The Argentine Forum Against Anti-Semitism (FACA) rejected this Friday the appointment of Rodolfo Barra as a future lawyer for the State Treasury in the next government of the elected President of Argentina, Javier Milei. The association denounces its previous links to movements “close to National Socialism” and therefore demanded that the chairman of La Libertad Avanza (LLA), who takes office on December 10th, should revoke the appointment. “We see this election as a direct affront to the democratic and pluralistic spirit of our country,” said the organization’s letter published on social networks.
Barra, who turns 76 next Tuesday, was part of the neoliberal Peronist governments Carlos Menem (1989-1999). Between 1994 and 1996 he held the office of Minister of Justice. Technically, his departure from the Menemist executive came after his past as an activist in the far-right youth organization Tacuara Nationalist Movement, linked to fascism and neo-Nazism, was publicly revealed. However, Menem kept him close to the decision-making bodies.
Now Milei saves him to replace the Kirchnerist Carlos Zannini at the helm of the Treasury Department, after focusing his work in recent years on the private sector and academia, where he gave conferences on administrative and constitutional law.
FACA believed that “the new government must not have officials who have expressed anti-Semitic ideas in the past.” The association believes the change would “honor the democratic will of the Argentine people.” “We call on the authorities to take immediate action to correct this regrettable mistake and ensure that democratic and inclusive principles prevail in public administration,” the statement concluded.
The Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA) and the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA), the two main Jewish associations in the Latin American country, have not yet commented on the appointment of Barra as lawyer of the State Treasury. Argentina, and particularly Buenos Aires, is home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the world outside of Israel: the first in Latin America and the fifth in the world, with between 300,000 and 400,000 people.
Milei has recognized himself as a Catholic, but has repeatedly expressed his intention to convert to Judaism. In fact, last week the president-elect attended a Jewish ceremony in Buenos Aires, where he received a blessing from a rabbi, and on Monday he visited the rabbi’s grave in New York. Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994), known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, a pilgrimage site for the Hasidic (Orthodox) branch of Judaism.