This is Deeply Troubling for Jews in Argentina

This is Deeply Troubling for Jews in Argentina

Did Argentina’s President Cristina Kirchner use a perceived anti-Semitic slur to describe banks and investment funds owed money by her nation? Several days ago the leader of the financially troubled country compared those lenders and investors to William Shakespeare’s Jewish villain, Shylock.

Argentina President Cristina Kirchner Kirchner made her comments through social media during her July 2nd visit to a Buenos Aires school, where she told students that to better understand Argentina’s economic crisis, they should read Shakespeare’s "The Merchant of Venice." One of the protagonists in the play is a stereotypical Jewish moneylender named Shylock, portrayed by Shakespeare as scheming, vindictive, and greedy.

President Kirchner informed her more than two million Twitter followers that she’d asked the students, “Have you read 'The Merchant of Venice' to understand the vulture funds? Usury and the bloodsuckers were immortalized by the best literature for centuries.”

Anti-Semitic references have become more prevalent in Argentina

Many in that country’s Jewish community are deeply troubled by the reference. As in many other parts of the world, public anti-Semitic expressions of sentiment are becoming more common in Argentina.

Back in January of this year, an Argentine prosecutor, a Jewish man named Alberto Nisman, was murdered in his home just days before he was planning to charge President Kirchner with a crime and have her arrested. She was about to be charged with shielding the Iranian perpetrators of a 1994 terror bombing at a major Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.

Following that murder, anti-Semitic graffiti referencing the murder began to appear in many parts of the Argentine capital. But these latest comments, coming from the most powerful person in the nation, have been especially troubling to Jewish hearts.

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