At least 120 protesters wore the yellow star over the weekend in Budapest in solidarity with former Chief Rabbi Joseph Schweitzer, age 90, targeted with vicious anti-Semitic abuse.  Demonstrators stood in a line facing the center of Budapest Parliament Building to express their solidarity with the rabbi. 

Last Tuesday Rabbi Schweitzer was targeted by a young man who tormented him with verbal abuse as he walked alone on the street. For several minutes the young man persisted, hurling insults at the elderly rabbi.

Among some of the epithets he shouted: “I hate all Jews!”

In response to the verbal attack and to Budapest’s past, several political parties and even a number of Christian churches decisively condemned the incident as senseless abuse, calling the incident a  “cowardly attack.”

The Federation of Jewish Communities in Hungary also issued a condemnation of the incident.