Article on anti-Semitism in Spain

Source: Spain, Israel and the Jews

An article on anti-Semitism in Spain was published by El País on Friday, December 2, 2011, under the title España encabeza las encuestas de antijudaísmo (Spain leads the polls on anti-Jewishness). It was written by Juan G. Bedoya and reads as follows (translated as accurate as possible, between quotation marks):

"'We are often asked why the Jews have been being hated so much and for so long. The question has to be made to those who hate us, not to those who are hated.' This thought by Isaac Querub Caro, president of the Federación de Comunidades Judías de España (F.C.J.E. [in English, Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain]), summarized the IV International Seminar on Anti-Semitism. It was closed the last night at the Fundación Caja Navarra [Caja Navarra Foundation]. Several graffiti in the street insulted those present with phrases such as 'Zionism is terrorism' and red crossing-outs on the Star of David.

'The insults, the graffiti, and the slogans against the Jews are considered something normal, when the truth is that they reflect an underlying anti-Semitism. They're a symptom of a social pathology', Alejandro Baer, professor of Sociology at the University of Munich, had denounced previously.

Jurist Jorge Trías Sagnier, who participated in the debate Penal struggle against anti-Semitism and hate offences, expressed his repugnance regarding last April [Spanish] Supreme Court sentence which revoked the conviction against four nazis when considering that phrases such as: 'The Jews are destroyers and promote the wars'; 'The Germans were wrong for not having burnt all of them'; or that 'They're a pestilent race', don't pose a danger and don't deserve a penal reproach.

Trías Sagnier described that sentence as 'barbaric'. 'Some of the magistrates who passed it are the same who are chasing Baltasar Garzón [a Spanish magistrate currently under a judicial investigation for his alleged missconduct during his own judicial investigation on the crimes committed by former Spanish dictator Francisco Franco], but there was a particular vote, full of dignity, by magistrate Martínez Arrieta', he added.

Jews are just a o.1% of Spain's population, but the anti-Semitism levels are among the highest ones in Europe, Querub denounced. The final manifesto of the seminar concluded that 'the denial of the existence of this anti-Semitism aggravates the problem and stops its prevention'."