The annual ceremony in memory of victims of anti-Semitic incidents and terror attacks around the world will take place on Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of terror; Monday, 5 Iyar), at 09:00 in the plaza of The Jewish Agency for Israel’s Jerusalem headquarters building.

This year, the ceremony will mark twenty years since the murderous terror attack at the AMIA (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, in which 85 people were killed. Representatives of the Jewish community of Argentina will attend the ceremony and relatives of two of the victims – Andrés Gustavo Malamud, 37, and Silvana Alguea de Rodríguez, 28 – will kindle a memorial flame.

On July 18, 1994, a Hezbollah terrorist detonated a massive car bomb in front of the AMIA Jewish community center in central Buenos Aires, killing 85 people and injuring more than 300, most of them Jews. It was one of two major terror attacks targeting Jewish and Israeli targets in Argentina in the 1990’s. Two years earlier, in March 1992, an attack at the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires caused the deaths of 29 people and injured 242.

The ceremony will take place under the auspices of The Jewish Agency for Israel, the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF), Keren Hayesod-UIA, the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), and the Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA (UIAC).

Ambassador of Argentina to Israel Carlos Faustino Garcia, Jewish Agency Chairman of the Executive Natan Sharansky, World Zionist Organization Chairman Avraham Duvdevani, Keren Hayesod-UIA Chairman Eliezer Sandberg, JFNA Senior Vice President for Global Operations and Director General of JFNA Israel Rebecca (Becky) Caspi, KKL-JNF Director-General Meir Spiegler, UIAC Director-General Yossi Tanuri, AMIA Secretary-General Mario Sobol, Jewish Agency Director-General Alan Hoffmann, and Chairman of the Jewish Agency Workers’ Committee Hanan Mor will attend the ceremony.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)