Marking the first day of the Jewish holiday Hanukkah, Slomó Köves, the chief rabbi of the Unified Hungarian Jewish Congregation (EMIH), said that waiting for a miracle is not the antidote to action, but a prerequisite. “If we work for a miracle, it will happen,” Köves said, lighting the first candle for the eight-day holiday in Budapest’s Nyugati Square. The Hungarian Jewish community knows that “the past 25-30 years are a real miracle,” Köves said. It is a miracle that Jews in Hungary can proudly practice their faith and it is the Jewish community itself that needed to make this happen, he added.
Balázs Fürjes, a state secretary at the Prime Minister’s Office, wished the Jewish community a happy holiday on behalf of the government. He said the country’s Christian and Jewish communities “somewhere deep down are one”. Fürjes said he was convinced that there would come a moment “when we will be fully one”. But, he added, “we can already say today that there is a lot more that unites us than divides us.”