Budapest drops plans to name street for anti-Semitic writer

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(JTA) — The City Council of Budapest has dropped a plan to name a street after an anti-Semitic author.

Disputes over the plan to name the street for Cecile Tormay, a Hungarian writer who died in 1937, had become “too sharp,” Mayor Istvan Tarlos was quoted as telling the Hungarian MTI news agency on Tuesday.

In June, Tarlos ordered a re-examination of the City Council’s decision to recognize Tormay after the World Jewish Congress and the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities, or Mazsihisz, protested the decision.

Mazsihisz said Tormay had “inspired” many anti-Semitic thinkers and leaders in Hungary, including Miklos Horthy, the country’s pro-Nazi ruler during World War II, when 400,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered.

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