Report Anti-semitism Remains a Grave Problem for Argentine Jews

Anti-Semitism in some of its ugliest manifestations remains a grave problem for Argentine Jewry even though the military junta has been replaced by a democratic regime sympathetic to Jewish concerns, according to Sion Cohen Imach, president of DAIA, the representative body of the Argentine Jewish community.

“The centers of anti-Semitism remain intact” but what has changed is the attitude of the government whose feelings with respect to the Jewish community are above suspicion, Cohen Imach told a luncheon attended by the heads of the country’s principal Jewish organizations.

The leader of the DAIA, the World Jewish Congress affiliate here, noted that virulent anti-Semitic propaganda persists in publications such as “Cabildo,” “Alerta” and “Masoneria” which continue to appear although they clearly incite race hatred.

At the Catholic University in Salta, a priest appealing to the Almighty to protect the nation from influences alien to national existence, enumerated imperialism, Communism and Zionism, Cohen Imach reported. And the notorious anti-Semitic forgery, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,”is included in the syllabus for a lecture series on Argentine history at the Study Center of Our Lady of Mercy.

The DAIA leader reported further, with regret, that Argentina continues to vote systematically against Israel at international forume despite official declarations of sympathy for the Jewish State.

According to Cohen Imach, the Jewish community must change its tactics of defense against anti-Semitism to conform to the new realities of a democratic regime to which Jews have access. he announced that DAIA representatives will meet shortly with the Minister of Education and Justice to ask that the Argentine school syllabus be expanded to include study of the Holocaust and courses on the prevention of racial hatred and anti-Semitism.