Jewish groups protest visit of Iran’s Ahmadinejad to university in Hungary

Hungarian Jewish organizations and the Israeli embassy condemn a public university for inviting Iran’s former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to an event this week.

The Budapest-based Ludovika University of Public Service invited the politician — who has said Israel is doomed to be “wiped off the map” and that the Holocaust was a “myth” — to an academic meeting.

Two Hungarian Jewish congregations, together with a Jewish advocacy group, are the latest to protest the visit of “openly antisemitic” Ahmadinejad in a joint statement today. They urge the university “to consider whether it wishes to give Ahmadinejad the opportunity to spread his dangerous and poisonous ideas within the walls of the institution.”

Ludovika University does not respond to AFP’s request for comment. Hungary’s Foreign Ministry says the government “does not interfere in university programs.”