South America

Gloom at pan-Latin America gathering

Thu, 02 May 2013 16:00:56 +0100

Ageing and emigration are two of the principal problems facing Sephardi communities in Latin America, according to the ninth National Conference of Sephardi Jews in Rio de Janeiro last week.

The congress was attended by representatives from Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay.

Alberto Moryusef, director of the Jewish Museum of Venezuela, lamented the fact that many young Jews had left his nation at the time of the oil crisis in 1997 — emigrating to countries such as the US and Panama.

Mr Moryusef added that the Venezuelan Sephardi community had maintained good relations with the late President Hugo Chávez and continued to do so with his recently elected successor, President Nicolás Maduro — despite the fact that Venezuela had no diplomatic relations with Israel.

Salomón Levy, representing the Uruguayan Sephardim, also warned that they faced a serious threat to their survival through the advanced age of the community. However, they were continuing to seek economic and social support in order to “promote a full and meaningful Jewish life”.

The Colombian delegate, Ángel Calderón, said that Sephardi youth should educate themselves in the history of their ancestors, while the older generations should hand on a solid legacy “by keeping alive our language and our essential way of life”.

An optimistic note was sounded by Mexico’s delegate, Alberto Levy, who emphasised the prosperity of the Mexican Jewish community. He also praised the Spanish government for building bridges with Sephardi Jews worldwide — a reference to the recent decision announced in Madrid to grant Spanish nationality to descendants of the Jews forced out of from Spain in 1492. “There is a genuine desire to rediscover the Spain where the Jews lived well,” Mr Levy said.

… But good news for ‘amazon Jews’

Several hundred mixed-race Peruvian converts have won their battle to be allowed to immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return, according to Jewish Agency officials.

The group of 284 Peruvians — also known as the ‘Jews of the Amazon’ — are descendants of Moroccan Jews who originally arrived in the Amazon Basin in the 19th century at the height of the rubber boom and settled in Iquitos, the largest city in the Peruvian rainforest and one of the most isolated places on earth. Many of these Moroccan immigrants also made their way to Brazil, where they established their first synagogue in the city of Belém in 1824. A large proportion married local, non-Jewish women in Peru and Brazil.

The 284 Peruvians were converted to Judaism by a Conservative rabbinical court in August 2011, after engaging in Jewish studies for five years.

After withholding approval for months, Israel’s Interior Ministry finally accepted the legal ruling that no cabinet decision was required in order to bring the group over.

Don’t mourn Hugo the wicked

Geoffrey Alderman — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 11:10:30 +0000

Two years ago I caused a certain amount of controversy with my reaction to the death of a Palestinian activist. I was told it was not the done thing for a Jew to express pleasure at the death of another human. Well, we have just celebrated Purim, on which we are expected to make merry at the deaths of hundreds of Jew-baiters in ancient Persia. We shall shortly celebrate Pesach, on which we are enjoined to rejoice at the deaths of Egyptian soldiers pursuing the fleeing Israelites. It is true that the Almighty berated those angels who wanted to celebrate, in song, their drowning. But this was because they - the angels - had not suffered at the hands of the Egyptians. He did not berate the Israelites, who were understandably overjoyed at their deliverance. May I also point out that according to rabbinic tradition the Judean king Hezekiah was reproached for refusing to celebrate the deaths of thousands of Assyrian soldiers who were intent on destroying Jerusalem (circa 701 BCE)?

With that point settled, I invite you to join me in welcoming news of the death of Venezuelan president and Jew-hater Hugo Chavez.

On the "progressive" blog site Left Foo Forward, the Labour MP Grahame Morris (chair of the Labour Friends of Venezuela and my MP) wrote of Chavez as a true democrat whose economic policies had transformed the country and "dramatically" improved "the lives of the overwhelming majority".

The facts of the matter are that Chavez enthusiastically presided over a corrupt, repressive military dictatorship: in violation of Venezuela's constitution, the country is virtually run by army generals. He ruthlessly trampled on freedom of expression, suppressed those sections of the trade-union movement that declined to offer him uncritical support, and led his oil-rich country to the brink of economic disaster, with inflation currently around 22 per cent. But on this, and on Chavez's friendship with the Jew-hating head of the Iranian state, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Morris was strangely silent.

The truth also is that Chavez built his populist power-base, in part, on the foundations of an explicit anti-Jewish (not merely anti-Israeli) discourse. He likened Jews to pigs. He claimed Jews controlled the largest businesses in Venezuela and were intent on stealing its national wealth. In one Christmas speech he declared that "the descendants of those who crucified Christ control the world's wealth." Jews and Jewish buildings suffered from a campaign of public vilification and physical harassment carried out by the police and the army at the behest of Chavez and his government. In one attack, on a Caracas synagogue in 2009, police officers were numbered among those who took part, in which religious artefacts were desecrated and antisemitic slogans were daubed on the walls. Little wonder that since Chavez came to power much of Venezuela's Jewish population has fled.

I can well understand that to the poor and dispossessed, brought up on a diet of unadulterated antisemitism served up by the Catholic church all this was (if you will forgive the metaphor) manna from heaven. But it was manna garnished with a visceral rhetoric aimed at the Jewish state. Having broken off diplomatic relations with Israel following Operation Cast Lead, Chavez increasingly identified himself and his regime with the anti-Zionist racism of Iran. He castigated Israel as a "genocidal state". He claimed there was an Israeli plot to kill him, that Israel was financing the Venezuelan opposition. In 2011 he excoriated Israel for having (in his view) caused the deaths of nine Turkish nationals in the Mavi Marmara incident. In a televised diatribe, Chavez referred to these nine Islamist terrorists as "pacifists," and claimed that their humanitarian mission was to provide Gazans with the necessities that Israel was depriving them, including water. "Damn you, State of Israel!" was his broadcast response.

I am glad that Chavez is dead. I rejoice at his passing. And as for Jack Terpins, head of the Latin America section of the World Jewish Congress, who conveyed his condolences to the Chavez family on learning (no doubt with great sadness) of the passing of Hugo, I can only wish him (Terpins, that is) a Refuah Shlema. Get well soon!

In Moises Ville, the Yiddish cowboys make one last stand

Jonathan Gilbert — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 12:10:11 +0000

Ariel Rosenthal appears a typical gaucho, the name given to Argentine cowboys who work the land and rear cattle in the country’s vast Pampas.

He wears bombachas, rugged, loose-fitting trousers; alpargatas, cotton shoes; and a boina, a beret-style cap.

He slurps continuously on maté, a herbal drink served in a wooden gourd, and reminisces about a boyhood spent galloping on horseback through his father’s farm.

But unlike most gauchos, Mr Rosenthal also speaks Ivrit, maintains the traditions of Shabbat and studied as a teenager at the Jewish seminary in Moises Ville, his home town ten hours north-west of Buenos Aires.

Mr Rosenthal is keeping alive a dying breed — the Jewish gaucho.

At 34, he goes against the grain of his generation. Most young Jewish people have now left Moises to work as professionals in nearby cities like Rosario.

Moises was the first of several former colonies established in Argentina’s interior 120 years ago by Jews who escaped the pogroms in Eastern Europe.

In 1889, Pedro Palacios, a landowner in Santa Fe province, sold plots to more than 100 families who had fled to Buenos Aires from modern-day Ukraine.

But when they arrived in the countryside, Mr Palacios never appeared. They survived the first months on handouts from railway workers and many died of disease.

They were rescued by Baron Maurice von Hirsch, a Jewish philanthropist in Germany, who bought 100 hectares of land for each family. The Jewish gaucho was born.

Local creoles — nomadic and landless, but masterful ranchers — taught the Jews how to ride horses, lasso and plough fields. The Jews also adopted gaucho customs, while the creoles learned Yiddish.

Ariel Rosenthal’s grandfather arrived in the village of Algarrobal, 20 miles from Moises, in 1939 as part of a second immigration wave of Jews fleeing Nazi persecution.

He rented land on which Mr Rosenthal’s late father, Kurt, would work as a boy milking cows. Kurt later became a true Jewish gaucho, expanding the business from milking to rearing calves and fattening bulls.

“He loved what he did, and infected me with the same enthusiasm. When I was just 12, he went away for a few days and left me in charge of the farm,” said Mr Rosenthal.

Like his friends, Mr Rosenthal was sent off to study. “We sow wheat and harvest doctors,” goes the saying in Moises. He graduated in accountancy and worked in a bank, but his love of the countryside drew him back.

Today he is one of just a handful of young Jewish gauchos in the region, while some of his father’s colleagues also cling to their rural past.

Arminio Seiferheld is 70 and a former mayor of Moises. He never studied, but spent his entire working life as a gaucho. Health problems now make it dangerous for Mr Seiferheld, who speaks both Spanish and Yiddish, to mount a horse. The gaucho within, however, has not diminished. He pulls out his lasso, tries on his old embroidered belt and inspects the leather stirrups his father gave him after his barmitzvah.

Together with around 15 other stalwarts, Mr Seiferheld attends Moises’ only regular service, Kabbalat Shabbat, every week.

The Jewish community was once 5,000-strong, but just 250 are now left, ten per cent of the total population. Ninety are octogenarians.

Vestiges of the 1940s golden era remain: three synagogues, the Kadima theatre and a Hebrew school. At La Central bakery, Italian owner Bernardino Urban sells the challah and strudel Jewish women taught him to make 40 years ago.

Around 600 people from Moises Ville have made aliyah. “The Jews are not naturally people of the land,” said Ingue Kanzepolsky, 82. “It was never in their blood.”

But Ariel Rosenthal, who now lives in Rafaela, an hour-and-a-half drive from Moises, is adamant the Jewish gaucho will not die out. He has already bought his two-year-old son, Martín, a small horse. “I want to transmit my passion to him,” he says. “I hope he can be the next generation of Jewish gaucho.”

US big guns row over Honduran ‘hate’ pope candidate

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 12:00:23 +0000

Harvard academic Alan Dershowitz has hit out at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) over its support for an allegedly antisemitic candidate for next pope, saying he intends “to fight this all the way to Rome”.

In a letter published in the Miami Herald, Mr Dershowitz accused Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras of propagating conspiracy theories about Jews, describing him as an “unrepentant sinner” who has compared the “Jewish-controlled media” to Hitler for its persecution of the church.

He said the cardinal, a possible replacement for Pope Benedict XVI, blamed the Jews for “the scandal surrounding the sexual misconduct of priests toward young parishioners.”

Mr Dershowitz added: “He has argued that the Jews got even with the Catholic Church for its anti-Israel positions by arranging for the media — which they, of course, control — to give disproportionate attention to the Vatican sex scandal.”

But National Director of the ADL Abraham Foxman defended the cardinal. “As far as we are concerned, the issue is closed,” he said.

“He has never said anything of the same sort in the past 10 years. He is involved in a Catholic Jewish dialogue group in Latin America and has never repeated any such views.”

Mr Dershowitz attacked the ADL’s position. He said: “You can’t apologise for the kinds of views that the cardinal expressed. Deep in his soul, he believes that Jews are responsible for all these evils.

“To me, the apology was too little,” he said. “To have a pope who ever expressed views like that would be absolutely unacceptable.

“If he wants to really rehabilitate himself, he ought to be making hundreds of speeches in Spanish about this in Honduras, rather than speaking to Abe Foxman in New York,” the law professor said.

During a 2002 interview with Italian-Catholic magazine 30 Giorni, Cardinal Maradiaga claimed that Jews were influencing media coverage of child abuse by members of the church in order to detract from coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

At the time, Mr Foxman released a statement expressing “outrage” that the cardinal had “alleged Jewish manipulation of the American media”.

In a later conversation with Mr Foxman, Cardinal Maradiaga apologised and said he never meant his comments to be taken in that way and that he would not say it again.

Mr Dershowitz is a respected criminal appellate lawyer, who acted as an adviser in the OJ Simpson trial. He is also an author of a book on law, politics and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Capriles pledges to keep fighting President Chavez

Jonathan Gilbert — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 13:45:00 +0100

Henrique Capriles, the defeated candidate in last week’s Venezuelan presidential elections, has insisted he will continue his fight against socialist firebrand Hugo Chavez.

Mr Capriles, the grandson of Jewish immigrants, will run for governor of Miranda, one of the South American country’s most important states, in December.

He lost to Mr Chavez by 1.5 million votes, but succeeded in uniting a disjointed opposition and gave the president, who referred to him as a “pig” during the campaign, the closest fight of his 14-year reign.

Mr Capriles, whose great grandparents died in Treblinka, had promised to end Venezuela’s cosy relationship with Iran as one of his election pledges.

Mr Capriles had to leave the governorship of Miranda to run for president, but will now look to reinforce his position as Mr Chavez’s political adversary by getting back into office.

“I’m still standing,” Mr Capriles said. “We’ve lost one game but we’re already thinking about the next one.”

His next chance to defeat Mr Chavez would be in 2018, but the fiery president has recently been ill with cancer. Mr Capriles could run before that if Mr Chavez suffers a relapse and is forced to leave office.

UK Ambassador to Chile apologises for Falklands tweet

Anna Sheinman — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 10:17:35 +0100

Britain’s Ambassador to Chile Jon Benjamin has apologised for a tweet which suggested Argentinians lost the Falklands War because they are “cowards”.

His post, written in Spanish, referenced a lewd football chant sung by Chilean fans when their team plays Argentina. The chant translates as: “Argentines, gays, they took the Falklands off you because you are cowards.”

Mr Benjamin said the tweet had been intended as a private message to a friend. The message alluded to the song, saying: “Which islands did they take off you and for being what?”

Clearly pleased at having secured a ticket to watch the World Cup qualifying match between Chile and Argentina on Tuesday night, he continued: “Perhaps I’ll discover the answer at the national stadium on Tuesday? I’ve already got my ticket.”

The Falklands reference provoked outrage from Argentines and Chileans alike. A Buenos Aires TV station accused Mr Benjamin of disrespecting the nation. Chilean ex-telecommunications minister Pablo Bello was equally critical. He tweeted: "Your comments are in bad taste, ambassador. You don't need to appeal to Chilean nationalist chauvinism to fulfil your diplomatic mission. Doing so reflects badly on you."

On Twitter the diplomat, who describes himself as a “Jewish atheist”, received abusive responses threatening violence and making antisemitic remarks. One tweeter called him an “ugly Jew”, another said “‘Jewish’ says it all. Nasty.”

Mr Benjamin, who has been ambassador to Santiago since December 2009, has since removed the tweet and apologised.

“I’m sorry I offended with a private message that I published by mistake,” he said. “I feel great affection for my Argentine friends and respect for their national side.”

Extremist anti-Jewish group seeks legitimacy in Peru

Jennifer Lipman — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 17:33:38 +0100

The leader of a fledgling neo-Nazi group in Peru has reportedly urged his country to rid itself of its Jewish population.

Martín Quispe Mayta, the founder of the Andean Peru National Socialism movement, has publicly denied the truth of the Holocaust, expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and appears to subscribe to any number of antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Mr Mayta's organisation is not yet registered as a political party in the South American country, although its leader is attempting to gather signatures to begin that process.

In an interview with the Guardian, he said his family's poverty was because "the Jews controlled the world economy" and revealed that he read both Mein Kampf and other antisemitic tracts before founding his group. He reportedly told a Chilean paper that the Jewish people, not Hitler, were responsible for killing millions and denied that the gas chambers existed.

He is also said to have claimed that when Peru was conquered by the Spanish it was by "the Jew Pizarro and his band of genocidal Jews" who he said "killed millions of native Peruvians in their mission to possess our gold".

An estimated 3,000 Jews live in Peru, mostly in Lima, and communal leaders have urged the authorities to take action against Mr Mayta's extremist group, accusing it of the "open expression of antisemitic racism".

A Peruvian Jewish community first emerged in the 16th century, when Jews arrived there after fleeing Inquisition-era Spain. But the modern community is descended from Ashkenazi Jews who arrived in the 19th century.

Iron Barbie, queen of the boxing ring

Jonathan Gilbert — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 14:58:23 +0100

In a gritty Buenos Aires gym, Carolina Duer punches furiously, ducking and shuffling her feet in between jabs.

Duer, a Jewish Argentine known as "The Iron Barbie", is super flyweight world champion and successfully defended her title for the fifth time earlier this month.

"I dominated the fight from start to finish," she says. Duer overcame Romanian Corina Carlescu on home soil when the referee stopped the bout in the fifth round.

"I landed so many body shots that Carlescu vomited," Duer, 33, told the JC. "Then in the fifth, I hit her with a few combinations. She had no response."

Duer's grandfather was born in Damascus, and was part of an Arab immigration wave to Argentina during the early 20th century.

She was originally referred to by another nickname – "The Turk". But her feistiness in the ring, together with her good looks and pink gloves, mean "The Iron Barbie" has stuck.

Duer is one of 11 female world champions in Argentina and the only Jew.

"I like to go to shul sometimes," she says. "The Jewish people have a beautiful history. I'm proud of that and I love Yiddish food."

Duer was born in Buenos Aires – home to around 200,000 Jews – and went to a Jewish primary school. She also had a batmitzvah and toured Israel aged 17.

Nearly a decade ago, she was looking for a way to get fit and accompanied a friend to the same gym where she trains today.

As she watched, a man shouted to her from across the ring: "You're a boxer! Come back on Monday and I'll coach you."

Duer returned and began to train under his tutorship, though she had no intention of fighting. "I was chubby," she says. "All I wanted to do was lose weight."

But Alberto Zacarías, now 52, knew he had come across a special talent. "From the first session I knew she had it," he says. Duer would become his first and only world champion.

She contested her first bout in 2003 and won 19 of 20 amateur fights. In 2007, Zacarías told her she could make it as a pro.

But Duer's career nearly ended after she clashed heads with an opponent and cracked her eye socket.

She recovered, however, and became South American champion, before claiming her world crown in December 2010 when she beat Italian Loredana Piazza on points.

"It was an incredible feeling," she says. "I was so happy, I didn't know how to celebrate."

With her victory over Carlescu, Duer has won 12 pro bouts and lost three. She holds the World Boxing Organisation's belt, but there are three others in her 52kg division she is now eyeing.

"I don't know how long I'll go on for," she says. "But I'd like to unify the division." That could mean trips to Mexico and Japan, her first fights outside Argentina.

Duer used to box between shifts as a waitress at her family's restaurant. Today she works as a manager for younger fighters, eroding the dominance held by a handful of promoters in Argentina before her rise to fame.

Duer views boxing as a tool for social cohesion and discussed the idea last year with her president, Cristina Kirchner, to whom she also gave a pair of her famed pink gloves.

"I do a lot of work with kids on the street," she says. "I explain to them that boxing isn't violent. It can be used to give them focus. It's good for both body and mind.

"I've come a long way since 2003 when I'd arrive for training with make-up on. I went from nothing to world champ in nine years, and today boxing is everything to me."

Iran has 'blood on its hands' over 1994 Argentina blast

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 17:34:01 +0100

Wednesday marks the 18th anniversary of the fatal bombing of the AMIA Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Eighty-five people were killed by the blast with hundreds wounded.

Investigators have linked Iran to the attack, a fact highlighted by Ronald S. Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress and Jack Terpins, president of the Latin America Jewish Congress (LAJC). Mr Terpins said it was "irritating and completely unacceptable to the international Jewish community" that the architects of the terrorist attack had escaped punishment.

Mr Lauder echoed these claims and declared: "The Iranian regime has blood on its hands, not only by suppressing dissent at home but also by sponsoring terrorism world-wide. What the world saw 18 years ago in Buenos Aires it can still see today, be it in Syria, in Lebanon or in other places."

The calls for Iran to be held responsible for its actions follow last year's implementation by the Argentinian Senate of new laws to tackle terrorism in the country, in addition to allegations that Argentina's foreign minister agreed to abandon the investigation into Iran's role, in return for favourable trade links. However, despite the Iranian government and terrorist organisation Hizbollah being charged over the attack in 2006, no-one has ever been convicted.

Mr Terpins called for greater unity between Western nations, declaring: "It is lamentable that some nations, including in Latin America, are still fostering their relationship with Iran. Justice must be done if we want to avoid that such terrible acts happen again in the future."

On July 17 and 18, the LAJC will host the sixth edition of a meeting of regional parliamentarians and will primarily focus on the prevention of terrorism. Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who is in charge of the AMIA investigation, will give an update on the state of the probe.

Search suspended for oil tycoon lost at sea

Jennifer Lipman — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 10:59:34 +0100

The mother of a wealthy Brazilian businessman who went missing last week has applied to seize control of his fortune.

The search for Guma Aguiar, a multi-millionaire energy tycoon, has reportedly been called off, five days after he was last seen.

Mr Aguiar, a prominent donor to Jewish and Israeli causes, is the chief executive of Leor Energy and is based in Fort Lauderdale. On the morning of June 20 his private yacht washed ashore on the Florida coast. Mr Aguiar has not been seen since the previous evening.

In a further twist to the mystery over his disappearance, his mother has asked the courts to make her the temporary guardian of Aguiar's $100 million fortune. She claimed that her son, a father of four, suffers from a "severe bipolar disorder".

Court documents show Ellen Aguiar claiming that her son "may be in a delusion state or be suffering from psychosis or otherwise may have disappeared at sea".

Police investigating the case said it was too early to draw any conclusions about what had happened to him.