Jacobo Timmerman, a Jew and an Argentine publisher, was
jailed, tortured and eventually banished by the military
regime.

Above, Political prisoners in a Buenos Aires jail demanding
immediate release after the overthrow of the junta.
Left, A "Madre" — A mother of the Plaza de Mayo — prote'sting
in Buenos Aires to know the fate of her disappeared children.

`He was involved with every
:!ase."
Meyer described the opera-
Om: when a Jew was kidnap-
ed, the next thing the securi-
o y forces would do was get a
cold of his or her address
)ook and seize all her or his
riends and acquaintances.
\iirgad and his people, there-
;ore, quickly compiled a list of
1 Ames of all the friends and
,:olleagues of a disappeared
Serson,
who were at grave
.
isk.

"We went from door to
loor, from house to house," he
.ontinued, "persuading par-
nts to let their children go
Vith us. They had to leave at
i nce."
i.i
Meyer would not dis-
lose
the
route out of Argen-
.
a or the immediate coun-
y of destination.
Dov Schmorak, who took
ver Nirgad's job until 1985,
did last year that he and the
DAIA made secret arrange-
',lents with the government
nd security forces who
could let certain prisoners go
the Israelis would get them
ut. The Israelis often went in
middle of the night to the
lisons, took the released
ews to the airport, and got
nem out of the country.
In her criticism of DAIA,
pelbaum said, "When the

disappearances began in
1976, the DAIA did nothing
— I don't know if they were
fearful or simply didn't think
it was convenient." She said
that she met with DAIA lead-
ers and was told they had
presented the Minister of In-
terior and General Roberto
Videla with a list of 90 names
of kidnapped young Jews.
The generals had promised to
respond to the DAIA and
when they did, she was told,
the DAIA would submit
another list.
She charged that shortly
after Marcos, the son of then-
DAIA president Nehemias
Resnizky, was kidnapped in
July 1977, and released after
three days, "the DAIA stop-
ped their commitment to this
problem." Many people, she
said, believed both acts were
related.
Resnizky has vehemently
denied the charge, insisting
that the DAIA continued to
present lists of disappeared
Jews to the government
throughout the junta's rule.
The DAIA, in an official
document dated January
1984 (long after Resnizky's
term of office was over),
stated that it had "assumed
without hesitations the
defense of the Jews" whose

disappearances were brought
to its attention. The DAIA
"was the only group that
regularly with insistence and
energy asked from the public
powers an explanation of the
situation of its member de-
tainees and disappeared,"
said the DAIA's official
English translation of the
document.
The document stated that
the DAIA intervened on be-
half of Jewish desaparecidos
from the beginning.
Rabbi Meyer acknowledged
that the DAIA did intervene
in specific cases "but not in
general." The DAIA, he said,
"did not condemn human
rights violations. They said
life is going on normally,
Zionist activities are permit-
ted, the schools are open."
Epelbaum's Canadian cou-
sin, Charles Zaionz, chairman
of the Canadian Jewish Con-
gress' International Affairs
Committee, was actively in-
volved in work on behalf of
Argentine Jews during the
reign of terror. He said in an
interview that following
Epelbaum's visit to North
America in 1978 to rally sup-
port for the Madres, CJC of-
ficials requested a meeting
with the Argentine Ambas-
sador.

Epelbaum's Canadian cous-
in, Charles Zaionz, chairman
of the Canadian Jewish Con-
gress' International Affairs
Committee, was actively in-
volved in work on behalf of
Argentine Jews during the
reign of terror. He said in an
interview that following
Epelbaum's visit to North
America in 1978 to rally sup-
port for the Madres, CJC of-
ficials requested a meeting
with the Aigentine Ambassa-
dor.
After being kept waiting
for over a month, he said,
they were shown a govern-
ment-made film in which
Resnizky and two of his col-
leagues — a rabbi and a
banker whose names Zaionz
did not recall — stated that
Jewish life in Argentina was
normal.
Epelbaum said that when
she visited the U.S. in late
1978 and early 1979, she
asked leaders of the World
Jewish Congress to express
concern about the violations
of human rights in Argentina.
She said she was told that
they could not do so because
of WJC policy that if the af-
filiate in a particular country
opposed it, others elsewhere
"couldn't say a word."
"The junta believed that
the Jewish community had
influence in the U.S. and
Canada, and the world in gen-
eral, so they tried to be sup-
ported by the DAIA so that
nobody, particularly in the
U.S. — the 'Jewish lobby' —
would say anything against
them," Epelbaum said.
In response to this criti-
cism, Israel Singer, secretary
general of the World Jewish
Congress, said that WJC
president Edgar Bronfman
spoke out very forcefully

against the junta at the 1981
meeting of the Latin Ameri-
can Jewish Congress in Sao
Paulo, Brazil, and in inter-
views with Argentine news-
papers. Singer did acknowl-
edge, however, that Jewish
communities outside Argen-
tina "might have been more
vociferous if they (the DATA)
had encouraged us."
Jewish observers familiar
with Argentina have ex-
pressed the view that the
DAIA may have been moti-
vated by fear for the fate of
the entire Jewish community
in a country which has a long
history of anti-Semitism.
Epelbaum said that the at-
titude of the organized Jew-
ish community in Argentina
was "very upsetting to me,
painful, very sad." It was not
only the Jewish community
that did not take strong ac-
tion on behalf of the junta's
victims — "almost everybody
was like them" — but, she
said, "as a Jew and [in the
light ofl the Jewish tradition,
we expected a different at-
titude."
The Madres, Epelbaum
among them, are still march-
ing in the Plaza de Mayo. "We
still haven't gotten the
answer as to what happened
to most of the children," she
said, and all the criminals
have not been punished. "We
can't act as if nothing hap-
pened. For me, the main fac-
tor is memory. As a Jew, you
must remember the Holo-
caust. You must remind peo-
ple what happened so it will
not be repeated. Memory
must be kept so we will never
have this kind of nightmare
again."

Jewish Telegraphic Agency,
1986.

A Search For Identity

LEONOR BLUM

Special to The Jewish. News

Argentina's Jewish com-
munity is experiencing more
freedom and more political
success than ever before. And
yet there is fear that greater
acceptance will eventually

lead to the community's total
assimilation.
The return to democracy in
December, 1983 has led to an
unprecedented participation
of Jews in Argentine political
and cultural life. Under the
Radical presidency of Raul
Alfonsin, who leads a party

Continued on Page 68

r.