Music, food, literature, theatre, film, children's programmes, exhibitions and a café and bookshop will be on offer for visitors to the centre.
The Israeli soprano Ye'ela Avital will give two concerts and lead a workshop during the week. She will be joined by the jazz guitarist Dániel Kardos. The Hungarian artists Sándor Kardos, András Borgula and Diana Groó will give a talk at the Israeli film club. And the Golem Theatre will present the stories of Etgar Keret.
The Israeli internet journalist Attila Somfalvi together with the Hungarian journalist Júlia Váradi will give a talk entitled Politics and Media in Israel and Hungary on February 24.
Zvi Gitelman, a guest professor of Jewish studies at the Central European University, will speak on democracy and Jewish identity in Israel on February 24. Gitelman's colleague Michael Miller will give a talk on the identity of Hungarian Jews on February 22.
Among the exhibitions will be one of photographs of Christian churches in Israel by the Israeli-born photographer Ritter Doron, who lives in Budapest.
The master chefs Eszter Füszeres and Ofer Várdi will be on the gastronomy programme.
The Israeli Cultural Institute in Budapest, established in September 2009, is not a government initiative, but an effort by the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) together with private Hungarian and Israeli individuals. The Israeli Moti Zisser bought the building for the institute and it is hoped a base of supporters can make the institute a successful and independent organisation.
Financial coordinator for the project Marcell Kenesei said the most important aims were to make the institute transparent and to put it on several footings in terms of finance.
