Jewish community in Spain condemns online map labeling schools, businesses as ‘Zionist’

Several community organizations have filed complaints with GoGoCarto, demanding the site’s removal and arguing that it violates French laws against hate speech and discrimination.

By Ailin Vilches Arguello, The Algemeiner

Members of Spain’s Jewish community have filed complaints against a French online platform over a map pinpointing Jewish-owned businesses, schools, and Israeli-linked companies in Catalonia, warning it revives Europe’s darkest antisemitic practices and dangerously promotes harassment and violence.

According to the local Jewish outlet Enfoque Judío, the interactive map — known as Barcelonaz — was launched by an unidentified group claiming to be “journalists, professors, and students” on the French-hosted mapping platform GoGoCarto.

As a publicly accessible and collaboratively created online platform, the map marks over 150 schools, Jewish-owned businesses — including kosher food shops — and Israeli-linked as well as Spanish and international companies operating in Israel, labeling them as “Zionist.”

“Our goal is to understand how Zionism operates and the forms it takes, with the intention of making visible and denouncing the impact of its investments in our territory,” the project’s website states.

Users are also encouraged to donate and to submit additional locations that meet the criteria set by the map’s creators.

Jewish leaders in Spain have strongly denounced the initiative, warning that it fosters further discrimination and hatred against the community amid an increasingly hostile environment in which Jews and Israelis continue to be targeted.

Several community organizations have filed complaints with GoGoCarto, demanding the site’s removal and arguing that it violates French laws against hate speech and discrimination, Enfoque Judío reported.

The newly unveiled project “clearly has an antisemitic and discriminatory character, as it seeks to identify and stigmatize a population based on its real or perceived religious affiliation,” the complainants wrote in a letter obtained by Enfoque Judío.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, Spain has become one of Israel’s fiercest critics, a stance that has only intensified in recent months, coinciding with a shocking rise in antisemitic incidents targeting the local Jewish community — from violent assaults and vandalism to protests and legal actions.

Last week, Israeli mural artists Hodaya and Dudi Shoval were physically assaulted in Barcelona while working on a project that turns existing murals into pro-Israel messages, confronting a rising tide of antisemitic and anti-Israeli graffiti throughout the city.

While working in the city center, a group of unknown individuals approached them and started shouting antisemitic insults before turning violent.

As the Shovals and their camera crew tried to flee the scene, the assailants began throwing objects, including a glass bottle that smashed against their photographer’s head.

Amid this increasingly hostile climate, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has faced growing backlash from political leaders and the Jewish community, who accuse him of fueling antisemitic hostility.

As part of its anti-Israel campaign aimed at undermining and isolating the Jewish state internationally, the Spanish government announced earlier this week a ban on imports from hundreds of Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria, eastern Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights — making Spain the second European Union country to implement such a policy in its ongoing effort to boycott Israel.

Spain’s newly implemented measure marks its latest attempts to curb Israel’s defensive campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, as ties between the two countries continue to deteriorate amid ongoing tensions.

In September, Spain also passed a law to take “urgent measures to stop the genocide in Gaza,” banning trade in defense material and dual-use products from Israel, as well as imports and advertising of products originating from Israeli settlements.

On Tuesday, Spain’s consumer ministry ordered seven travel booking websites to take down 138 listings for holiday homes in Palestinian territories, warning they could face sanctions if they continue advertising Israeli-owned properties in those areas.

Earlier this year, the Spanish government also announced it would bar entry to individuals involved in what it called a “genocide against Palestinians,” block Israel-bound ships and aircraft carrying weapons from Spanish ports and airspace, and enforce an embargo on products from Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria.