Jews Put Spotlight on 1994 Terror Bombing at Iran-Argentina World Cup Match

Image by getty images
For many Jews, the World Cup match on June 21 between Argentina and Iran is far more than a soccer game.
It’s an opportunity to remind the world of a crime that, 20 years on, remains unresolved.
Eighty-five people died in the 1994 terror bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina, or AMIA, the main Jewish center in Buenos Aires.
Prosecutors have accused Iran of carrying out the attack through its proxy Hezbollah, but Argentinian authorities and police officials have delayed investigations and have failed to bring anyone to account.
The Tehran connection underlines the symbolism of the soccer match between the two nations.
Argentinian Maxi Klein’s cousin, 20-year-old Emiliano Gastón Brikman, was among the AMIA victims.
Klein will take a banner quoting Deuteronomy’s “Tzedek tzedek tirdof” (“Justice, justice you shall pursue”) to the Mineirão stadium in Belo Horizonte, where Argentina faces Iran in the second match for both teams.
“It’s important that the world sees that we’re asking for justice,” Klein said.
Since Brikman was also a huge soccer fan, Klein reckoned it would be the perfect time and place to pay homage to his cousin’s memory.
“And it means even more to me, personally,” Klein added.
“Watching the game can’t help but bring back painful memories for many of us,” Claudio Epelman, executive director of the Latin American Jewish Congress, told Time magazine.
On June 2, the Latin American chapter of the World Jewish Congress sent a letter to Sepp Blatter, president of FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, urging the organization to keep one minute’s silence to remember the victims of the AMIA attack before the Argentina vs. Iran match. FIFA has not yet responded.
Iran-watchers warn Jewish groups not to expect any shift in stance from the Islamic republic, especially at a time when it is focused on nuclear talks with the West and the sectarian bloodshed in neighboring Iraq.
“There’s no reason to expect an overt response from the government now,” Abbas Milani, director of Iranian Studies at Stanford, told Time.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 2
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Britain’s Tate to return Nazi-looted painting to heirs of Jewish art collector
-
Fast Forward 3 sentenced to death for murder of UAE Chabad rabbi
-
Books The White House Seder started in a Pennsylvania basement. Its legacy lives on.
-
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.