By Juan Melamed
BUENOS AIRES — Noah and Shai Abruj never met their uncle, Cristian Adrian Degitar, yet they showed up on a cold winter night last week to honor his memory.
Degitar was 21, the age Noah Abruj is now, when he died on July 18, 1994 as a truck bomb ripped through the AMIA Jewish community center in this city, killing 85 people, including children — widening the hole that opened in the heart of Argentina’s Jewish community two years earlier when the Israeli embassy was bombed.
The Abruj brothers appeared at an event on July 17 on the eve of the bombing’s 30th anniversary.
Different Argentine governments and judiciaries have mismanaged or politicized the investigation into the bombing.
Jews and others have long complained that there has been no true effort to to bring those responsible to justice — even after an Argentine court ruled last April that Iran and Hezbollah were behind the attack.
“I didn’t get to know my uncle physically . . . but my relatives always tell me things about him, about what he did like and what he did not, his passions and his hobbies. They show me lots of photos and tell me lots of anecdotes,” said Shai, 18.
“I don’t know if there will be justice in this case. I hope so. But . . . with or without justice I think it is extremely important to keep doing these types of events to teach and not to lose the memory of the ones who lost their lives during this attack. Future generations have to know what happened here.”
Earlier this month, Argentina designated Hamas a terrorist organization and ordered a freeze on its financial assets.
Argentina’s President Javier Milei, in a departure from his immediate predecessors, has cultivated strong ties with Israel.
He promised to right decades of inaction and stonewalling in the investigations into the attack.
On July 17 in Buenos Aires, on the eve of the anniversary, US anti-Semitism envoy Deborah Lipstadt joined more than 30 counterparts from around the world in launching the “Global Guidelines for Countering Anti-Semitism” — a plan of action for governments and organizations.
US Senate Foreign Relations Chair Ben Cardin (D-Md.) led a Senate delegation to the commemoration in Buenos Aires.
The official ceremony began at 9:53 a.m. local time, exactly the time when the car bomb exploded 30 years ago.
President Joseph Biden sent a letter and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in his own news release, said, “We are committed to holding the perpetrators of these vicious attacks to account.”
July 17 also saw an international summit in Buenos Aires about terrorism, organized by World Jewish Congress and the Latin American Jewish Congress. The focus was Iran’s role in orchestrating the attack, and linked it to Iran’s support for Hamas in the lead-up to the Oct. 7 attack in Israel.
Cardin, whose Jewish grandparents came to the US in 1908 from Lithuania, addressed the summit:
“Like my family, Jews in Argentina had to overcome systemic anti-Semitism. After the bombings here, this community refuses to compromise its values, despite decades of delayed cover ups, this community never gave up on justice.”
This year’s commemorations follow several shifts that have changed their flavor, including Milei’s ascension.
Amos Linetzky, president of AMIA, drew parallels between the bombing in Argentina and the Hamas attack on Israel last Oct. 7 at the official ceremony.
“We are speaking about Oct. 7 here because the origin is the same: Iran,” he said. “Always Iran is supporting the terrorism, the common factor between AMIA and Oct. 7 is the hate, the hate against Jews and also the hypocrite reaction of the world.”
In an essay in the Times of Israel, Rabbi Claudia Kreiman of Temple Beth Zion in Brookline, Mass. remembered her mother, Julia Susana Wolynski Kreiman, who was one of the 85 victims.
“Her death was a turning point for me. I left the country, moving to Israel and eventually the US. I became a rabbi and educator, an activist and pursuer of peace, dialogue and social justice,” she wrote.
“I had been heading in that direction, but the killing of my mom further shaped my values and my determination to live a meaningful and intentional life — a life dedicated to the belief that humans can do better, that violence and hatred are not the ways of the world.”
