New Sensibilities, New Volatilities: Antisemitism in Contemporary Hungary

Abstract

This article examines three case studies of new-old sensibilities toward antisemitism, the Holocaust, and liberalism, in Hungary, which show: 1) how in a climate of mutual resentment, a debatable charge of intellectual antisemitism elicited widespread rejection; 2) how an official attempt to partially displace the West European “Holocaust paradigm” during the 2014 Holocaust commemoration led to a recoding of an older anti-fascist narrative in a right-wing key; and, 3) how new discourses on ethnic homogeneity and the Hungarian mainstream’s partial convergence with the Western far-right have yielded an odd combination of anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim, and pro-Israel attitudes today. The article argues that antisemitism in Hungary grew substantially from 2006 to 2011, but has not exploded into a major political or social force under the authoritarian and xenophobic shift of the country since 2010. Hungarian Jews have not found themselves at the center of conflicts beyond their making, as in the past, but they are no longer able to enjoy the kind of security they experienced under Hungarian liberal democracy either—the situation in the country has become volatile and unpredictable.