The American Spectator

br> — Dan Martin br> Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania /p> p> STILL SOROS br> Re: Jackie Mason & Raoul Felder’s The Sorry Tale of George Soros : /p>

The article by Mason & Felder on George Soros was shocking to read.

An American, I have lived the past three years in Budapest, Hungary and I am proud to have been a witness to Soros’s engagement in the development of democratic values in Hungary and in neighboring emerging democratic countries. George Soros is a classical liberal (some might rather say, libertarian) and a strong advocate of open societies in the mode of his mentor, Sir Karl Popper. His position on the estate tax could be taken from the pages of any of the classical liberal economists. George Soros has been willing to put his money where his mouth is and support the development of open societies in a variety ways, but chiefly through education, for example, in founding Central European University, promoting debate societies for young people, or sponsoring programs to educate and train member of the Roma minority.

Sadly, I have also been witness to a real and virulent anti-Semitism which has constantly had George Soros and his values as a central public target. In Hungary, as well as in other central European states, the political rhetoric of the nationalist right has come to focus its attacks on a nexus of persons and ideas, in which Soros, classical liberalism, and open societies are central and barely disguised terms of anti-Jewish rhetoric. In fact, in the past election cycles, the extreme right has come to both target liberalism rather than socialism, and identify explicitly or tacitly liberalism with Jews. Even more alarming, the mainstream right — led in Hungary by ex-Prime Minister Victor Orban, a former Soros scholarship recipient — has either tolerated or joined in such rhetoric.

p>George Soros is at the frontline, a frequent target of virulent anti-Semitic verbal attacks and physical threats. That his own opinion on issues like estate taxes or the current policy of the government of Israel should differ from that of Messrs. Mason and Felder should — in our own open society — be the basis of deep discussion and reasoned debate. It is a shame that instead a consequential reading of Mason & Felder leads to no other surmise than that they would have rather had Soros and his family perish in the Holocaust than survive. Here, on the democratic frontier, I must say, thank God that George Soros has survived and thrived. br> —