Csanad Szegedi. Photo: Screenshot/YouTube.

JNS.org – A former Hungarian far-right party leader and outspoken antisemite is making aliyah to Israel after discovering his Jewish roots.

Csanad Szegedi, 34, a prominent member of the nationalist Jobbik party, discovered in 2012 that his maternal grandmother was Jewish and had survived Auschwitz. He was shocked by the revelation, and by the fact that “the Holocaust really happened.”

Szegedi told the Hebrew daily Ma’ariv, “I had this set value system that I had to change completely. I had this value system until I was 30, and I had to admit that it was all wrong and to find the will to change.”

Over the next few years, Szegedi distanced himself from Jobbik and his previously held antisemitic views. He began observing Judaism and following its practices, including being circumcized. Recently, the politician and his family applied to immigrate to the Jewish state.

“Israel is an amazing country, and I believe that every Jew who lives in the Diaspora seriously considers making aliyah to Israel, at least once in his life,” he said. “After the nightmares that my relatives underwent in the Holocaust, my family and I very much want to be part of the positive dream that Israel constitutes for us.”

Szegedi is actively campaigning against antisemitism in Europe, and plans to get involved with Israeli organizations that also battle persecution.