1.
Many readers will be familiar with the name of the Argentine journalist and publisher Jacobo Timerman. Kidnapped and tortured by agents of the 1976-1983 dictatorship, he was eventually allowed to leave for Israel where he wrote a book, Prisoner Without A Name, Cell Without A Number that was to become a classic account of the horrors of military rule in Argentina.
2.
I mention him here because of the appearance of this bizarre and repugnant text by Bridget Kevane in Tablet. It’s hard to fathom the author’s intentions but it doesn’t seem excessive to suggest that she seeks to play down his suffering and insinuate that he somehow deserved what happened to him because he didn’t live his Jewishness in a way she approves of.
3.
One of the most immediately striking problems about the essay is that the author seems to think that she has made some sort of big discovery about Timerman in the shape of newly declassified cables from the US Embassy which report conversations with him. She appears to find it particularly troubling that he is reported as denying the existence of antisemitism in Argentina. Well, so what if he did? He may have had any number of reasons for saying so and even if he said it and meant it, what does that change in our view of him as a victim of state terror? Is there an appropriate set of opinions for all Jews to have on the question of antisemitism? Do you have to have a set of well-founded opinions in order to have rights.
4.
She describes Timerman as having been “arrested” and later as hoping to have “charges” against him “cleared up quickly”. What actually happened is that he was kidnapped and savagely tortured by group of fanatically antisemitic members of the security forces. The pretext for the kidnap - apart from the racial hatred of those who carried it out - was to find out what had happened to, and if possible to steal, the fortune of David Graiver, a banker and business associate of Timerman’s, who had died in a plane crash in Mexico. The author also speaks of the “Graiver scandal”, presumably on the basis of his supposed relations with the Montoneros revolutionary Peronist movement and doesn’t hold back from describing it as “the legal reason” for Timerman’s “imprisonment”.
The author’s mimicry of the soothing euphemisms employed by the terrorist regime that ran Argentina at the time would be outrageous in any context, it’s doubly so coming from someone who seeks to judge Timerman’s conduct.
5.
By the time he founded La Opinión, Timerman had lived through several military coups and changes in government and he had intimate connections with almost every regime.
A miserable attempt at a smear. As a journalist and later a publisher Timerman had little choice but to develop what relations he could with those who were in a position to censor and generally control the press. The same goes for every other person in Argentina doing the same kind of work.
6.
Timerman is also chided for his friendship with Juan José Güiraldes, a scion of Argentina’s land-owning aristocracy.
Having Güiraldes on his side, working with him on journalistic ventures such as the newsweekly Confirmado granted Timerman full acceptance in the Argentine elite; his adopted homeland came to view him as one of its own.
At this point I’d modestly suggest that getting fully accepted by the Argentine elite probably has more to do with having lots of money than having one particular friend and that goes for Jews and Gentiles.
7.
Professor Kevane has no bones about making stuff up in her attempt to portray Argentina as some sort of hell for Jews.
… in 1919, Buenos Aires had experienced a pogrom that resulted in 800 dead and 4,000 wounded.
What she’s talking about is an event known as La Semana Trágica, a series of disturbances which certainly involved attacks on Jews and synagogues but also attacks on socialist and anarchist organizations. A pogrom, in the sense that term is normally understood, it certainly was not.
8.
Timerman was a towering figure in the history of Argentine journalism. He had flaws and committed numerous errors of judgment. The most important of these was failing to spot that the 1976-83 dictatorship was going to be quite different from the ones that preceded it, that it would behave with unprecedented barbarity and with genocidal intent. He paid very dearly for that mistake. It ill behooves a contemporary academic to serenely echo the language of his torturers while sneering at the way he chose to live his life.
A disproportionately high number of Argentine Jews suffered a similar or worse fate to that of Timerman, a fate that didn’t depend on how, or to what extent they had attempted to assimilate into Argentine society but rather on the criminal hatred of those that inflicted it on them.
The attempt to shine new light on a complex subject by the lame author of the smear articles illustrates how even the lowliest of unprofessional hacks can stir up deep emotions on subjects they know very little about. By extropolating a few words out of context a writer has single-handedly created a maelstrom of dis-content. It is obvious to everyone, educated or not, Argentine, or not, Jewish or not, that this lady who wrote these discombobulated paragraphs really knows very little about anything except how to string 26 letters together, like a two year old. In this day and age of information overload it is too easy say anything at anytime. Therefore, the value of the written word has lost a certain amount of clout, but at the same time has the power to stir people up like never before. One little article with misinformation disinformation, quotes taken out of context and numerous biases can be disseminated across the world in a second. And, thank goodness for the combined and common intelligence of us readers it is our duty and obligation to strike those ill conceived dictums right down before they boil into something not intended. So my fellow free thinkers: Follow this blog entry with as much and as many comments as you can to thwart the enemy of TRUTH wherever it rears its ugly head. And to Mr. Jacobo Timerman, whom I met I on several occassions, you are and were a GREAT MAN and will always be regarded as such!!!!! We will NEVER FORGET you and will fight for your ideals until the death, singularly, and collectively. Your strengths are our strengths and we take them onward in adfinatum.
“except how to string 26 letters together,” and barely makes that.
I was not familiar with Timmerman. But I was intrigued enough by your critique of Kevane’s piece to purchase Prisoner without a Name…. I’ve long been interested in learning more about the Dirty War. Hopefully Timmerman’s book will be a good introduction.
Your two pieces are incredible accurate and reveal you clearly know what you are talking about. I have no idea what this person intentions were but as Jacobo’s son i want to thank you for clarifying this horrible text. Hope to meet you some day.. take care
Actually, the events known as the Tragic Week did involve a small pogrom in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Once. It resulted in one Jew dead, 71 wounded and several synagogues and two public libraries torched.
From Bridget Kevane’s clumsy wording, however, it would appear that all 800 people who were killed in the riots were Jewish, which is by no means the case.