Still Running Off at the Keyboard

ANOTHER BIT ON GEORGE SOROS AND THE WORLD JEWISH CONGRESS

This comes from a communication from the Institute of the World Jewish Congress and is dated December 2002. (If you don't have time to read all of it, skip to the last paragraph:

The largest Jewish community in East Central Europe

Estimates of the number of Jews in Hungary range from some 60,000 to 80,000 and even higher; the overwhelming majority are concentrated in Budapest, the capital. What is clear is that whatever their actual number the great majority is unaffiliated with the official community or its institutions. According to some sources only 6,000 are members of the Jewish community and another 20,000 even if they are not members have some tie with a Jewish body or institution that requires registration. In recent years many persons have rediscovered their Jewish origins and reasserted their Jewish identity.

Although Jews who wish to live as Jews have every facility at their disposal, catering to their spiritual and temporal needs, from the cradle to the grave as it were (including more than 20 synagogues, Jewish schools, a Jewish press, a Jewish hospital, etc) Jewish communal life in its present form does not seem to attract the masses. Echoing tendencies in the United States and elsewhere the memory of the Holocaust seems to be the most significant factor in cementing the Jewish identity of many Hungarian Jews. Both the JDC and the Lauder Foundation are active in Hungary mainly in social welfare and educational work. In recent years Chabad has been playing a greater role in the Hungarian Jewish scene, but given the community's tendency toward integration and acculturation, as well as its economic security, it seems doubtful that the ultra-Orthodox group can ultimately wield more than a marginal influence. According to sociologist Andras Kovacs, for the most part Hungarian Jews are well off. Their standard of living and education is well above the national average - and they are well integrated into the Hungarian mainstream.

Foreign ownership of and investment in Hungarian firms is widespread, with cumulative foreign direct investment totaling $23 billion by 2000. Israel is one of the country's largest foreign investors and many of the prestigious real estate developments (including mammoth shopping malls) are being financed with Israeli capital. This has drawn considerable public comment. Significantly, foreign Jewish investors (most notably George Soros and Ronald Lauder) have been targeted by the antisemitic press. (emphasis mine)

Ronald Lauder is (or was recently) President of the World Jewish Congress. He is the son of cosmetics giant Estee Lauder.

It almost sounds as though George Soros and Ronald Lauder are sharing the country of Hungary! Does this make them competitors? Is something similar happening in Poland? And if it is, does Radio Maria oppose it?