Spanish Jews warn map of local Jewish and ‘Zionist’ businesses will lead to violence

The project lists more than 150 Jewish and Israeli businesses, schools and organizations in Catalonia, with the goal of ‘understanding how Zionism operates’

An online map identifying Jewish and Israeli-linked businesses in Catalonia has drawn sharp criticism from Spain’s Jewish community, who say it echoes antisemitic practices from Europe’s darkest chapters.

The project, called “Barcelonaz,” appeared this week on the French-hosted mapping platform GoGoCart, claiming to be “a collaborative map of the Zionist economy in Barcelona.”

Run by an anonymous group describing itself as “journalists, professors and students,” the interactive map lists more than 150 businesses, schools and organizations that it labels as “Zionist.” Its objective, it says, is to “understand how Zionism operates” in Catalonia and to call out and denounce what it describes as the impact of related investments in the region.

The map is public, collaborative and regularly updated, it says, encouraging users to donate and to submit additional locations that meet criteria defined by the site’s creators.

Among the entities highlighted are multinational corporations operating in Israel, like Airbus, which was recently singled out by the Spanish government as an exception to its new laws banning defense trade with Israel, as well as IBM, Microsoft, Siemens, Volvo, Deutsche Bank, and BBVA.

Israeli companies and local Jewish businesses are also singled out, including kosher food businesses and the Hatikva Jewish school in Barcelona.

Jewish community representatives in Spain charge that the initiative encourages discrimination against the community, or possibly worse, according to Spanish Jewish news site Enfoque Judio. Several organizations have filed complaints with GoGoCarto, urging the platform to remove the site and arguing it violates French laws against incitement to hatred and discrimination.

“Barcelonaz is not a harmless map: it is an instrument of stigmatization that contributes to this climate of hostility and directly or indirectly incites discrimination against Jews and Israeli citizens, boycotts of their businesses, and even violence,” a source involved in the fight against antisemitism told Enfoque Judio.

“We already saw in Australia the process that led to the Sydney attack a few weeks ago,” the source added, referring to the Hanukkah terror attack on Jews at Bondi Beach that killed 15 people and wounded dozens.

In a letter to GoGoCarto cited by Enfoque Judio, Jewish community members call on the company to remove the map because it violates anti-hatred laws and “clearly has an antisemitic and discriminatory character, since it intends to identify and stigmatize a population based on their religious affiliation, real or supposed.”

Since the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught, Spain has emerged as one of Europe’s most aggressive antagonists of Israel, systematically dismantling decades of diplomatic and economic cooperation in favor of a “sanctions-first” doctrine. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Madrid has used some of the most severe rhetoric of any G20 nation, frequently labeling Israel’s military operations as “extermination” and “genocide.”

In June 2024, it was the first European country to formally apply to join South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). A month earlier, it formally recognized a Palestinian state in a coordinated effort with Norway and Ireland in an attempt to increase diplomatic pressure on Jerusalem to end its war with Hamas.

In September, anti-Israel protesters disrupted the country’s famed Vuelta a España cycling race several times, forcing organizers to shut down part of the race.