What South America Remembers That Europe Forgot |
There is something deeply revealing about the fact that a Jew can now walk more comfortably through parts of South America wearing a Magen David than through large stretches of what still calls itself enlightened Europe.
I realised this slowly while travelling through Uruguay, Chile, Argentina and Paraguay with Keren Hayesod.
I arrived carrying the habits many European Jews now carry without even noticing anymore: checking exits, scanning crowds, weighing whether visible Jewishness is worth the possible confrontation. Years of hostility disguised as “activism” have trained us into these reflexes. London does it to you. Paris too. Increasingly, Toronto and Melbourne.
And then, somewhere between Montevideo and Buenos Aires, I stopped thinking about it altogether.
I wore my Magen David openly. Walked the streets freely. Sat in cafés, spoke at community events, moved through public spaces without that faint current of anxiety humming beneath the surface. Nobody stared. Nobody spat slogans. Nobody demanded I justify Israel before permitting me basic civic comfort.
South America is hardly free of antisemitism. No serious person would claim otherwise. Argentina still carries the memory of the AMIA bombing like scar tissue beneath the skin. The continent has........