Rabbi Slomo Koves, right, and a participant at Chabad Hungary's 2015 Hanukkah on Ice event at Budapest's City Park Ice Rink, Dec. 6, 2015. (Courtesy of EMIH)

Chabad of Hungary Gets Government Status Upgrade

JTA

Amid a deterioration in relations between some Jewish groups in Hungary, the country’s government elevated the status of an organization affiliated with the Lubavitch-Chabad movement.

On Monday, Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén signed a document that gives the Chabad-affiliated Orthodox EMIH group “special status” – recognition enjoyed by several churches and Mazsihisz, the country’s largest federation of Jewish communities.

Mazsihisz is widely seen as being Neolog, a Central European Jewish denomination that some people describe as being between Orthodoxy and Conservative Judaism in its level of observance.

The special status title allows recognized organizations to receive types of government funding that bodies without the title cannot receive, including core funding and grants for educational work.