But Recent Events May Set Back the Effort : Argentina Tries to Shed Anti-Semitism

Item: A synagogue is bombed hours after the arrest of an alleged Nazi war criminal.

Item: The bodies of two Jewish businessmen kidnaped for ransom by rogue federal police officers are found buried in a grove outside Buenos Aires.

Since assuming power four years ago from a rightist military regime, the civilian government of President Raul Alfonsin has tried to overcome Argentina’s reputation as a haven for Nazis and home of anti-Semites.

Jews have played a greatly increased governmental role in countering the image of a nation prone to anti-Semitism. But recent events may set back the effort.

300,000 Jews

Argentina is home to 300,000 Jews, many of whom say that anti-Semitism is no more endemic to Argentina than to Western Europe or the United States. Argentina has the fifth-biggest Jewish population in the world, after those of the United States, Israel, the Soviet Union and France.

More than 90% of Argentina’s population of 30 million is Roman Catholic.

During military rule from 1976 to 1983, tens of thousands of suspected leftists were kidnaped, and at least 9,000 were summarily executed. Of those killed, 304 were Jews, a figure significantly greater than Jews’ incidence in the overall population.

Among those kidnaped was Jacobo Timerman, author of the 1981 best-selling book “Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without A Number.”

Jailed for 28 Months

Timerman, a newspaper publisher and an Argentine Jew, was tortured, then jailed for 28 months. He said that neo-fascist security officers insulted him for his religion and wanted to stage a show trial against Zionism.

The military regime included no prominent Jews, who traditionally have been unwelcome in the armed forces except for service as conscripts. Under Alfonsin, Jews in influential positions include Secretary of Planning Bernard Grinspun; Adolfo Gass, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; and House majority leader Cesar Jaroslavsky.

The government also proposed a constitutional reform to change the requirement that the president and vice president be Roman Catholics.

The efforts appeared to be working. Alfonsin, a lawyer and human rights activist, was named the American Jewish Congress’ 1987 Man of the Year. He is to visit New York this year to receive the prize.

But there was much history to overcome.

Aided Nazis

Before World War II, the Argentine officer corps was trained in Nazi Germany and fascist Italy.

The government of strongman Juan Peron did not discourage Nazis, even war criminals, from settling in Argentina after the war, when Jewish immigration also surged.

Adolf Eichmann, the architect of Adolf Hitler’s plan to exterminate the Jews, lived for nearly 15 years in a Buenos Aires suburb until Israeli agents kidnaped him in 1960. He was executed in Israel two years later.

Since Nov. 5, the bodies of financier Osvaldo Sivak and Benjamin Neuman, former head of the Israeli Hospital, were found buried in a grove about six feet apart. They were kidnaped in 1985 and 1982, respectively, and both families paid large ransoms.

6 Officers Implicated

Six former police officers were arrested in the kidnapings. One hanged himself in jail.

Josef Schwammberger, 75, was arrested recently in northwestern Cordoba province. He is alleged to be a former SS captain who commanded two ghettoes and a work camp for Jews in occupied Poland during World War II.

Also recently, a bomb went off at a synagogue in Buenos Aires’ Once neighborhood, destroying the temple’s doors but causing no casualties.