Unpleasant Memories, New Fears Trouble the Jews of Argentina

Unpleasant memories of the era of Juan Peron have been haunting Argentina’s 250,000 Jews since the victory of the Peron’s party candidate, Carlos Saul Menem, in the May 14 presidential elections.

The parallels between that era and now are deeply troubling, according to information gleaned from telephone conversations with Jewish figures in Buenos Aires and talks here with Jewish officials who have visited Argentina.

During Peron’s presidency, and that of his widow, Isabel, who succeeded him, Jews were scapegoated in Argentina.

Militant anti-Semitic groups erupted from within the populist Peron’s movement. Nazi war criminals who found haven in Argentina emerged from the woodwork and even flaunted their pasts.

Menem, 59, who won election by an over-whelming majority, is still an unknown quantity to Argentine Jews. His remarks on subjects of concern to Jews have been ambivalent at best and have smacked of opportunism.

Many Jews are nervous over the fact that Menem is the son of Syrian immigrants, was born a Moslem, was married in a mosque in Damascus and converted to Roman Catholicism only after entering politics in a country that constitutionally bars non-Catholics from running for the presidency.

While some Jews are concerned by rumors that Menem deep down remains loyal to Islam and that he has close ties with the radical ruling circles in Syria, others see his Moslem heritage as no threat to Jews.

A TORRENT OF ALIYAH

But these factors, coupled with Argentina’s calamitous economy, have led many Jews to believe there is no future for them in this country.

According to Rabbi Joe Wernik, director general of the Jewish Agency’s Organization Department in Jerusalem, the offices of the agency’s aliyah emissaries in Buenos Aires are literally being stormed by Jews seeking to emigrate from Argentina to Israel as soon as possible.

Wernik, who visited Sao Paulo recently in the course of a South American tour, cited the economic situation and Menem’s election as the main reasons.

He told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency there were candidates for immigration so impoverished that they could not afford to buy luggage for the trip.

On May 20, some 400 Jewish communal leaders met at the Hakoah Country Club outside Buenos Aires to exchange views on the situation.

The meeting was inconclusive. While all agreed the prospects for Jews in the near future are not encouraging, no action was decided on, except that the leadership would follow events “closely and with great concern.”

On the other hand, some Jews chose to vote for Menem and the Peron’s party.

A Jewish source in Buenos Aires said in a telephone interview that it does no good for Jews to air at this point what are only speculations and fears.

For the time being, official Jewish institutions and their leaders are keeping a low profile.

David Goldberg, president of the DAIA, the representative body of Argentine Jewry, told reporters that Menem’s election was “above all a triumph of democracy, because it will be the first time in 50 years that an elected president will hand over his seat to another elected president.”

Incumbent President Raul Alfonsin, whose Radical Civil Union lost in the elections, is scheduled to turn over the presidency to Menem on Dec. 10.

IGNORING THE JEWS

Nevertheless, the DAIA, middle class and staunchly establishmentarian, already has had a run-in of sorts with Menem.

During the election campaign, he was the only candidate who refused a DAIA invitation to visit its headquarters to discuss his policies with the Jewish representatives.

According to Paul Warschawsky, a prominent Buenos Aires lawyer and former director of the Latin American Jewish Congress, Menem’s advisers — who include Jewish attorney Alberto Cahan — convinced him it was not politic to ignore the Jewish community. In the end, a face-saving device was found and Menem appeared before a packed Jewish audience, Warschawsky recalled.

He told his listeners that, if elected, he would remain neutral in the Arab-Israeli conflict and would not allow the Palestine Liberation Organization to open an official diplomatic office in Argentina.

But that promise directly contradicted what he had told a pro-PLO Arab audience earlier in his campaign.

Warschawsky said that “the real problem” with Menem “is that the man cannot be trusted in what he says or does.”

According to a young Jewish university lecturer in Buenos Aires, “worse than Menem are some of his followers.”

Another observer pointed out that Argentine Jews are in jeopardy because most are in business, which is suffering because of the economic crisis.

Finally, Argentine Jews have only recently experienced a major trauma.

During the rule of the military junta that succeeded the Peons, at least 30,000 people were murdered, a disproportionate number of them Jewish teen-agers and young adults, in the name of a crusade against leftists terrorists.