Latino Jews grieve, worry as attack in Israel puts close family ties in focus | CPT PPP Coverage

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In St. Louis, Daniel Platschek, 51, who immigrated to the U.S. from Venezuela over 30 years ago, is very active in the city’s Latino community, including the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and a Hispanic leaders group. 

“Because I am Jewish and people know that I’m Jewish, I make it even more of an effort to be part of the Hispanic community,” he said, as he tries to dispel stereotypes and forge connections among communities.  

Like many other Latin American Jews, both his parents’ families had fled Hitler’s Germany and ended up settling in Uruguay, though Platschek was born in Venezuela, where his parents went to work.   

“I grew up in a displaced place of the world where I was not supposed to be born, but I did, and I grew up there, and those are my roots,” he said. “l identify just as much to my Hispanic roots as to my Jewish roots.”

Asked about the attack on Israel, Platschek said he was “very adamantly against violence in any form, no matter where it comes from.” 

But he reflected on something his late mother said.

“I remember my mom when she was alive, she would usually say: ‘I’m not an observing Jew — but I will never deny the fact that I’m Jewish, because at the end of the day, I’m here, and nobody’s going to take that away from me. I’m proud to be Jewish, and you know — my family made ridiculous sacrifices to survive.'”

Jacob Monty of Houston founded and runs the Center for Latino Jewish Relations along with Tarlow. Monty’s father was Jewish, and his mother is Roman Catholic; he grew up Roman Catholic.

The organization teaches Latinos and Jewish about their shared heritage — many areas of Mexico and what is now New Mexico, for example, became home to Jewish families who were expelled from Spain in 1492 and had to convert or live as Catholics for survival, said Tarlow, an expert on crypto-Jewish history.

The center, Monty said, hosts trips to Israel, and it had one planned for Nov. 28. For now, it’s not canceling, he said, hoping the Israeli government will have taken control of the situation by then.

“It’s important for us as Latinos to condemn what’s happened,” he said. “Hamas is a terrorist organization. When I say condemn it, I’m not saying condemn Palestine. You can be pro-Palestine and criticize Hamas.”

“We stand with Israel,” he said.

Amid the worries over people’s safety and the tensions over the state of war, groups in the U.S. are mobilizing to offer support and raise money. In Texas, Tarlow was helping spearhead a fundraiser to help a small Israeli village on the Gaza border, where at least 18 residents were killed when Hamas attacked, he said.

“We’re trying to help them rebuild,” he said. “Almost all this money is coming from Latino donations.”  

‘I’m afraid’

In Washington, D.C., Dina Siegel Vann, the director of the American Jewish Committee’s Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Institute for Latino and Latin American Affairs, has worked for years to connect Latino and Jewish communities because of shared histories and geographies and mutual concern about issues such as immigration, bigotry and hate.

That work also involves taking Latinos to Israel. Since the attack, she has been wondering about the fate of a woman whose parents founded one of the kibbutzim that were devastated by Hamas and of another woman who was a potter and had visitors sign tiles with messages of peace that were then plastered into a wall. 

Siegel also said the director of her group’s Jerusalem office was in the Israeli army and was most likely activated, along with her son. 

Siegel said she has always been a “proud Jew” and has never kept silent about it. People tell her she doesn’t “look” Mexican, to which she responds, “I’m Jewish and I’m Mexican. Punto.” (Period.)  

Siegel said she has seen Israel in many crises and has endured antisemitism in the U.S., but “for the first time, I’m afraid,” she said. “I feel vulnerable, and my friends, we feel vulnerable.” 

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