Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: What’s keeping them there?

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Article.aspx?id=174105
 From Hungary and Austria, come to Israel!
By JERUSALEM POST EDITORIAL
27/04/2010 	
Austria has managed to avoid blame for the Holocaust by claiming it was 
a victim of Nazi aggression, even though the Anschluss was well-received.
On Sunday, Hungarian voters transformed the anti-Semitic Jobbik Party 
into a political power to be reckoned with.
Jobbik, or the Movement for a Better Hungary, was catapulted to 47 seats 
in the 386-seat legislature in the second round of voting. In parallel, 
the ruling Socialist Party was dethroned, falling from 190 to just 59 
seats while its coalition partner, the Liberal Party, which enjoyed 
strong Jewish support, lost its parliamentary presence altogether.
In Austria on Sunday, meanwhile, Barbara Rosenkranz, the Freedom Party 
candidate for presidency, who is also known as the “Reich mother,” 
earned 15 percent of the nation’s votes. She was never expected to win 
the presidential race, which went to incumbent Heinz Fischer, who won 
almost 79% of the vote. In fact, Rosenkranz’s showing was lower than the 
expected 17%. Nevertheless, the present Austrian political climate is 
hardly congenial to Jews.
Right-wing elements in Austria are already attempting to delegitimize 
Fischer, voted in on an extremely low voter turnout of just over 49%, 
with the claim that he represents less than half of the voters. They 
hope Rosenkranz’s high profile campaign will pave the way for FP leader 
Heinz-Christian Strache to be voted the next mayor of Vienna later in 
the year.
The very fact that Fischer’s only plausible rival in the race was the 
far-right challenger from a party repeatedly tarnished by Nazi 
associations is indicative of a “terrifying shift to the right” across 
Europe, according to Germany's Central Council of Jews.
There is nothing new about anti-Semitism in Austria and Hungary. 
Austrians have managed to avoid culpability for the Holocaust by 
claiming they were victims of Nazi aggression, even though the 1938 
Anschluss was positively received and Austrians were disproportionately 
represented in Nazi leadership.
What has become the “founding myth” of Austria’s Second Republic has 
facilitated the integration of former Nazis into key positions over the 
years. In February 2000, after the FP, then headed by the late neo-Nazi 
Jorg Haider, was included in the country’s government coalition, Chaim 
Chesler, then-treasurer of the Jewish Agency, called on the Jews of 
Austria to immigrate to Israel immediately.
In post-communist Hungary, anti-Semitism has been fueled primarily by 
claims of a Judeo-Bolshevik nexus. Historically, Jews played key roles 
in the short-lived Bolshevik Revolution of 1919 led by Bela Kun and 
after 1945 a small clique of Hungarian “Muscovite Jews” rallied around 
the ultra-Stalinist Matyas Rakosi, whose rule ended with the 1956 
popular uprising against Soviet rule.
In 1990, after the fall of communism, Istvan Csurka, the vice president 
of the Hungarian Democratic Forum, a popular political party at the 
time, openly blamed “Jewish Stalinists” for having destroyed the 
self-esteem of the Hungarian people.
THERE ARE an estimated 50,000 to 80,000 Jews in Hungary and 9,000 to 
20,000 in Austria. What’s keeping them there?
As historian Matti Bunzl has pointed out, post-Holocaust Jews of Austria 
have throughout the years disavowed any Austrian identity. They may have 
Austrian citizenship, but this is rarely experienced as anything but a 
formal arrangement. It is safe to assume that many Hungarian Jews feel 
the same, which explains the high rates of aliya from both of countries 
until the end of the 20th century.
In the last decade, though, a strong Zionism has gradually been replaced 
by hopes that the European Union would offer a political entity that 
provides affiliation regardless of ethnic belonging or nationality – 
similar, ironically, to what was offered in the 19th century by the 
Austro-Hungarian Hapsburg Empire.
Jews might have difficulty integrating themselves in a specific European 
state characterized by a distinct culture, history and religion. But 
they would find it easier to define themselves more generically as 
“Europeans,” a term devoid of all the ethnically charged particularism 
surrounding “Austrian” or “Hungarian.”
Now, perhaps the time has come for the Jews of Austria and Hungary to 
reassess the European reality. Between the influx of large numbers of 
Muslims, who are gradually becoming the main perpetrators of 
anti-Semitic violence in Europe, and the rise of a rabidly xenophobic 
Right, as evidenced in the recent elections in Hungary and Austria, 
Europe, or at least a goodly part of it, is becoming a very unwelcoming 
place for Jews.

 place for Jews.
noto che in tutto l'articolo non si cita un solo episodio di
antisemitismo violento. Impressive...