Who is Rebeca Grynspan, the Jewish Costa Rican running to head the UN? |
NEW YORK — Last month, Rebeca Grynspan sat at the front of the United Nations’ soaring General Assembly Hall, before scores of diplomats, pitching her candidacy to become the global body’s next leader, one of the world’s most prominent positions.
“Peace is what made it possible for my parents, two refugees from the Second World War, to find respect and dignity in a small country, Costa Rica,” she said in her opening remarks. “I am the daughter of this peace, a demonstration of what peace makes possible.”
Those refugee parents were Jews fleeing persecution in Europe, and their daughter, one of four candidates to become the next UN secretary-general, if selected, would be the first Jew and the first woman to hold the post.
Grynspan has a track record with leading Jewish organizations, family in Israel, and is a source of pride for Costa Rica’s small Jewish community, but is also an insider at the UN, long a leading source of anti-Israel animus on the world stage, and her office has produced reports critical of the Jewish state during her tenure at the UN.
From Jewish refugees to Costa Rican politics
Grynspan’s parents were Polish Jews who fled to Russia, separately, in 1936, fearing Nazi expansion, she said in a 2022 interview for a UN podcast. Grynspan did not respond to requests for an interview.
Her father arrived in Russia with most of his family, while her mother fled Poland with her two sisters.
“She left her parents behind and they were killed during the Holocaust. They never saw them again,” Grynspan said.
After the war, her parents landed in displaced persons camps. Most of the world was closed to Jewish refugees and both of Grynspan’s parents attempted to reach British Mandatory Palestine. The British were blocking Jewish immigration, though, and during her parents’ “illegal journey,” the British detained and sequestered them on Cyprus, Grynspan said.
“They met in Cyprus and fell in love. They came to Costa Rica already married,” she said.
Grynspan was born in 1955. Her family ran a small store in rural Costa Rica, then moved to the capital, San Jose, where they set up a textile factory. Her parents focused on education for Grynspan and her two sisters.
The family history is central to Grysnpan’s personal narrative, as a first-generation Costa Rican who became a vice president.
“I know what it means to get to a country that respects human rights and where you can make your living in a decent way,” she said in the 2022 interview.
Grynspan has a record of engaging with leading Jewish groups.
She was a keynote speaker at a B’nai B’rith Uruguay event in 2017, on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, where she spoke against Holocaust denial.
A spokesperson for the World Jewish Congress said the group has a longstanding relationship with Grynspan and that the two sides meet regularly.
Grynspan’s sister moved to Israel as a teenager, and Grynspan’s niece and nephew served in the IDF,........