Youths tell Hungarian cantor, wife ‘they belong in the gas chamber’

Daniel Rosenfeld says 5 young men called him and his wife ‘filthy Jews,’ shouted Nazi salute as they were returning from synagogue

By Cnaan Liphshiz 31 August 2019, 2:34 pm

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Cnaan Liphshiz was a Jewish World reporter at The Times of Israel

The main square in Nyíregyháza, Hungary. (Public domain, Wikipedia, David Sallay)

JTA — Five young men in Hungary told a Jewish community activist on the street that he and his wife they are “filthy Jews” who “belong in the gas chamber,” the alleged victims told police.

In the August 18 incident in Nyíregyháza, Daniel Rosenfeld and his wife were returning from praying at the local synagogue when the men approached them, the Jewish newspaper Szombat reported last week. Rosenfeld is a cantor and chairman of the Commemorative Committee for the Hungarian Jewish Freedom Fighters.

“There was also spitting and yelling ‘Filthy Jews belong in the gas chamber, off to the gas chamber with them,” Rosenfeld told Szombat. They also shouted the Nazi salute “Sieg Heil,” he said.

Police began a search using closed circuit television footage, Szombat reported.

Anti-Semitic intimidation on the street is relatively rare in Hungary, where about 100,000 Jews live.