Miguel Ángel Mancera, the mayor of Mexico City, has laid the foundation stone of a new Jewish community center in the capital which will cost nearly $5.3 million.
Mancera welcomed the Jewish community’s decision to invest in his city and to build the Kehila Ashkenazi, which is located in Mexico City’s Roma Norte district in the district of Cuauhtemoc.
“The Jewish community is showing a substantial, permanent impulse, honoring ancestral values of their people, but living with this dialectic of Mexico, showing affection to the city and to all who live here,” he said.
Mancera pointed out that the capital district's new Constitution specifically mentions the fight against anti-Semitism. In turn, Moises Romano, the president of the Central Committee of the Jewish Community of Mexico — the country’s Jewish umbrella organization — cited the governmental support provided to carry out local projects. "It is very important for us that you know that we value a lot the fact that every time we approach any city official to bring up a community theme, they always welcome us very well," he said.
Last week, the Observatorio Web, which is supported by the Latin American Jewish Congress, examined that of 22 online articles from major Mexican newspapers, 40 percent were anti-Semitic. The most recurrent themes were the vindication of Adolf Hitler, and the representation of Jews as avaricious, greedy, usurers and guided purely by economic interest.
Mexico is home to some 50,000 Jews, Latin America’s third largest Jewish community after Argentina and Brazil.
Photo: Diariojudio.com
