Jacobo Timerman

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Jacobo Timerman

Jacobo ben Nathan Timerman (born January 6, 1923 in Bar (Vinnytsia) , † November 11, 1999 in Buenos Aires ) was an Argentine publisher, journalist and author.

Life

Timerman grew up as the son of Ukrainian Jews who fled to Argentina in 1928 in the face of pogroms from the Soviet Union . When he was twelve years old, his father died and his mother had to take care of her two sons alone. It gave him a strong awareness of the worldwide persecution of Jews. As a teenager he was already involved in Jewish and Zionist organizations. He also began to get enthusiastic about socialist ideas.

He began studying engineering in La Plata , but soon devoted himself only to journalism , which he had started in 1947 with literary criticism. In 1950 he became editor of the leading daily newspaper La Razón in Buenos Aires, where he soon received his own column on domestic political issues. He also worked for radio and television. He successively founded the weekly magazines Primera Plana (1962) and Confirmado (1964).

In 1971 Timerman founded the daily newspaper La Opinión , which was based on the French Le Monde and, in addition to news, offered critical analyzes of the day's events. With a left-liberal orientation, it soon reached a high circulation. Under the military dictatorship , the paper came under increasing pressure from 1976, while journalists criticized both the left-wing extremist terrorist groups and the counter-terror of the military. In April 1977, Timerman was arrested on charges of promoting terrorism, detained for over a year, and beaten and shocked with electric batons during interrogation, without any criminal charges. After a supreme court decision ordered his release, he remained under house arrest for 17 months. He recorded his experiences in the book We roared inside: Torture in the dictatorship today , published in 1981 , which received wide international attention and which the US broadcaster NBC turned into a television film in 1983. In his reports, Timerman emphasized that as a Jew he was exposed to special, anti-Semitic harassment from the interrogating military personnel.

Under diplomatic pressure from the Israeli and US governments supporting the military junta, Timerman was allowed to leave for Israel in 1979 . The Argentine government invalidated his Argentine citizenship. After his critical comments - in addition to Israeli relations with the Argentine regime in particular also on the Lebanon war in 1982 - led to differences with the Israeli government, he finally went to the USA and Spain. In 1981, at the invitation of the Democratic Party, he took part in the hearing in the US Congress of the political scientist Ernest Lefever, who had been nominated by President Ronald Reagan as the government's human rights commissioner, but whose statements on the assessment of human rights violations in anti-communist dictatorships were highly controversial. With his experience reports, Timerman was instrumental in its rejection by the majority of MPs. Timerman's charge that the social representatives of Argentine Jews did not oppose the military dictatorship, and his criticism of the Reagan administration's Latin American policy, sparked heated controversy in the United States - especially within the Jewish community, about its attitude between traditional closeness to liberal positions and the new neoliberal current.

When New York's Columbia University awarded Timerman the Moors Cabot International Journalism Prize , several former Argentine recipients of the same award responded with public protest in 1981, including the directors of the leading daily newspapers La Nación and La Prensa .

In 1984 he was finally able to return to Argentina. The Argentine authorities returned his property, which had been confiscated after his deportation, and he continued his journalistic activities.

One of his three sons, Héctor Timerman , who also worked as a writer and journalist, served as Argentina's Foreign Minister from 2010 to 2015.

Publications

  • We shouted inside: Torture in the dictatorship today. (Original title: Preso sin nombre, celda sin número 1981) S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1982.
  • Israel's Longest War: Diary of a Lost Victory. (Original title: Israel: la guerra más larga ) Hanser, Munich 1983.
  • Chile: el galope muerto. El País, Madrid 1987.
  • Cuba hoy, y después. Muchnik, Barcelona 1990.

Prizes and awards

literature

  • Fernando J. Ruiz: Las palabras son acciones: Historia política y profesional de «La Opinión» de Jacobo Timerman. Perfil, 2001.
  • Graciela Mochkofsky: Timerman: El periodista que quiso ser parte del poder. Sudamericana, Buenos Aires 2003. (biography)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Albin Krebs: Jacobo Timerman, 76, the Torture Victim Who Documented Argentina's Shame, Dies . In: New York Times. November 12, 1999, accessed January 27, 2017. (English)
  2. ^ A b c Murió el periodista Jacobo Timerman . In: La Nación. November 12, 1999, accessed January 27, 2017. (Spanish)
  3. ↑ Janet Maslin: New York Is Buenos Aires For Film On Timerman . In: New York Times. February 2, 1983, accessed January 27, 2017
  4. ↑ Klaus Harpprecht : The Timerman Affair . In: The time. July 17, 1981. Retrieved January 27, 2017.
  5. ^ Edward S. Shapiro: We Are Many: Reflections on American Jewish History and Identity. Syracuse University Press, 2005, Chapter "War among the Jews," pp. 193-207.
  6. ^ Eduardo Blaustein, Martín Zubieta: Decíamos ayer: la prensa argentina bajo el Proceso. Colihue, Buenos Aires 1998, p. 432. (Spanish)
personal data
SURNAME Timerman, Jacobo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Timerman, Jacobo ben Nathan (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Argentine publisher, journalist and author
DATE OF BIRTH January 6, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Bar (Vinnytsia)
DATE OF DEATH November 11, 1999
Place of death Buenos Aires