Argentine Jewish Leader Urges Action Against Anti-semitism

Dr. Nehemias Resnizky, president of the DAIA, the central representative body of Argentine Jewry, has called on the Jewish community to speak out against the growing anti-Semitism in Argentina. “Our enemies must know that there no longer exists passive and silent Jewish masses,” he told a DAIA plenary meeting.

However, Resnizky stressed that the government’s investigation into the scandals involving the financial empire of David Graiver, a 35-year-old Argentine Jew reportedly killed in an air crash in Mexico last year, is not an anti-Semitic act. He said he was personally assured of this by Roberto Viola, head of the army’s general staff, on behalf of President Jorge Rafael Videla.

But Resnizky warned that some groups in Argentina are using the Graiver case to further anti-Semitism. “We wish to state that insofar as subversion and corruption are enemies of the country, they are enemies of the Jewish community which is an integral part of the country,” he declared.

THOSE PLAYING THE ‘ANTI-JEWISH GAME’

The DAIA president noted that two types of groups are playing the “anti-Jewish game.” He described them as the anti-Semitic organizations which seek to blame all of the country’s ills on Jews and “the groups of real economic power which always present the ritual offerings of the Jewish minority as scapegoats to hide the major problems which hamper the nation’s development.”

He said that in the Graiver case, the non Jewish names are minimized and the Jewish names involved in the case are given major attention. He noted that blaring headlines were given to the arrest of Pedro Graiver, president of the La Plata Kehilla, and his wife, Catalina, the aunt and uncle of David Graiver, even though they tried to leave for Israel openly with tickets bought two months earlier. However, when they were released a few days later, some newspapers did not publish the story while others mentioned it in very small print, Resnizky said.

CASE OF JACOBO TIMERMAN

Resnizky also mentioned the case of Jacobo Timerman, the editor and publisher of La Opinion who was arrested in connection with the Graiver case. “Obviously we submit to what the country’s courts will establish,” he said. “But this case is different. Timerman was a man who since his youth has pertained to the organized Zionist movement and from the pages of La Opinion has maintained a constant and courageous struggle against Nazism and anti-Semitism and on behalf of identification with Israel and the Zionist movement.”

In addition to calling on the Jewish community to support efforts to root out corruption while combatting anti-Semitism, Resnizky said the government should be alerted that “elements alien to the national unity” are promoting anti-Semitism. He also urged that the non-Jewish population should be enlisted “to fight anti-Jewish irrationality which deteriorates the country and makes it lose its image abroad.”