Is Hungary's government two-thirds Jewish? No, that's not true: There is no indication that any member of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's cabinet is a practicing Jew. Orbán and several of his government ministers profess to be Christians, and the government is constitutionally obliged to defend "Christian culture."
The claim appeared in a Hungarian-language video (archived here) on TikTok on October 12, 2023. It showed a group of men in Hasidic Jewish attire dancing in a line, under a text that read:
When you find out that the Hungarian government awaits you with open arms because two-thirds of the government is Jewish.
(Translation by Lead Stories).
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Mon Oct 23 05:07:09 2023 UTC)
Orbán's cabinet was composed of 15 men at the time of writing. These include his stridently Roman Catholic deputy prime minister, Zsolt Semjén, and Foreign Minister Péter Szijjartó, who prioritizes the need to preserve Hungary's "Christian" character.
It is impossible to determine the religious and ethnic affiliations of each cabinet member's ancestors. However, a Google search of the Hungarian keywords "zsidó származású magyar kormánytagok" ("Hungarian government members of Jewish origin," archived here) conducted on October 24, 2023, does not turn up any cabinet member's name.
By Orbán's lights, Christianity is a cornerstone of Hungarian nationhood. In 2011, he oversaw the ratification of a new constitution, known as the Fundamental Law, which states:
The protection of the constitutional identity and Christian culture of Hungary shall be an obligation of every organ of the State.
It also stipulates that Hungarian children shall be raised "in accordance with the values based on the constitutional identity and Christian culture of our country."
Some 7,635 Hungarians identified as observant Jews in the 2022 census, and a 2017 study published by the Hungarian Jewish periodical Szombat estimated the maximum number of Hungarians of Jewish descent at 110,679, or 1.2 percent of Hungary's total population.
Despite these meager numbers, Jews are often accused of exercising outsized influence on Hungarian politics. In 2012, politician Márton Gyöngyösi demanded that officials compile a list of Jewish operatives in Orbán's cabinet and the Hungarian Parliament. He apologized for the incident in 2023.
