The charge d’affaires of the Chilean legation at Washington, Senor Benjamin Cohen, embarked on the S.S. Santa Barbara Saturday afternoon to attend the Pan-American Conference to be held in Montevideo this month. He is to be the Chilean delegate-at-large.
A few minutes before Senor Cohen sailed he gave an interview to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Surrounding the swarthy-skinned South American Jewish statesman was a retinue of colleagues who have returned from a series of talks with President Roosevelt about Pan-American relations.
They were chatting in Spanish. In a great solid mass before the gangplanks of the Santa Barbara were American-made products which are to make up the cargo.
Senor Cohen was happy to talk about the Jews in his country, in fact he wished he had more time so that he might describe in detail one of the oldest Jewish settlements in the Western hemisphere esconced in Chile. The colony is made up of descendants of Spanish-Jews who immigrated three centuries ago. They are a dark-skinned race, said Senor Cohen, and have preserved ancient customs of prayer and dietary regulations. Otherwise they are undistinguishable from their fellows.
Is there much anti-Semitism in South American countries?
Senor Cohen said he didn’t want to emphasize the situation which exists, but there is a situation. In universities and professional schools there is discrimination, he said, against Jewish students. Likewise there exists to a small degree a kind of aloofness on the part of non-Jewish social leaders.
“There is a strange coldness,” he said, “between Jewish families of old standing in the community and newly-immigrated Jews. But I suppose this is to be expected.”
Asked whether barriers against immigration are high in the South American nations, Senor Cohen said that they are not more strict than those of any other countries.
He said that German refugees would be welcomed provided they have sufficient capital to save them from depending on State resources. He said that farmers, and not industrial laborers, are always welcome.
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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.
