Budapest

The weekend I came back from Israel, my whole program went to Budapest. It was funny, cuz I just flew through Budapest on my way back from Israel and then took a 7 hour bus ride there from Prague the next day.
We learned about the Jewish Community and the present state of anti-Semitism in Hungary. We went to the Dohany Synagogue, the second largest in the world. We went there for services and there were about 80 people there...but they told us it is full on the high holidays. I saw Viki who I met in Prague who lives in Budapest and she told me to come to shul Saturday morning at her shul. So I did...it was nice.

There are around 100,000 Jews in the city which is huuuge cuz prague has about 4,000. Most dont identify as jewish but are technically Jewish. The neo-Arrow cross party has just become more public there. This party led Hingary in the interwar period and was actively anti-Semitic. We were told about them and they wear arrow cross flags on the arms, but we actually saw them. There was a guy there who was wearing a Nike swoosh shirt but instead of saying Nike it said Nazi. It was scary...

Budapest was a nice city overall...very beautiful