Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Jewish Congress, said here today that the problems of Latin American Jewry stem not so much from an overt anti-Semitic movement as from tensions and instability on the continent. “When tensions of a revolutionary nature are present, we Jews, as a minority, always become its first victims.” Dr. Goldmann said.
The Jewish leader arrived here yesterday to attend the forthcoming fifth conference of Latin American Jewish Communities. At a press conference today he discussed a wide range of subjects covering the status of Jews in various countries. He said that, in Latin America, Jews should not ignore anti-Semitic manifestations. But he indicated that he did not see them as a major threat. He noted that the anti-Jewish Tacuara movement existed in Buenos Aires a few years ago. remarking “those who burned the Israeli pavilion at the Buenos Aires trade fair a few weeks ago were not friends of the Jews.”
Dr. Goldmann said today’s biggest threat to Jews does not come from traditional anti-Semites of the extreme right but from the “new phenomenon” of anti-Zionism of the extreme left. He noted that anti-Zionism reached spectacular proportions in the Soviet Union right after the Arab-Israel war of June, 1967. He said it was “violent and nasty” in Poland where “surely 20,000 Jews are in danger. This mental perversion has shown itself among leftist groups in Western countries which have developed anti-Israel feelings of such violence it is difficult to say where anti-Zionism ends and anti-Semitism begins,” he said.
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