I am on a mission to tell the truth about Hungary. What is it really like there, and why is there such a concerted effort in the Western media to demonize this country?

That journey took me and Rebel News videographer Lincoln Jay all over the country, and now as far as Romania. But I'm glad it has, because we bumped into an expert on one of the questions that I've been asking. A lot of hostile rhetoric regarding Hungary implies the country is somehow intolerant or bigoted toward minorities, migrants and gay people. And one of the calumnies I've heard repeated often is that the country is antisemitic.

This triggered alarm bells for me because, first of all, I'm concerned about genuine antisemitism. I'm Jewish myself, and even if I weren't, I would like to think I'd be against antisemitism. But secondly — I know that playing that card and calling someone antisemitic has become a go-trick these days to smear a critic who may simply be conservative.

When we were in Budapest, Hungary, we toured the Jewish Quarter and saw magnificent synagogues, and a surprising number of kosher restaurants. But most of the Jews we saw were either tourists from Israel or other Jews who were going to synagogue. I found it somewhat difficult to get actual native Hungarian Jews to appear on camera. I asked several, but they were too shy.

This brings me to our very special guest today, Dr. Jeffrey Kaplan, a distinguished scholar at the Danube Institute. I was delighted to learn that the very question I was seeking to answer in the streets of Budapest, on the experience of Jews in Hungary today, is in fact the study of a two-year work of scholarship by Dr. Kaplan.

You can watch my full interview with him above!

This interview is part of our series exploring the truth about Hungary. You can find all the previous installments at TheTruthAboutHungary.com. And if you'd like to help support my coverage, please consider making a donation on that same page.