Officials
László Kovács
National president
László Kovács was elected president of the national association in 2001 by the representatives of the friends’ societies at their national meeting in Szeged. Prior to that, he had led the Debrecen Society of Friends since 1989.
In the past decades, he has organised and helped to organise numerous programmes at the headquarters of the societies all over the country: lectures, exhibitions, concerts, national meetings, conferences, and publications. Coordinate cooperation between Friends societies, help to set up new Friends societies.
In the course of its activities, it cooperates with public, social and ecclesiastical organisations which share the aims of the association. It liaises regularly with the State of Israel’s representation in Hungary. He has visited Israel on several occasions and an exhibition of photographs taken during his travels has been shown in many places in the country.
In 2023, he was awarded the Hungarian Gold Cross of Merit for his decades of work in strengthening relations between Hungary and the State of Israel, and for his stand against anti-Semitism and for promoting the reality of Israel in Hungary.
Balázs Tallós
Executive Vice President
I have been an entrepreneur since 1992 and an active public figure in business organisations (MKIK, VOSZ) and NGOs for more than two decades. I have been involved in building and developing Hungarian-Israeli relations for almost 15 years. I am a founding member of the Hungarian-Israeli Friendship Society of Western Transdanubia, since 2022 I have been Vice President of the Hungarian-Israeli Friendship Society, since 2022 and since 2023 I have been Executive Vice President of the National Association of Hungarian-Israeli Friendship Societies and Circles. Within the Presidency, I am primarily involved in governmental and international relations, and I am a regular participant in relevant events at home and abroad.
My wife is a ballet teacher and my daughters are students and high school students.
Secretary
Dr. Tamás Csepregi, attorney-at-law, has been a board member of the Hungarian-Israeli Friendship Society of Western Transdanubia in Győr since its foundation in 2018. He is responsible for the continuous organization of the Society’s activities in accordance with the resolutions of the General Assembly and the Presidium, and for the necessary administrative tasks.
Since May 2024, he has also been a member of the Board of the National Federation of Hungarian-Israeli Friendship Societies as Secretary. Since then he has been participating in the work of the Board of the Federation. He has no right of representation and no right to dispose of bank accounts. He is responsible for the administration and legal representation of the Association in accordance with the decisions of the General Assembly and the Bureau.
Dr Tamás Csepregi has been working as a lawyer since 1988, specialising in civil and economic matters. He has four grown-up children and now has five grandchildren.
My name is Ottó Gáll, I was born in 1963, I live in Nyíregyháza with my wife, I have four children of adult age. I am the director of Bethlen Gábor High School, Primary School, Kindergarten and Elementary Art School since 2006. Our association, the Eötvös Károly Hungarian-Israeli Friendship Circle, was founded in 1997, of which I was the President until 2018, and since then I have been helping its work as Honorary President. Until 2023 I had the opportunity to visit Israel ten times, strengthening the twin town relations between Kiryath Motzkin and Nyíregyháza, and Karmiel and Kisvárda. On two occasions, I attended teacher training courses at the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem, where I acquired useful knowledge on Holocaust education. Our association has carried out a wide range of activities over the past almost three decades: exhibitions, Torah dances, Israeli film clubs, book launches, pro-Israel sympathy demonstrations, demonstrations against terrorism and racism, press conferences, meetings with diplomats, academic conferences and many other events. In recent years, we have mainly targeted our programmes at secondary school students, including the national Hanna Senes quiz in secondary schools. As vice-president, I represent the National Association in the counties of Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg, Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén and Hajdú-Bihar.
Contact
For questions about the association, contact the presidents directly at their contact details or contact us using the form here.
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