URUGUAY 2008/9

 

The year 2008, like 2007, witnessed a few antisemitic incidents, but there was a rise in antisemitic activity at the end of the year when Israel’s war in Gaza began, and this trend continued during the first months of 2009.

 

THE JEWISH COMMUNITY

The Jewish community of Uruguay is estimated at about 25,000 out of a population of 3.2 million. The majority of Jews live in the capital Montevideo, with a smaller community in the city of Paysandú. Jewish families are scattered throughout other parts of the country but not in organized communities. The Comité Central Israelita del Uruguay (CCIU), embracing some 60 communities and organizations, functions as the national Jewish representative body. There are a number of well-attended Jewish day schools and several publications.

 

Political background

There are no significantly racist, xenophobic or antisemitic groups in Uruguay. Up until October 2009, Uruguay was governed by the Frente Amplio, a coalition of center and left parties composed of the Christian Democrats, Socialists, Communists and ex-guerilla fighters from the 1970s (Tupamaros), as well as the liberal Red Party (Partido Colorado) and the conservative White Party (Paritdo Blanco). President Tabare Vazquez was very popular during his term. The economic situation improved and relations with the Jewish community continued to be good. Many Jewish politicians were part of this coalition.

 

Antisemitic activity

The year 2008, like 2007, witnessed a few antisemitic incidents, but there was a rise in antisemitic activity at the end of the year with the start of Israel’s war in Gaza, and this trend continued during the first months of 2009.

 

Vandalism and Harassment

Several acts causing damage to Jewish institutions and threatening the Jewish population of Uruguay were recorded in 2008. These included graffiti, reading "The sign of soap," accompanied by a large swastika, drawn on the night of March 13 on the street opposite the Betar Youth Movement building in Montevideo. On March 21, two youths were observed breaking a window of the Hebraica-Maccabi Jewish club in Montevideo. They were not caught.

            The Holocaust memorial in the city of Montevideo was defaced with three white swastikas in November.

            Also in March, a youth entered the grounds of the Jewish Colegio [school] Integral in Montevideo and insulted the security guards with antisemitic abuse. The person is known to have committed similar acts previously. Further, during the Rosh Hashana service in October, two persons made the Nazi salute to Jewish observers standing outside the Sephardic synagogue of Montevideo.

            Several members of the Jewish community received insulting messages on their cell phones such as: "Ask anyone in our society and he will answer this question in this way: do you know what the problem is in Gaza? That Hitler's mother didn't have triplets. Then all the dirty Jews in the universe would have been murdered."

            In June a man who noticed a sticker on a Jewish woman’s car marking Israel’s 60th anniversary began hurling antisemitic abuse at her.

            The Muslim community in Uruguay is small and any attacks on the Jewish community are usually unorganized.

 

Graffiti

Swastikas were reported on several occasions. For example, they were drawn in April on the walls of a neighborhood of Montevideo, where they had appeared previously, accompanied by anti-Jewish slogans.

 

The War in Gaza

Uruguay does not have an antisemitic history; however, the situation has changed since the war in Gaza. The most conspicuous expression of antisemitism was graffiti in Montevideo and in other cities, such as Maldonado and Rivera, mostly equation of the Star of David with the swastika and slogans branding Israel a genocidal state.

There were also several open letters and petitions containing antisemitic content, mainly circulated by labor organizations. At the faculty of medicine in Hospital de Clinicas, the leading state hospital in Montevideo, a Power Point presentation shown to students by a professor compared the situation in Gaza to the Holocaust. The daily press also published anti-Israel articles from the European media. Several writers and intellectuals made virulently anti-Israel comments; journalist and novelist Eduardo Galeano, who is well known in Spanish-speaking countries, for instance, accused Israel of systematic genocide of the Palestinian people.

            Several protests and rallies against the Gaza attack and supporting the Palestinians also took place, such as one on January 10, in Montevideo, under the slogan “A song of solidarity with Palestine,” with the participation of labor, left wing and human rights organizations. Although there was no antisemitic incitement at these events, their frequency, combined with the anti-Israel rhetoric of many mainstream organizations and the media, might be understood as legitimizing attacks on local Jewish organizations. Indeed, on January 12, a bomb was set off at the headquarters of Ziklovsky, a Jewish non-Zionist left-wing organization, causing damage to the front of the building.