Jacobo Timerman ,

1. Jacobo Timerman, Anti-Semitism and the Graiver Case

2. The return of Perón and the Dirty War • Left wing origins • Kidnapping of Pedro Aramburu, May 29, 1970 • Accomplished by Emilio Angel Maza and Fernando Luis Abal Medina • Leaders of the Montoneros – a tiny group, mostly of leaders • Killed Aramburu and proclaimed that it was the beginning of seizure of power for Perón and Peronism and reprisal for kidnapping corpse of Eva Perón in 1956 • Caused massive police and military response • 72,000 police and military men went looking for Aramburu • Followed by seizure of town, La Calera, in Córdoba • Received more public support than Marxist ERP

3. The return of Perón and the Dirty War • Left wing origins • Kidnapping of Pedro Aramburu, May 29, 1970 • Never criticized by Perón, strongly supported by the Peronist Youth (Juventud Peronista) • Linked to student, particularly university, activists who joined Montoneros • Followed by equally daring activities on part of Marxist groups

4. Perón lying in state

5. The return of Perón and the Dirty War • Rise of the Extreme Right • Military joined with AAA after Isabel Martínez de Perón invited them to wipe out the guerillas; then took power for themselves on March 24, 1976 • Inflation and political violence uncontrolled • Economy in shambles • Montonero response • Try to blow up Federal Police chief by putting explosives under a bed and bombing the dining room of the Federal Police Security Branch • Military response: massive hunts for subversives; use of torture to extract names of collaborators • By 1978, Montoneros mostly defeated, but Dirty War continued

6. Who was Jacobo Timerman? • Between 1976 and 1983 the military dictatorship in Argentina forcibly detained and killed from 10,000-30,000 people, mostly youths. • Among those detained, some were Jewish • The presence of Jews in detention camps raised accusations of institutionalized anti-Semitism in Argentina • Jacobo Timerman was one of those detained • Was he a victim of anti-Semitism?

7. Early History • Born in the Ukraine in 1926, and he fled there with his family in 1931 as the result of pogroms • Settled in Buenos Aires with his parents and brothers; father died when he was 12 • Became, according to mother, obsessed with Jewish causes, joined the Socialist Zionists, and supported the Zionist organization that sent troops to fight in the Spanish Civil War • Eventually he became a journalist and worked in Buenos Aires (La Razón) • He also established his own newspaper La Opinión in the 1960s

8. Timerman and the Military • Had a complicated relationship and initially he backed their economic reforms • Knew everyone in government • Eventually began to criticize the government • Also criticized right-wing groups in Israel as well as Palestinian terrorism • Criticized Castro’s treatment of political prisoners, but supported Allende in Chile • His eclectic opinions did not fit in with traditional views of the Jewish community in Argentina, whom he also critcized.

9. Timerman Arrested, 1976 • Was so important, that he lunched with an Arg. Naval captain who told him the “whoever was in any way linked to subversion—sons, parents, relatives—had to disappear. • Shortly thereafter, Timerman was arrested and detained in a concentration camp where he was tortured and treated cruelly. • Supporters of Timerman argued that he was arrested because he was Jewish, but, in fact he never claimed this—he claimed he was dangerous because he was a journalist who told the truth.

10. Jacobo Timerman

11. Timerman and the Graiver Case • A Jewish investor who held 40% of La Opinión’s stock, David Graiver, also presumably had connections with the Argentine guerrilla group, the Montoneros. Reputedly, he laundered money stolen by the group • Also had important investments in other parts of the world, and in 1976, he died in a plane crash just before a number of his banks collapsed. Rumors abounded that the military killed him because he was Jewish and a banker—never proven, nor was his death • Timerman believed to be complicit with Graiver and his banking activities—never proven • Many believed Timerman arrested because of his link to Graiver, but it was never proven

13. Timerman Imprisoned • Arrested April 1977 • In his book he claimed he was arrested for being a journalist—at the same time, he argued that Nazis had arrested him for being a Jew and a Zionist. How can we reconcile these positions? • In 1980, in the Columbia Review of Journalism, he argued that journalists were dying and imprisoned because they told the truth • In his book Cell Without a Number, Prisoner Without a Name he emphasized the special treatment he received as a Jew, but also blamed the Jewish community for its silence on the issue. • Not released until 1979, when he remained under house arrest until international pressure, particularly from the United States, led to his release that September after he was stripped of his citizenship and placed on a plane for Israel

14. Timerman in Israel • Began to write his memoirs of prison in Argentina, also wrote a critique of Israeli policy toward Lebanon • Criticized Israel for its right-wing politics • Then after he left Israel, he went to Chile which was under the control of Agusto Pinochet, and criticized the left for infighting that left them weak and unable to deal with the military government.

15. Timerman in Buenos Aires • Eventually Timerman returned to Argentina • He died there in 1999 at the age of 76 after successfully testifying at the 1986 trials of the men who interrogated him, called the former chief of police of Buenos Aires a “lunatic, paranoid assassin.” • He managed to get back all his property seized in Buenos Aires and in Uruguay, as well as $5 million dollars for his newspaper.

16. How Many Jews were Detained by the Argentine Military Government? • Estimates range from 1,000 to 1,800, less than 10% of the number of people disappeared. • How can we categorize the anti-Semitism of Argentina at that moment, and how central did it become to the Dirty War?