Disquieting reports of neo-Nazi assaults on Jewish property in Spain and recent manifestations of anti-Semitism in that country have prompted the International Council of Jewish Women (ICJW) to alert its membership for petition drives to the Spanish ambassadors in their respective countries. Eleanor Marvin, president of the ICJW, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that a letter from her organization’s Spanish affiliate reported wide-spread destruction including three Jewish-owned warehouses in Madrid.
The letter also reported the proliferation of anti-Semitic graffiti in the form of swastikas and crosses all over the Spanish capital. Tension between Madrid’s 3000-member Jewish community and neo-Nazi elements was heightened last month when a moss was called at the Almudena Cathedral to mark the anniversary of Hitler’s birth. The mass was cancelled at the last minute.
Marvin and Shirley Leviton, president of the National Council of Jewish Women, told the JTA that they did not know to what if any degree the Spanish government and the church were in complicity with the neo-Nazi acts. But it is clear, they said, that Madrid’s Jewish community intends to fight back and wants its situation brought to the attention of Jews throughout the world. Leviton commented on the courage of the small Spanish-Jewish community in its determination to protest neo-Nazism in their country. She quoted a passage from the letter to Marvin which said: “We have become an echo of Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s words in his speech at the celebration of Yom Haatzmaut (Israel Independence Day) — ‘The period of the Masada is gone. We have returned to the Macabbean’.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
