When Dr. Tabare Ramon Vazquez was sworn in this week as the first leftist president in Uruguayan history, the country’s 23,000-strong Jewish minority pondered the age-old question: Is this good for the Jews? The short answer, according to community leaders interviewed by phone from Sao Paulo, is yes. They say Uruguay’s Jewish community has nothing… More ▸
Hillel TV, a new television show geared toward Israel Advocacy, is being developed in Montevideo by Hillel Uruguay. The show, which will air once a week late at night is intended for an audience of young people of diverse cultural backgrounds. The message will be comprised equally of Israel advocacy and local material relating to… More ▸
“Until the water reaches our knees, we don’t take note of it,” Alejandro Kladniew said. Kladniew, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s Argentina director, who visited Uruguay last week, was not speaking about the rains that recently flooded his country. Instead, he was referring to challenges facing both the Argentine and Uruguayan Jewish communities —… More ▸
Por dignidad no podemos permanecer pasivos: “For dignity we cannot remain passive.” Painted across the soup kitchen in the impoverished El Cerro neighborhood on the outskirts of Montevideo, these words were the first thing North American students saw when they arrived at one of the primary sites of their Alternative Spring Break Tzedek Hillel project… More ▸
A London-based Polish-born author, the musical director of the klezmer super-group Brave Old World and a cantor in Belgrade are among the recipients of the second annual Jewish creativity grants awarded by the European Association for Jewish Culture. Ranging from more than $3,000 to almost $16,000, the grants were awarded to 26 artists and projects… More ▸
Security officials in Uruguay are investigating a surge of neo-Nazi activities in the capital of Montevideo. In the most recent incident, flyers bearing a portrait of Adolf Hitler were put up on walls throughout the capital’s downtown area. Earlier this year, a Jewish-owned store was destroyed by Molotov cocktails. When firemen arrived at the scene,… More ▸
Uruguayan security officials are investigating an arson attack against a Holocaust memorial in the capital of Montevideo. A letter left at the site by a group calling itself the Eastern Special Command said, “All Jews must leave Uruguay at once or they will be exterminated.” The attack, which caused little damage, took place May 8,… More ▸
Uruguay will mobilize Latin American countries in a drive to repeal the 1975 U.N. resolution equating Zionism with racism, its president-elect, Dr. Luis Alberto Lacalle, told Jewish leaders here last week. Lacalle, who is visiting the United States, had an hour-long meeting with 20 national Jewish leaders at World Jewish Congress headquarters. He was accompanied… More ▸
President Chaim Herzog of Israel, on his first official visit to Latin America, got as regal a welcome in Uruguay on Monday as he received when he landed in Argentina a week ago. But crossing the River Plate, Herzog discovered entirely different conditions prevailing in the two republics. And differences in their respective relationships with… More ▸
The chairman of the International Council of B’nai B’rith had praise this week for the vote in the Congress of Uruguay that denounced United Nations Resolution 3379, which in 1975 declared Zionism a form of racism. Georges Bloch, speaking from his office here, noted that the Uruguayan Congress over-whelmingly rejected the U.N. resolution as being… More ▸
