Serious problems of anti-Semitism are facing the Jewish community of Guadalajara, Mexico, according to Sergio Nudelstejer, director of the American Jewish Committee’s office for Mexico and Central America, who was in New York this week.
In the past few months, he revealed, the Guadalajara Jewish community suffered two attacks. The first was a bomb placed near a synagogue, which was discovered and deactivated. The second was an attack on the Jewish cemetery, in which a number of tombstones were destroyed.
Guadalajara, the second largest city in Mexico, has become the center of groups distributing vicious anti-Semitic material, Nudelstejer said. One of the journals distributed, “Replica,” is issued by the Federation Anti-communist Mexican (Mexican anti-communist Federation), a fascist, anti-Jewish group in contact with similar organizations around the world.
The Jewish community in Guadalajara numbers 220 families who support a synagogue, a sports center, and a Jewish school, with kindergarten, grammar, and high school levels.
Nudelstejer said he discussed the problems of the city’s Jewish community with Bernardo Weitzner, president of the Central Jewish Committee, the leading body of Mexican Jewry, located in Mexico City. It is expected that the AJCommittee in Mexico and the Central Jewish Committee will meet soon with representatives of Jewish communities in the provinces, in an effort to reduce their sense of isolation, Nudelstejer said. Each gathering will be held in a different city.
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