Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Hungary
Hungary: its Jewish community, the Orban government's alliance with Netanyahu and the ICC withdrawal
The Jewish community of Hungary, estimated at 47,200, is the largest in East Central Europe, according to the World Jewish Congress (WJC).[1] On 3 April 2025, as Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Budapest in defiance of an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant, the government of Viktor Orban announced that Hungary would withdraw from the court.[2] Hungary voted against the September 2025 UN resolution endorsing the New York Declaration on a two-state solution.[3]
Jewish community
The Federation of the Hungarian Jewish Communities (MAZSIHISZ) is the WJC's affiliate. Among the largest Jewish organisations the WJC lists the Zionist Federation and the Women's International Zionist Organization (WIZO); youth groups include Hashomer Hatzair, Bnei Akiva, Habonim Dror and Hanoar Hatzioni.[1]
Chabad
- Main article: Chabad-Lubavitch movement
The WJC notes that Chabad is among the styles of prayer in Budapest's synagogues.[1]
Holocaust
According to the WJC, only about 255,000 of the 825,000 Jews who lived in enlarged Hungary in March 1944 survived the Holocaust; around 320,000 of those deported in 1944 were murdered on arrival at Auschwitz.[1]
Israeli state and commercial ties
Diplomacy
The Israeli foreign ministry's 2011 list of missions records relations with Hungary as renewed in September 1989, with "Israel" represented by its embassy in Budapest.[4] The WJC describes relations as "warm". The Israeli embassy is at Fullánk utca 8, 1026 Budapest.[1]
Netanyahu visit and ICC withdrawal
On 3 April 2025 Netanyahu, invited by Orban, visited Budapest on a rare trip abroad in defiance of the ICC arrest warrant, and praised Hungary's "bold and principled" decision to leave the court.[2] Orban said that the ICC was "no longer an impartial court, a rule-of-law court, but rather a political court", and on 20 May 2025 parliament approved a bill starting the year-long withdrawal process.[5]
Soros campaign
In July 2017, after the Israeli ambassador to Hungary criticised a government billboard campaign against the Hungarian-born financier George Soros, Israel's foreign ministry issued a "clarification" saying that the statement had not been meant "to delegitimize criticism of George Soros, who continuously undermines Israel's democratically elected governments by funding organizations that defame the Jewish state". Hungarian Jewish leaders said that the campaign had stoked antisemitism, and many billboards were defaced with antisemitic graffiti.[6]
Arms trade
SIPRI records Hungarian orders for 11 Israeli M-2084 air-search radars (2020), Hero-30 loitering munitions for Lynx vehicles (2023) and Litening pods for Gripen aircraft (2005).[7]
Trade
The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics reports that "Israel" imported goods worth $426.1 million from Hungary in 2025 (2024: $415.2 million) and exported goods worth $214.2 million to it (2024: $180.8 million).[8]
Ehud Barak emails
The following items come from the two leaked mailboxes of the former Israeli prime minister and defence minister Ehud Barak (ehbarak1@gmail.com and ehud.barak@hyperion-eb.com, 2007–2016). They were hacked and leaked by Handala, a group that Distributed Denial of Secrets describes as "believed to have ties to Iranian intelligence", and were published by Distributed Denial of Secrets in August 2025. The emails carry no cryptographic signatures, and Distributed Denial of Secrets warns that material from such hack-and-leak operations may have been altered.[9]
- In May and June 2015 Anna Gőz of the Pallas Athene Geopolitical Foundation, which she said "has been established by the Central Bank of Hungary in 2014", organised a visit by Barak and his wife to Budapest on 1–3 July 2015. A draft programme sent on 18 June 2015, copied to an official of the Hungarian foreign ministry in Tel Aviv and to staff of the central bank, said that the central bank's security department would organise the visit and that the foundation would cover transfers. Barak commented to his wife: "They don't have to pay for the security detail."[10]
See also
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Austria
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Czechia
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Poland
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Portugal
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Slovakia
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Spain
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Switzerland
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 World Jewish Congress, Community in Hungary worldjewishcongress.org, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Anita Komuves and Maayan Lubell, Israeli leader Netanyahu applauds Hungary's ICC exit on Budapest visit Reuters, 3 April 2025, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ United Nations General Assembly, Recorded vote on A/80/L.1/Rev.1: Endorsement of the New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, 12 September 2025 (copy hosted by Al-Quds Al-Arabi).
- ↑ Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Diplomatic Missions Abroad: Status of relations mfa.gov.il, archived 5 August 2011.
- ↑ Reuters, Hungarian lawmakers approve bill to quit International Criminal Court Reuters, 20 May 2025, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Israel says its criticism of Hungary's anti-George Soros campaign is not a defense of the man JTA, 9 July 2017, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Arms Transfers Database SIPRI, trade register for Israel as supplier, 1950–2025, data generated 20 October 2026.
- ↑ Central Bureau of Statistics (Israel), Foreign Trade Statistics Monthly, Table D1: Trade Countries – Imports and Exports CBS, December 2025 issue (library copy).
- ↑ Distributed Denial of Secrets, Ehud Barak emails, 27 August 2025, with download at data.ddosecrets.org, accessed 25 October 2026.
- ↑ Emails between Anna Gőz, Nili Priell Barak and Ehud Barak, "Visit to Budapest, 2015. 07. 01_03" (26 May 2015) and "Budapest visit 1-3, July, 2015" (18–19 June 2015), file
ehbarak1@gmail.com/Inbox!14/1 (158).html; ehbarak1@gmail.com/Inbox!15/1 (443).html, Ehud Barak emails, Distributed Denial of Secrets, released 27 August 2025 (hacked and leaked by the Handala group), accessed 25 October 2026.