The Jewish community is deeply disturbed by a speech in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies denouncing Jews for alleged economic crimes and urging that “We must put a stop to these scoundrels.”
The speaker was Miguel Angel Olea Enriquez, the representative from Chihuahua of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), the ruling party in the Mexican government.
Official sources promptly assured the Jewish community that Enriquez spoke for himself and that his anti-Semitic remarks in no way reflect the position of the party or the government. They pointed out that Mexico’s Constitution holds all citizens equal without regard to race or religion. Nevertheless, the Central Jewish Committee, official representative of the Jewish community, lodged protests with government agencies and parliamentary leaders and have asked for clarifications of the situation.
Although his remarks were aimed broadly against industrialists and exporters who benefit from the devalued Peso and allegedly squeeze workers and object to currency restrictions, Enriquez singled out Jews specifically as “experts” in speculation and tax evaders and implied that they are among “Mexican traitors, shameless people and profiteers,” forgers of export licenses who send much needed Dollars abroad.
A Mexican newspaper Excelsior, which published a report of the speech on December 2, headlined the story “Many Contractors Violate the Exchange Law, Signals the PRI.” One of the subheads, highlighted in yellow ink, read “Urges To Put a Stop to the ‘Jewish Mexican Experts’ in Speculation.”
STATEMENT DENOUNCED BY WIESENTHAL CENTER
A telex sent by Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean, and Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean, of the Simon Wiesenthal Center at Yeshiva University of Los Angeles to the Mexican Ambassador in Washington, Jorge Espinosa de los Reyes, strongly denounced the “outrageous anti-Semitic remarks” of Enriquez. The two rabbis demanded that Enriquez “be dismissed from his position.”
The telex stated further: “To single out and blame Mexico’s economic problems upon its 35,000 Jews is scapegoating in its worst form. There should be no place in any civilized society for this type of behavior.” Hier and Cooper also compared Enriquez’s remarks to the utterances “by Julius Streicher and Joseph Goebbels in Berlin, December 1933.”
A spokesperson for the Wiesenthal Center told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency last night that the Mexican Ambassador has invited Hier and Cooper with a delegation of six persons to meet with him in Washington on Thursday.
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