dozen names of Jewish victims from Tiszavasvari, part of the mass extermination program that gave Jews in the Hungarian countryside a one-in-10 chance of survival in 1944. More than 400,000 Hungarian Jews were killed in one of the most intensive anti-Jewish campaigns of the Holocaust. While it was conducted under Nazi occupation, the Hungarian state actively connived.

''You can see Jobbik's true nature through this,'' said Peter Feldmajer, the president of the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities, which represents an estimated 100,000 Hungarian Jews. ''They hate the Jewish people, and so does the Iranian government, and that is why they have formed this allegiance. It is a shame for Tiszavasvari, and it hurts the memories of those Jewish people who lived there.''

Such concerns will loom large for delegates of the World Jewish Congress, due to open on Sunday amid tight security in Budapest. The congress normally meets in Jerusalem, but this year it is convening in the Hungarian capital to highlight what its president, Ronald Lauder, describes as a ''dramatic'' rise in anti-Semitism in the country. Much of the blame for that is attributed to Jobbik, which was founded just 10 years ago, yet now represents the third-largest faction in politics, with 47 of 386 parliamentary seats.

Also in Mr Lauder's sights is Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose centre-right Fidesz Party competes for votes with Jobbik and who has been criticised for not taking a firm stance against anti-Semitism.

The Jobbick Party was boosted by a court decision to allow it to hold an anti-Zionist rally on Saturday near Parliament, a decision labelled ''unacceptable'' by Mr Orban.

Jobbik leader Gabor Vona told about 500 demonstrators compensation paid to Holocaust survivors could have been better used, local television reported.

Roughly translated as ''the Movement for a Better Hungary'', Jobbik's appeal has been based partly on confronting problems associated with the country's half-million Roma population, whom many Hungarians see as crime-prone and welfare-dependent.

But as the global financial crisis hit Hungary hard, leaving more than one in 10 jobless, Jobbik revived a folk devil at the opposite end of the social spectrum - the supposedly wealthy, all-controlling Jews. Barely a month now passes without a fresh furore over an anti-Semitic incident.

Jewish leaders have been attacked in the street and cemeteries desecrated. Far-right bikie gangs have held ugly demonstrations known as ''Step on the Gas'' days.

The Hungarian national football association was fined after fans shouted anti-Semitic slogans during a World Cup qualifier.

While verbal abuse has apparently increased, violent incidents are still relatively rare. Mr Feldmajer recalls only about 50 physical attacks in 20 years. And the bootboy image by no means fits all of Jobbik's supporters.

Typical is Sipos Ibolya, 55, a cheerful schoolteacher who is Jobbik's local deputy mayor, insists the twin town with Iran is not borne of anti-Semitism, but simple national self-interest. ''Economically, the Israelis do have too much power in Hungary,'' she said.

Most of Hungary's Jews have an all too well-developed sense of perspective about Jobbik with few in the old Jewish quarter of Budapest planning to take to the streets. Sallai Tunde, 45, a restaurateur whose family was spared Auschwitz by pretending to be Catholics said: ''Jews and gypsies will always be scapegoats in society as long as it exists.''