Fear of Anti-semitism in Argentina is Subjective, Jewish Leader Says

There is fear of anti-Semitism in the Argentine Jewish community but it cannot be attributed to anything concrete, Dr. Isaac Goldenberg, president of DAIA, the Jewish community’s central representative body, said here today.

Dr. Goldenberg was asked, in an interview in the daily newspaper, Correo de la Tarde, whether the DAIA had received from its members any charges of anti-Semitism since the new Government was formed here. Replying that no charges of that kind had been received, he was asked whether there was fear in the Jewish community. Dr. Goldenberg answered: “Yes, indeed, I perceive it but I cannot attribute it to anything concrete, only to something environmental, subjective. “

The Buenos Aires Herald, only English-language daily newspaper in this country, declared today that “smear campaigns about the Government being infiltrated by anti-Semitic neo-Fascists are sweeping and dubious.”

Patricio Errecalte Pueyrredon, the leader of the ultra-right wing Tacuara group banned by the regime of former President Illia, who was received recently by Enrique Martinez, Interior Minister in the present regime of President Ongania, said here today that his organization was not anti-Semitic.

Replying to questions in an interview published in the weekly, Confirmado, the Tacuara leader denied that his group was anti-Semitic and said that “for us all men are equal before God.” He added, however, that “insofar as the international situation makes of Israel a base of imperialism with Zionism one of its tentacles, we are mortally and bloodily anti-Zionist.” He claimed in the interview that Tacuara had some Jews among its membership.