[eli_gottlieb]

Hi, I'm an Israeli Jew.

The entire latter half of your "evidence" video is completely mistranslated. I would have to say deliberately.

Shimon Peres is talking about how amazing it is that Israel has achieved developed-country status.

Pashut ein lanu maspik shuk mekomi gadol. That doesn't mean anything about our talents or dynamism. It literally reads: "We simply don't have enough of a large local market." He's talking about Israeli exports.

The sentence "Anachnu konim et Manhattan, et ...." (literally: We are buying Manhattan, ....) does occur early in the video, but without a whole lot of additional context it's meaningless. He's using a simple, conversational mode of Hebrew there, in which it could mean "We're conspiring to purchase all the buildings in these countries with our Joo Moniez", but it much more likely means, "Israelis can now buy apartments in these locations."

So basically, your far-right is playing the Jooz Card to pacify your proper rage against the consequences of neoliberal economic policies in Hungary.

I'm descended from a once-somewhat-prominent Hungarian Jewish family, but if you actually believe this kind of crap, the chance I'm visiting Budapest where my great-grandparents lived any time soon is basically null.

[randomchars]

I don't have actual sources (and I don't think they exist) about how widespread antisemitism is in Hungary, but anecdotally it's like one in three. I know way too many who openly hate Jews.

I've heard people talk openly about how there should be another holocaust.

I find it depressing, or even scary that I live in a county with people like this. While I'm not aware of any recent attacks against Jews, so technically you should be safe, but I still can't wholeheartedly recommend you to come here.

[Vivtek]

Dude, I know Jews here who openly hate Jews. Hungarians talk a lot of bullshit.

[randomchars]

As in Hungarian Jews hating Israeli Jews?

[Vivtek]

As in Hungarian ethnic Jews telling me how sneaky Jews are. It's kind of weird.

[wslh]

The recent history of Hungary is very sad, and we must remember also that it was also a model in education in the past and the best minds, including John von Neumann, came from Hungary. The list on Wikipedia is illustrative: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hungarians

For a quick overview of the Hungarian history I recommend the film Sunshine (1999): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0145503/

[Vivtek]

I will also say that John von Neumann was (ethnically) Jewish, and left because of rampant antisemitism among the academic community at the time. Antisemitism is an endemic problem in Hungary, and it would be foolish of me to pretend it wasn't.

For an American, the weirdest thing about Hungarian racism is the fact that they widely discriminate against people who are visually exactly identical to one another. There are many people who don't know they're Jewish here - that Jobbik guy being a case in point (sorry, I don't remember his name, but it was pretty funny).

I just heard a joke the other day. There are three women at a hospital giving birth on the same day - a Magyar, a Roma, and a African woman. Unfortunately, all the paperwork is misplaced, and nobody is sure which baby is which. So the Magyar woman grabs the black baby and screams, "I'm keeping this one until we can figure out which of the other ones is a gypsy!"

This was told to me by a Hungarian - an older guy who always says hi when we walk the dog past his workshop - laughing about the racist element who discriminates based on nothing. Food for thought.

[friendly_chap]

I did not see that particular movie yet but the movies are generally not a good source of information.

[wslh]

Yes, don't expect "Hungary for Dummies" and the movie traverses many generations.

Just curious: how is the education level of computer science in Hungary now?

[jeffasinger]

I would imagine it's still very good, at least on the theoretical side.

Hungary has perhaps the strongest mathematical tradition of any country, particularly in graph theory and other combinatorial math.

[wslh]

I am not sure, that's why I am asking.

On TopCoder Hungary is ranked #39. On the ACM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACM_International_Collegiate_P... they are not in the top.

On IMO http://www.imo-official.org/results.aspx the numbers are also not good.

[Vivtek]

Remember that the population of Hungary is about 1/30th of that of the United States. Correct for population size and you may get more interesting statistics.

You would not believe how excellent math education is here, and how important education is in the culture in general. Very stark difference from the United States.

[friendly_chap]

The theoretical foundations for math and CS is very strong, however, most newgrads has no real world experience neither particularly useful practical skills.

[Vivtek]

Don't worry, you're safe in Budapest. What's going on with Jobbik is pretty clearly the rich fanning the flames of division in order to cement control of the economy.

Although I suppose that's what most antisemitism always is, when you boil it down. But (for example) Hit Gyülekezet is a large, powerful, pro-Israel church here.

[Vivtek]

Let's put it this way - you're more likely to encounter overt antisemitism in Chicago than in Budapest.

[friendly_chap]

I am also descended partly from a Hungarian Jewish family.

I think Shimon Peres is not talking about "Israelis can now buy apartments in these locations" scenario, Jewish people can do that for like decades, that would have no frigging information content. So why should I believe that?

[eli_gottlieb]

I think Shimon Peres is not talking about "Israelis can now buy apartments in these locations" scenario, Jewish people can do that for like decades,

It was allowed for decades, yes, but it's only in the past decade or so that Israel has achieved the wealth of a First World country. It used to be that an Israeli would need a foreign, First World source of income to buy property outside Israel. Hell, it sometimes used to be (and still is, in the premier locations of Israel!) that an Israeli would need an exogenous income source (family savings or illicit money or something) to afford property in Israel!

But the thing is, given only 40 seconds of footage clipped out and mistranslated by a far-right nutter, I can't tell you for crap what Peres actually meant. I can, however, assure you that neither Jews nor Israelis own whole cities.