Prime Minister of Hungary Ferenc Gyurcsuny, will attend Rosh HaShanah services at Park East synagogue. Rabbi Arthur Schneier, Senior Rabbi of Park East and President of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, remarked that, “As one who survived the Holocaust in Budapest, I never could have dreamed that 60 years later a democratically elected prime minister of a state that was ruled by a fascist and in the grip of the Nazis would attend Rosh HaShanah services in my synagogue.”
Hungary is now home to a Jewish community of more than 100,000—the second largest in continental Europe. For many years the Appeal of Conscience Foundation has worked to strengthen ties between the religious leadership and communities of Hungary and the United States.