The Tablet carries a long analysis of Jacobo Timerman and the people of La Opinion, a Buenos Aires newpaper of my times, the early nineteen seventies. It was Argentina's most intelligent paper, supportive of the military dictatorship that was decimating the middle class.
Timerman published a statement in September 1976, in which he had told (American Ambassador) Hill that if the Americans would just stop overreacting, stop being so loud and concerned about anti-Semitism, the issue would disappear. Timerman’s position was in line with the public stance of Jewish communal organizations like the Delegation of Argentine-Israeli Association. In June 1977, several months after Timerman’s arrest, the president of DAIA, Nehemias Resnizky, whose own son would later be kidnapped, told the Argentine Jewish community that though Argentina was not an anti-Semitic country nor was there any official anti-Semitism, there were “powerful economic groups who always make the ritual offerings of the Jewish minorities as a scapegoat” for other national problems.Then, La Opinion's director Jacobo Timerman "disappeared" and the paper was closed (Illustration: Timerman's police master file. It refers to several other large files they had on him).
When I arrived to Israel, we Argentinian Olim were received as refugees just saved from the SS jails. That was 1976 and there was serious pondering in Israel if Argentine Jewish community should be "evacuated" to safety in Israel. I was indignant. I shared La Opinion's opinion that the military regime was a necessity to put order in Argentina, and that it was not antisemitic, just most Jews happened to be middle class leftist and naturally suspect of "subversion". I was totally brainwashed yet didnt know it. I read (with help) an article in then powerful DAVAR paper about Argentina by Aharon Megged, a famous writer, that said that Argentine Jews were in danger and no time should be lost in evacuating them to Israel.
I am a lifelong Zionist yet I wrote a long and indignant letter to Megged saying that he is wrong, Argentine Jews are not in danger, there is no antisemitism, and explained (ie defended) "El Proceso". DAVAR published the letter and Megged came to interview me. He was a skinny Polish survivor, and he was convinced that ARgentine military were exact copies of East European fascist regimes. I opposed this perception with conviction.
If interviewed today, I would not be so sure. The military intelligence schools had elaborated a comprehensive picture of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy to occupy the Patagonia. That bizarre story maintained that the Zionist movement had decided in Basel (seventy years before) to establish a second Jewish State (for "insurance"?) and Patagonia was selected. The story had a name: El Plan Andinia. From the school I was aware of this fabrication but it was so absurd and deranged that I never gave it any importance.
Yet The Tablet says that the only cause of the persecution of Jacobo Timerman was the belief by the military intelligence that he was an agent of the Plan Andinia conspiracy. In a way, this very belief saved his life, because the military feared the consequences of "disappearing" an important figure of the "Elders of Zions" (I am not imagining it). In retrospective, Argentine Jewry WAS in danger, and the situation could easily slip to widespread arrests and disappearances. I mean, some 30,000 young people WERE "disappeared", many of them Jews, and there were voices within the military to extend the operation to whole sectors of the population, as it was "better to kill 9 innocents than let one subversivo escape". While I was hotly maintaining that Argentine Jews were in no danger, in total denial of reality, I left Argentina as fast as I could. My survival instinct was more alert than my conscient mental world. A few months later, my apartment in calle Cespedes in Belgrano neighborhood was raided and the inquilinos (renters) disappeared. In the end, nothing serious happened to Argentine Jewry during the Proceso, there were no mass disappearances, yet we were then in a dangerous, uncontrollable situation. I should say "Sorry" to the late Aharon Megged, who had been closer to reality than I was in 1976.
7 comments:
I think you are being too hard on yourself. Your initial analysis was correct - there was ultimately no pogrom against the Jews of Argentina. I don't think the danger was ever as grave as you say it was now (we'll never know for certain because in fact nothing (much) ever happened to the Jews of Argentina - most are still there to this day). The Argentine military were not the sharpest pencils in the box (witness their attack on the British - not the superpower it once was but at least a 2nd rate power vs. the 3rd rate Argentine military)but even they knew that it was not a smart move to move against the Jewish community. Their insane analysis regarding Timerman had (as do many insane ramblings) at least a core of truth to it - while of course there is no actual committee of Elders, there might as well be one - expelling or harming the Jews as a group would have had very negative consequences for Argentina on many levels, so they feared to do it.
I can see of course why Megged was paranoid after his own experience - having 9 out of 10 people you grew up with murdered will tend to do that to you. Incidentally I have been reading an account of the last days of my father's KZ lager written by one of his fellow prisoners - although my father spoke often of his experiences and did not try to shield me from them, this fellow (who had been a journalist in Warsaw before the war and so was professionally equipped to give a full account) filled in a lot more of the details of their final "death march", in which the prisoners were evacuated away from the rapidly approaching American army, which were even more horrifying than in my father's telling, which was itself horrid enough. That my father remained an optimistic and well adjusted person after this is a tribute to the strength of his character. I know that had I survived such an ordeal (and not just for a few weeks but for almost 6 years , which is highly unlikely - my father had made his living before the war fishing thru holes cut in the ice of Polish lakes and was hardened to cold and tough conditions, I am soft) my view of humanity would have been forever warped and bitter.
K
By the way, speaking of insane analyses that have a core of truth, is it really a wise idea (in this age of nuclear weapons, especially) to concentrate all the remaining Jews of the world in one small area (surrounded by enemies)? Maybe having some Jews in Patagonia is not such a bad idea after all?
K
K
Surviving the Holocaust was, I think, as much a question of luck as of fitness. The best survival strategy was to escape - anywhere.
Regarding the imagined Plan Andinia, it has no more reality that in the Zionist Congress a century ago, when the possibility of creating a Jewish State in Palestine seemed remote, several alternative places were mentioned such as Uganda, Madagascar, etc. They were all rejected and the Zionist movement focused on Eretz Israel. No one except Joseph Stalin (Birobidjan) thought of a second Jewish State.
Israel is an incredible success. A few years ago Israel was heavily dependent on donations and American assistance, and self-sustainability seemed a dream. Yet the year 2009 was closed with a large (7 billion US$) foreign trade surplus and with nearly 50 billion $ hard currency reserves. We are about 6 million Jews here, and growing. Our military power is so great that I daresay that our existencial anguish is exaggerated. I suspect that the world's criticism of Israel, that we react disproportionally, has something of truth in it.
"We are about 6 million Jews here, and growing."
Almost all that growth is due to the high birthrate among the haredim, right? That is a group that eschews secular education, avoids military service, receives abundant government handouts, and tries to force its religious practices on the rest of the population (sometimes by force in localities where they are in the majority). Forgive me if I'm a bit less optimistic about Israel's future than you are, J. If you are ever so unlucky that they become politically dominant, the haredim are at least as capable as the Arabs of making Israel backwards and unlivable.
My own inclinations are toward Orthodoxy, although at my age I cannot change my environment and follow a religious lifestyle. I dont think a haredu majority would be bad for Israel, the Jewish people always was haredi. Jewish religion was never was an obstacle for anything, we are even allowed to breed pigs for a living, and unlike Quakers, we are far from being pacifists. That in the current Israeli setting the haredim prefer not to go into the Army but marry and have children is a cold rational decision. If the setting changes, they will adapt. Haredis are no less smart than other Jews and they are less backward than they show in public.
It's a cold rational decision to let others do the fighting for you? I suppose so, in the same way that being a professional schnorrer (beggar) is a cold rational decision. But it's not a civic basis to form a nation. I'm not sure the haredi are really interested in nation building - they were just as happen to daven in their shtetls as they are in Jerusalem and would take off for Brooklyn at the first sign of trouble.
I understand why you say you are "inclined" toward Orthodoxy - after all it is the most authentic manifestation of Yiddishkeit, the system that makes you most whole as a Jew. And yet, like you, I cannot bring myself to actually practice it - to observe the 613 mitzvot that govern and restrict your life from the moment you rise to the moment you sleep. Appealing as a thought but not so much in real life. Because I have the same thoughts (or call them fantasies), I cannot accuse you of being a hypocrite, but someone else might.
K
J, you are 100% a child of the Enlightenment. This does not exclude intense loyalty to your people, but it does exclude magical thinking.
Anon.
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