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The year 2000 was relatively quiet in terms of anti-Jewish manifestations until the upsurge of violence between Palestinians and Israelis in late September, when there was an intensification of antisemitism, mainly in the media.
THE JEWISH COMMUNITY
The Jewish community numbers about 40,000, out of a total population of 98 million. Most Jews live in the capital Mexico City and its suburbs, while the rest are located in the cities of Guadalajara, Monterrey, Tijuana, and in the new community of Canc ún.
Jewish immigrants to Mexico formed communities according to their place of origin, a way of life that has persisted until today. The main communities, together with the Jewish Sports Center, are represented in the Jewish Central Committee of Mexico (JCCM).
High enrollment in Jewish day schools and a very low rate of intermarriage characterize the Jewish community, which is highly organized and cohesive, with a wide range of welfare and educational services. A variety of periodicals reflect the different political, cultural and ideological trends.
ANTISEMITIC ACTIVITIES AND RACIST GROUPS
On 2 July, presidential and general elections were held in Mexico. After 70 years of rule, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) lost the presidency to Vicente Fox, the candidate of the center-right Partido Acci ón Nacional (PAN), as well as its majority in Congress. The Jewish community has close relations with the new ruling party and is encouraged by their more pluralistic approach to cultural, religious and ethnic diversity. No racist issues were raised in the elections.
The year 2000 was relatively quiet in terms of anti-Jewish manifestations until the outbreak of violence between Palestinians and Israelis in late September. Earlier in the year there were a few isolated acts of vandalism, including stone-throwing at two Jewish schools in Mexico City in January. Windows were broken, but no one was injured. Pamphlets accusing the Jews of corrupting Mexico’s leaders so that the country’s wealth could be plundered were distributed in Monterrey in February, and anti-Jewish graffiti and stickers (urging Mexicans to keep Mexico “clean” by “casting out” Zionists, for example) appeared sporadically in Mexico City. It is not known who was behind these incidents. In addition, stickers promoting a Mexican neo-Nazi homepage on the website of Argentinean neo-Nazi Alejandro Biondini were found in telephone booths in Mexico City.
As in previous years, articles alleging the existence of an international Zionist conspiracy, as well as Holocaust denial arguments appeared in the extreme right-wing publication Surge. In issue no. 191 (May 2001), it was claimed that Jews “want the Holocaust to be more holy than the Crucifixion. For them arithmetically, six million Jews are more than one Jesus Christ.”
In the wake of the al-Aqsa intifada, a Jewish school in Mexico City was vandalized in October by stone-throwers. Further, the representative of the Palestinian Authority in Mexico, Fawzi Youssif, launched an intensive anti-Israel and anti-Zionist campaign in the mass media. His office also inaugurated a new web page, including a visitors book which became filled with comments exhorting people to fight and/or exterminate Israel and the Jews.
The upsurge in violence in the Middle East led to a considerable increase in anti-Zionist expressions in the national media: “Unfortunately, the Israeli government, the product of the Holocaust, is utilizing the same methods and implementing the same theories [as the Nazis]” (Guillermo Almeyra, La Jornada, 15 Oct. 2000); “Israel exists to exterminate those around it… For 1,800 years, Palestine was a land free of Jews... Money is Israel’s and the Jews’ real god” (Arnaldo C órdova, Uno Mas Uno, 20 Oct.). In letters to the editor, antisemitic and anti-Zionist arguments and allegations were expressed in La Jornada and Excélsior.
Tribuna Israelita (see below) was the target of several insulting e-mails, questioning Israel’s right to exist, demanding the expulsion of Mexican Jews, denying the Holocaust and denigrating its web page “The Jewish Presence in Downtown Mexico” (see also ASW 1999/2000).
The Jewish community attempted to counter these antisemitic and anti-Israel attacks by publishing articles of Jewish and non-Jewish journalists and intellectuals in the national press, meeting with senior representatives of the mass media and participating in interviews on radio and television.
RESPONSES TO RACISM AND ANTISEMITISM
In preparation for the UN World Conference on Racism to be held on September 2001 in South Africa, the public opinion and analysis agency Tribuna Israelita (which combats antisemitism), together with the Mexican Academy of Human Rights, the Inter-American Institute for Human Rights and the National Indigenous Congress, organized, in November 2000, a Mexican and Central American Regional Forum on Racism, Discrimination and Intolerance, at which specialists discussed the political, historical, cultural, social and economic factors that encourage the development of racism, discrimination, xenophobia, antisemitism and other forms of intolerance in the region, as well as ways to prevent them. The concluding document condemned antisemitism and Holocaust denial.
As a follow up, representatives of the Jewish community attended the Citizens Conference and Regional Forum against Racism held in Chile, in December. The concluding document included a paragraph defining antisemitism as a specific form of discrimination.
A Holocaust remembrance program, including a photographic exhibition of the Warsaw Ghetto, dialogues with survivors and workshops on the Holocaust and human rights, was organized at universities and cultural centers in Tijuana, Mexicali, Estado de México and the Tec University, with an attendance of more than 20,000 visitors.
Workshops, seminars and cultural activities, part of a program designed to improve relations between Jewish and non-Jewish students and provide information on Judaism and Israel, were organized at leading universities. A decrease in antisemitic incidents at those institutions, as well as better integration of Jews, testify to its success.
Mexican law does not explicitly refer to the protection of groups or individuals who are vulnerable to physical, verbal, psychological or written attacks because of their racial, religious or ethnic origin. For several years Tribuna Israelita has been promoting the adoption of legislation that defines racism and antisemitism as crimes punishable by law to be integrated into the Mexican Penal Code. During the year 2000 this proposal was approved by all the candidates for the presidency. Since the new government took office in December 2000, members of the Jewish community have been working on this issue with the recently created Anti-discrimination Legal Commission. |
