(Copyright (c) 2007. The Jerusalem Report)

The taxi driver spoke passable English but, after fetching me from the Buda-pest airport terminal, had little to say during the first 10 minutes of our ride into town; my questions received one- word responses.

Then his cell phone rang. He answered quickly, but I thought I recognized the ringtones. A few minutes later, he had another call, and this time I knew I'd heard correctly: It was "Hava Nagila."

"I like that music," I tell him.

"It is klezmer," he says tentatively, adding, "it is a traditional form of music."

"I know," I say. "I'm Jewish. Are you?"

He nods his head, and the conversation begins. Gabor is 20; his great-grandparents were among the 450,000 Hungarian Jews murdered by the Nazis and their cohorts.His grandfather was confined to the Budapest ghetto and his grandmother was hidden during the Holocaust.

On the flight from New York to my Hungarian vacation, I'd studied the April 16 Jerusalem Report article on Hungary, ("Caught in the Middle in Central Europe"), which suggested that the country is not particularly anti-Semitic by East European standards. I pull out the magazine and read Gabor that quote.

He disagrees, saying, "It's very dangerous for Jews in Hungary; there is a lot of racism here, anti-Semitism."

He takes one eye off the road to look at the magazine photo of a demonstrator waving the flag that symbolizes the worst elements of Hungarian nationalism, and virtually spits out the word "skinheads."

Gabor then goes a step farther. "We all have to be secret," he says. A chill runs down my spine as this kid, more than 60 years after Jews here in his hometown were massacred on the banks of the Danube River or dragged from this place to be murdered elsewhere, tells me: "People do not say they are Jew. But I know who is Jew, and who is not Jew. So, when I decide who I talk to and what I say, I select."

The next day, April 15, is Holocaust Memorial Day in Hungary, as it is in Israel. Gabor's dark sentiments seem mistaken, as several thousand people gather for the seventh annual torchlight march from Buda-pest's Holocaust Memorial Center to its legendary Dohany Street Synagogue. A woman standing with her husband, one of the few men in the crowd I see wearing a kippa, apologizes that she doesn't speak English and only a little Hebrew, even though her son has lived in Israel for 12 years and she's visited him many times.

She estimates that 70 or 80 percent of the crowd is Jewish, with the remainder consisting of student groups opposed to racism and anti-Semitism. I take that as an optimistic sign.

Another positive note: The country's charismatic and controversial prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany shows up for the march, along with his Jewish wife. Also in attendance: opposition leader Viktor Orban, (whose supporters include neo-Nazis), and members of the Hungarian Parliament.

Gyurcsany, incidentally, steps out of his car 10 feet away from where I'm standing, slightly apart from the crowd, with his back toward me for a full five minutes. Budapest police and his own security detail don't give me a second glance, even though there's been no weapons-screening of the crowd and I could be carrying anything in my camera bag. The next morning, Hungarian reporters - none of whom, apparently, has ever attended the appearance of an Israeli or American head of state - speak and write of the unprecedented security accompany-ing Gyurcsany on his visit to the Jewish community.

The speaker of the Parliament, Katalin Szili, tells the gathering that anti-Semitism and intolerance have "again started to spread like a virus in our continent"; the prime minister, walking alongside elderly Holo-caust survivors, then leads the marchers carrying their flames of remembrance down a grand boulevard through the center of town - a highly emotional moment for all in the street and many onlookers on the sidewalks.

The following night, Bruno Bitter, founder of the ultra-cool blog and website Judapest.org, meets me for dinner at a well-known restaurant, Kispipa, in the old Jewish quarter. We start the meal with a plum brandy called "kosher szilva," and the menu, while heavy with various pork and seafood dishes, also features matza-ball soup and cholent.

Are Jews here in "secret," as Gabor told me? It depends, says Bitter. His own mother, now educational director of the Holocaust Memorial Center, did not know she was Jewish until the age of 16; her parents were atheist socialists who frowned on all religions, but also considered being Jewish the source of enormous pain and suffering. (Bitter's grandfather survived Dachau.)

Estimates of the current Jewish population of Hungary range from 80,000 to 120,000. But Bitter points out that in the latest government census, only 12,000 people openly declared themselves to be Jews.

Many younger people, though, seem to be emerging from the shadows of their parents' and grandparents' trauma and fear. We visit Siraly, a new three-story bar and club with a mezuza at the door (albeit on the inside doorpost, I notice), catering mainly to a 20- something Jewish clientele which openly, happily participates in activities ranging from concerts to lectures to kosher wine-tasting events. Bitter, a marketing research consultant who studied in Jerusalem, gets 1,000 hits a day on his blog, and his thoughtful work to revitalize Hungary's new generation of Hebrews is representative of the eagerness to reclaim a lost heritage.

I ask Valentin, a guide at the Dohany Synagogue, about current Jewish life in Hungary. He, too, mentions the 2000 census, but points out it was taken at a time when a right-wing party was in power. Now, he believes, more Jews would publicly announce their identities. Good to hear, I thought; then again, Valentin never told the tour group that he was guiding through the old shul that he's Jewish, and when he explained a sculpture depicting thousands of Hungarian Jews on a Nazi-enforced "death march," he didn't mention that his own grandmother had escaped from it. That is information he gives me, privately, after the tour.

As I leave Dohany, I ask a woman working there for directions to the Parliament Building. She tells me I must also visit a nearby memorial I've heard nothing about, put up two years ago. "Just walk down to the river a block from Parliament; you'll see it."

It's not easy to get to, and you must know it's there or you'll miss it. But it is one of the most powerful and evocative tributes to the victims of Nazism I've ever seen.

Lined up on a concrete ledge at the edge of the Danube are five dozen pairs of shoes of all kinds: men's, women's and children's; from fancy 1940s-style high-heeled models to everyday workboots. At first glance, it looks like they've all been temporarily left there, some on their sides, others neatly stacked together. Upon closer examination, one realizes these are all cast-iron works of art, bolted to the concrete. It was on this spot in 1944 and 1945 that Hungary's fascist Nazi allies, the Iron Cross militia, forced Jews to strip off their clothes before shooting them into the river, which ran red with their blood.

A plaque reads, "In the memory of the victims shot into the Danube by Arrow Cross Militiamen 1944-45."

I suddenly have a more profound understanding of how living in a city where such horror took place, no matter how long ago, would impact one's decision to openly identify with the objects of such murderous hatred. And I think back to my conversation with Gabor, the cab driver. In light of what he perceives as rampant anti- Semitism, I asked if he had considered moving to New York or Tel Aviv.

"For me," he replies, "I want to go to Las Vegas."

"Las Vegas? Of all places, why Las Vegas?" I ask in astonishment.

"Because," explains Gabor, with all the wisdom of his two decades of life in Budapest, "everything is nice and fun there."