Anti-Semitic posters associating Jews with the coronavirus appeared recently in the southern Argentine city of Neuquén, where Jews make up only 0.13% of the population, JTA reported.

The posters carried messages such as “The Jews are the virus” and “Argentines Awake to the World Jewish Dictatorship.”

Neuquén, the capital city of the province of Neuquén, has a population of 230,000, of whom about 300 are Jews.

El presidente de la filial Neuquén de la DAIA, Carlos Maravankin, expresó su preocupación por la aparición de afiches antisemitas en las calles de Neuquén. https://t.co/dDkBsWGmcP

— LMNeuquén (@LMNeuquen) August 22, 2020

“They are criminals, antisocial, who only spread hate in a time when Argentine society is affected by the coronavirus pandemic,” the president of the Delegations of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA) branch in Neuquén said. “This does not help our mental health situation and only helps people get sicker.”

Ariel Gelblung, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s director for Latin America, said: “They are spreading a message of hate clearly punishable by law. It is not surprising that it happens in the same location where the extreme right obtained 30,000 votes in the preliminary elections of 2019.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)