| -Caveat Lector-
Deconstructing Hispanic Anti-Semitism
Posted 7/24/2002 By Daniel Santacruz It was the typical rush hour madness in Times
Square. I had just gotten off the Number 7 train and was about to walk up the
ramp to the Port Authority to catch my bus to New Jersey when an army of
slow-walking commuters going down in the opposite direction forced me to squeeze
myself and the dozens of people who got off the train with me against the wall.
All of a sudden, a man from the group of the
commuters that were going down the ramp pointed at me said in Spanish to the man
who was with him: "Ah va uno de los que mataron a Cristo." (There goes one of
those who killed Christ.) My kippah and my beard made me the perfect target for
the remark. But I dismissed the incident as just the opinion of a fanatic.
That was five years ago. But now the incident takes
on a new meaning in the light of the Anti-Defamation League`s 2002 Survey of
Anti-Semitism in America, released in mid-June.
According to the survey, 44 percent of Hispanics
born outside the United States hold "hardcore anti-Semitic beliefs." That figure
is significantly above the national average. In contrast, 20 percent of Hispanic
Americans born in the United States fall into the same category.
Overall, the survey found that anti-Semitism has
increased. Seventeen percent -- about 35 million adults -- hold views about Jews
that are "unquestionably anti-Semitic." Another 35% were in the "middle"
category, holding neither prejudiced nor unprejudiced views, but not completely
prejudice-free in their attitudes toward Jews. The most widely held stereotype
is that "Jews have too much power in the U.S."
These figures, according to the survey, reverse a
ten-year decline in anti-Semitism and raises concerns that "an undercurrent of
Jewish hatred persists in America."
The figures about Hispanics worry me personally
because I am Hispanic and Jewish. I have a deep understanding of both Judaism
and Catholicism. I was born and raised a Catholic in the fervently Catholic
country of Colombia, but I converted to Judaism in 1994 for the second time (my
first conversion, in 1982, was under the aegis of the Gerim Institute, a
Conservative group in Brookline, Mass.; the second was with an Orthodox rabbi in
1994.)
The difference the survey discovered in anti-Jewish
feelings between the Hispanics who were born in Latin America and the ones born
here is crucial. The Hispanics who immigrate here, from Mexico down to
Argentina, are just expressing centuries-old views commonly held there: Jews are
responsible for the death of Christ, they control the economy and the media,
they are immensely wealthy.
But the prejudices discovered by the survey don`t
necessarily mean hostility toward Jews. In New Jersey, New York and Florida it
is common to see Jews and Hispanics working together, and violent incidents are
nearly nonexistent. There has been some tension between hasidim and Hispanics in
Williamsburg over housing, but the two seem generally to get along well.
Although Spanish-language newspapers in the New York area have been critical of
Israel during the second intifada, their rhetoric can`t be labeled anti-Semitic.
Political correctness hasn`t reached Latin America,
so it`s common to hear a new immigrant refer to a Jew as "el judio." It bothers
me, for example, when a clerk at a shop here in Teaneck says that "the Jew is on
vacation" when talking about his boss, but I understand where he`s coming from.
The majority of Hispanic immigrants have never had
contact with Jews in their countries of origin. The woman who cleaned my office
at International Masters Publishers in Stamford, Conn., is a good example.
For five months we chatted in Spanish almost every
day and I learned a lot about her and her family. Twenty-five years old and
barely literate, she now lives in Westchester County. She came to the United
States five years ago from a town near the Mexican city of Puebla. One day she
asked me why I wore a kippah. When I told it was because her I am Jewish, she
opened her eyes wide and smiled in disbelief: "Judio? Usted es judio?" (Jew? Are
you a Jew?)
When I asked why she was surprised, she told me
that I was the first Jew she had ever met. She told me she thought Jews were
people who had lived only in the time of Christ and, like dinosaurs, were now
extinct.
The reason why Catholics and Jews live worlds apart
in Latin America is to be found in numbers and economic conditions. There are
approximately 460,000 Jews in Central and South America, out of a total
population of 519 million, most of whom live in major cities and belong to the
middle and upper class. Most Hispanic immigrants, on the other hand, come from
small towns or rural areas. Here in the United States the Jewish and Hispanics
communities live separately, divided by a deep linguistic and economic barrier.
To the Hispanic immigrant, the Jew is a mysterious
person, another gringo with peculiar ceremonies and, sometimes, strange dress.
The Church and some Jewish organizations, among
them the Anti-Defamation League, have been holding dialogues and interfaith
programs in Latin America since 1968, the first time a pope, Paul VI, visited
there. His visit came on the heels of Nostra Aetate, an encyclical issued by the
Vatican in 1965 that revolutionized relations between Christian and Jews.
But despite the Church`s good intentions and
high-level meetings between Jews and priests, the old belief that Jews are
deicides has not disappeared completely in Latin America. What`s worrisome is
that it is espoused by both the uneducated and college graduates. Many times I
heard from friends the Christian legend of the Wandering Jew, which says that
Jews will wander perpetually because a Jewish cobbler drove Jesus away when he
paused to rest by his door in Jerusalem while carrying the cross.
That anti-Jewish attitudes among Hispanic-Americans
born here are less pronounced does not surprise me. The influence of the
Catholic Church on public schools and universities here is negligible, and
Catholic influence on the general culture has come primarily from Ireland and
Italy, two countries with a relatively clean record in their treatment of Jews.
In Latin America, however, that influence came
directly from Spain almost from the very beginning of the conquista. It remained
unchallenged until the 20th century, when Protestant sects began attracting
followers.
Many Jewish organizations in the U.S. hold
interfaith programs and have outreach programs with Hispanic organizations, but
they face an uphill battle. If Jewish organizations haven`t been able to
convince Latin Americans in their own countries that Jews are not what centuries
of myths and stereotypes have perpetuated, can they be expected to succeed here,
where the language and the culture are very real obstacles?
Daniel Santacruz is a writer and editor living in
Teaneck, NJ.
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