Ambassador, Church Criticize Philippine Press’ Anti-semitism

The Philippine ambassador to the United States has joined the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila in denouncing an anti-Semitic campaign being waged against a Jew in the Philippine media.

The target of the attacks is David Weil, who represents a number of multinational firms that supply goods to the Duty Free Philippines (DEP) stores.

Weil and Benjamin Lim, DFP general manager, are engaged in a bitter business dispute, whose ramifications apparently reach to the highest levels of government.

Columnists in some major Philippine newspapers have entered the dispute by focusing on Weil’s Jewishness.

A column in the Manila Times, considered the country’s leading daily, carried the headline “Jew-ty Free.” The writer of that column refers to Weil as “Mr. Jew-ty Free.”

Another columnist, writing in the Manila Bulletin, quotes an unidentified reader, who lambasts “this Jewish trader,” while a third paper refers to “a Jew named David Weil.”

In response to a protest by Neil Sandberg, director of the American Jewish Committee’s Pacific Rim Institute, Raul Ch. Rabe, the Philippine ambassador in Washington, wrote that because he frequently speaks out against Filipino stereotyping in the United States, he is particularly sensitive to the AJCommittee’s concerns.

Rabe promised to alert government and press officials to the anti-Semitic attacks. He noted that his country has “no history of anti-semitism” and has been recognized for sheltering Jews fleeing Nazi persecution.

Earlier, Cardinal Jaime Sin, Archbishop of Manila, voiced his concern about the anti-Semitic language in the media in a letter to the Weil family and pledged to “raise the matter to the proper authorities.”

He closed the letter by stating, “The Catholic Church is one with you in this protest. We are brothers.”