Rethinking Jewish Latin Americans Dialogos

Rethinking Jewish-Latin Americans
Other titles on Latin America available from the

University of New Mexico Press:
Independence in Spanish America: Civil Wars, Revolutions,

and Underdevelopment (revised edition)
—Jay Kinsbruner
Heroes on Horseback: A Life and Times of the Last Gaucho Caudillos
—John Charles Chasteen
The Life and Death of Carolina Maria de Jesus
—Robert M. Levine and José Carlos Sebe Bom Meihy
¡Que vivan los tamales! Food and the Making of Mexican Identity
—Jeffrey M. Pilcher
The Faces of Honor: Sex, Shame, and Violence in Colonial Latin America
—Edited by Lyman L. Johnson and Sonya Lipsett-Rivera
The Century of U.S. Capitalism in Latin America
—Thomas F. O’Brien
Tangled Destinies: Latin America and the United States
—Don Coerver and Linda Hall
Everyday Life and Politics in Nineteenth Century Mexico: Men, Women, and War
—Mark Wasserman
Lives of the Bigamists: Marriage, Family, and Community in Colonial Mexico
—Richard Boyer
Andean Worlds: Indigenous History, Culture,
and Consciousness Under Spanish Rule, 1532–1825
—Kenneth J. Andrien
The Mexican Revolution, 1910–1940
—Michael J. Gonzales
Quito 1599: City and Colony in Transition
—Kris Lane
Argentina on the Couch: Psychiatry, State, and Society, 1880 to the Present
—Edited by Mariano Plotkin
A Pest in the Land: New World Epidemics in a Global Perspective
—Suzanne Austin Alchon
The Silver King: The Remarkable Life of the Count of Regla in Colonial Mexico
—Edith Boorstein Couturier
National Rhythms, African Roots:
The Deep History of Latin American Popular Dance
—John Charles Chasteen
The Great Festivals of Colonial Mexico City: Performing Power and Identity
—Linda A. Curcio-Nagy
The Souls of Purgatory:
The Spiritual Diary of a Seventeenth-Century Afro-Peruvian Mystic, Ursula de Jesús
—Nancy E. van Deusen
Dutra’s World:
Wealth and Family in Nineteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro
—Zephyr L. Frank
Death, Dismemberment, and Memory: Body Politics in Latin America
—Edited by Lyman L. Johnson
Plaza of Sacrifices: Gender, Power, and Terror in 1968 Mexico
—Elaine Carey
Women in the Crucible of Conquest:
The Gendered Genesis of Spanish American Society, 1500–1600
—Karen Vieira Powers
Beyond Black and Red: African-Native Relations in Colonial Latin America
—Edited by Matthew Restall
Mexico OtherWise: Modern Mexico in the Eyes of Foreign Observers
—Edited and translated by Jürgen Buchenau
Local Religion in Colonial Mexico
—Edited by Martin Austin Nesvig
Malintzin’s Choices: An Indian Woman in the Conquest of Mexico
—Camilla Townsend
From Slavery to Freedom in Brazil: Bahia, 1835–1900
—Dale Torston Graden
Slaves, Subjects, and Subversives: Blacks in Colonial Latin America
—Edited by Jane G. Landers and Barry M. Robinson
Private Passions and Public Sins: Men and Women in Seventeenth-Century Lima
—María Emma Mannarelli
Making the Americas: The United States and Latin America
from the Age of Revolutions to the Era of Globalization
—Thomas F. O’Brien
Remembering a Massacre in El Salvador: The Insurrection of 1932,
Roque Dalton, and the Politics of Historical Memory
—Héctor Lindo-Fuentes, Erik Ching, and Rafael A. Lara-Martínez
Raising an Empire: Children in Early Modern Iberia and Colonial Latin America
—Ondina E. González and Bianca Premo
Christians, Blasphemers, and Witches:
Afro-Mexican Rituals in the Seventeenth Century
—Joan Cameron Bristol
Art and Architecture of Viceregal Latin America, 1521–1821
—Kelly Donahue-Wallace
Series advisory editor: Lyman L. Johnson,

University of North Carolina at Charlotte
This page intentionally left blank
Rethinking
Jewish-Latin Americans
Edited by
Jeffrey Lesser & Raanan Rein
University of New Mexico Press ! Albuquerque

© 2008 by the University of New Mexico Press
All rights reserved. Published 2008
Printed in the United States of America
13 12 11 10 09 08 1 2 3 4 5 6
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rethinking Jewish-Latin Americans /
edited by Jeffrey Lesser and Raanan Rein.
p. cm.
Includes index.
isbn 978-0-8263-4401-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Jews—Latin America.
2. Jews—Identity.
3. National characteristics, Latin American.
I. Lesser, Jeff.
II. Rein, Raanan, 1960–
f1419.j4r48 2008
305.892'408—dc22
2008012336
Book design and type composition by Melissa Tandysh
Composed in 10/13.75 ScalaOT
Display type is Poetica Std

Contents
List of Illustrations
ix
Acknowledgments
x
chapter one
Introduction
jeffrey lesser and raanan rein
1
chapter two
New Approaches to Ethnicity and Diaspora in Twentieth-Century Latin America
jeffrey lesser and raanan rein
23
chapter three
How the Jews Became Japanese and Other Stories of Nation and Ethnicity
jeffrey lesser
41
chapter four
What’s in a Stereotype? The Case of Jewish Anarchists in Argentina
josé c. moya
55
chapter five
Beyond the State and Ideology:
Immigration of the Jewish Community to Brazil, 1937–1945
roney cytrynowicz
89
chapter six
The Scene of the Transaction:
“Jewishness,” Money, and Prostitution in the Brazilian Imaginary
erin graff zivin
106
vii
chapter seven
Protest from Afar: The Jewish and Republican Presence in Victoria Ocampo’s
Revista SUR in the 1930s and 1940s
rosalie sitman
132
chapter eight
Changing the Landscape:
The Study of Argentine-Jewish Women and New Historical Vistas
sandra mcgee deutsch
161
chapter nine
Women’s Organizations and Jewish Orphanages in Buenos Aires, 1918–1955
donna j. guy
187
chapter ten
Nation and Holocaust Narration:
Uruguay’s Memorial del Holocausto del Pueblo Judío
edna aizenberg
207
chapter eleven
Singing for Social Change: Nostalgic Memory and the Struggle
for Belonging in a Buenos Aires Yiddish Chorus
natasha zaretsky
231
chapter twelve
The Ethnic Dilemmas of Latin American Jewry
judah m. cohen
266
Editors and Contributors
285
Index
288
viii
contents
List of Illustrations
figure 1. Jewish gaucho, wearing a tallit, drinking mate, 1984 2

figure 2. Two residents of the Philipson settlement,
Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, 1922 3
figure 3. Wall graffiti, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1984 4
figure 4. View of the Holocaust memorial plaque near
the picnickers 209
figure 5. View of the memorial looking out from the boardwalk
toward the River Plate 209
figure 6. View of the memorial looking from the River Plate
toward the boardwalk 210
figure 7. Tablet with the saying “Seven times shall the just man
fall and seven times shall he rise” 211
figure 8. Path up from the Holocaust memorial back to the
boardwalk 211
figure 9. Memoria Activa protest in Plaza Lavalle, Buenos Aires 238
figure 10. Coro performance at Obelisk, Buenos Aires,
August 2003 243
ix
Acknowledgments
This project has taken many forms since its inception. Over the past few
years, the participants have given versions of the chapters at conferences
and symposia, and some have published their initial ideas. We would partic-
ularly like to thank Jewish History and Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic
Studies for allowing us to use revised versions of articles originally presented
in those journals.
A number of anonymous reviewers were crucial in the formulation of
the chapters, and we particularly want to thank Lyman Johnson for his care-
ful comments on the full manuscript. The staff of the University of New
Mexico Press has been enthusiastic and patient, and we appreciate it.
Much of the final editing of the volume was done at Tel Aviv University
with the support of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for International
and Regional Studies. We would particularly like to thank the Fulbright
Foundation and the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, which provided the
support that allowed Jeffrey Lesser to spend a year at TAU. Special thanks
to Atalia Shragai for her invaluable assistance in the final stages of prepar-
ing the manuscript, and to Ilan Diner for the index.
x
Acknowledgments
chapter one
Introduction
!
jeffrey lesser • raanan rein
A s we sat in the archives of the Nahum Goldmann Museum of the

Jewish Diaspora in Tel Aviv looking for photographs of Jewish-Latin American
life, we were stunned. In addition to the usual images of synagogues, falafel
houses, and Zionist publications, we came upon an image with the cap-
tion “Jewish Gaucho, wearing a Tallit, drinking ‘Mate,’ the national drink of
Argentina” (figure 1). The photo, taken in 1984, is clearly a staged one, since
as the twentieth century came to a close there were no Jewish cowboys riding
into the pampas sunset. Indeed, even in the late nineteenth and early twen-
tieth century, when Jews did live in farming colonies in the interior regions
of Argentina and Brazil, there were few, if any, who worked the land with a
prayer shawl draped over their shoulders.
The falsity of the image of the “Jewish gaucho” speaks many truths.
First, it shows a strong historical memory of Jewish immigration to Latin
America as agricultural in purpose, although most arriving in the region
settled in urban areas. Second, it suggests a negotiation between Judaism
as a religion (the ritual shawl), Judaism as a primordial Latin American
ethnicity (hence the reference to gauchos, considered as one true represen-
tative of the nation in both Argentina and Brazil), and Jews as authentic
1
figure 1.
Jewish gaucho, wearing a tallit, drinking mate, the national drink
of Argentina, 1984. Photo: Gustavo A. Cohen, Argentina. © Beth Hatefutsoth
Photo Archive, courtesy of Gustavo A. Cohen, Argentina.
Latin Americans, in this case represented by mate and the affiliated claim
that drinkers of it are engaged in a national, and thus patriotic, act. Yet the
photograph should not fool readers into thinking that the slippage between
religion, ethnicity, and national identity is a recent phenomenon. A second
photo, taken some sixty years before the first (in 1922), might be labeled
“Jewish gauchos drinking mate, the regional drink of Rio Grande do Sul,
Brazil” (figure 2). Yet its pedigree is not that different from the photograph
taken in 1984, using mate as a symbol of local, non-Jewish identity.
If the Jewish-Brazilian and Jewish-Argentine gauchos of figures 1 and
2 present a positive idealized image of Latin American Jewish life, the next
photograph (figure 3) represents a negative idealized image, and one with
which U.S.-based readers are familiar: that anti-Semitism in Latin America
is an integral and endemic phenomenon. Indeed, it has been fascinating
to us that when lecturing in the United States about Jews in Latin America,
audiences invariably ask about “Nazis.” While the photograph below is cap-
tioned “Wall graffiti, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1984,” closer examination
2
Jeffrey Lesser and Raanan Rein
figure 2.
Two residents of the Philipson settlement, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, 1922.
© Courtesy of Instituto Cultural Judaico Marc Chagall, Jewish Federation
of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
3
Introduction
figure 3.
Wall graffiti, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1984. Photo: Gerardo Garbulsky, Argentina.
© Beth Hatefutsoth Photo Archive, Courtesy of Gerardo Garbulsky, Argentina.
shows that the wall has two layers of discourse, an anti-Semitic stratum that
has been overlaid with the language of pluralism and tolerance represented
by the Magen David (Star of David). Even that symbol has a double mean-
ing, since many Jews would understand the ritual power of the star while
many non-Jews would see it as a representation of the State of Israel and
associated ideas of strength.
These three photographs provide a visual illustration of one of the main
themes of this volume: the gap between the discourse of state and political
organizations, on the one hand, and social realities and practices, on the
other. The worlds of Jewish-Latin Americans bring these broad issues into
particular relief. Thus, most studies tend to overemphasize xenophobic atti-
tudes by the majority population, creating the erroneous impression that
daily life for most Jews on the continent has been a constant nightmare.
These same studies often vacillate between claims that Jews are highly inte-
grated and at the same time completely ghettoized.
The articles in this volume seek to provide a new way of thinking about
ethnicity in Latin America through a focus on Jews. Each chapter takes a
4
new approach to the study of Jewish Latin America, rejecting the a priori
assumptions that have defined most work on the topic, including high
levels of anti-Semitism, Zionism as primarily oriented toward Israel, and
the myth of all Jews being affiliated with community institutions. Asking
new questions provides a corrective to the existent bibliography, which to
a large extent has marginalized the Jewish experience in Latin America. As
the chapters show, Jewish-Latin American cultures represent both exam-
ples of broader Jewish experiences throughout the Americas and wider
minority group experiences as well.
The scholarship presented here breaks with the community studies
produced by those considered the founding parents of Latin American
Jewish studies. Those studies often focused on Ashkenazim, those
Jews who formed communities in Central and Eastern Europe and who
were the majority of Jewish immigrants to the Americas. The authors
in the volume, however, often highlight the role of Sephardim in
Latin America. This Jewish group originated in the Iberian Peninsula
(Spain and Portugal) before late fifteenth-century expulsion, although
in modern times many people used the term “Sephardic” to refer to all
non-Ashkenazic Jews, especially those of Middle Eastern descent. The
inclusion of Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews in the chapters allows the
authors to ask broad questions about ethnicity, national identity, and
Diaspora. The different chapters suggest that Jews are not unique, but
that in their Diasporic condition they are much “like everyone else.” In
doing so, the chapters place Jewish-Latin Americans within a national
context while respecting the particularities of ethnic, national, and
Diasporic experience. The Jewish-Latin Americans, like all other minor-
ity groups, are not only Diasporic but are national as well. Indeed, one of
the suggestions we made to each author was to consider questions and
methodologies that might be applied broadly and thus help to fill the
lacunae of scholarship on ethnic populations from Asia and the Middle
East, as well as non-Catholics.
This volume focuses on Argentina and Brazil, the two countries with
the largest Jewish-Latin American populations (table 1). Yet our argument
is not that size matters; each chapter presents a series of questions and
research approaches that might be applied to any minority group in any
country. Since many readers will not be familiar with the histories of immi-
gration in these two countries, the following short essays will provide the
background information necessary to better understand the issues dis-
cussed in each chapter.
5
Introduction
table 1: Total and Jewish Populations of Latin America,
by Country, 1960 and 2005.
Total Jewish Total Jewish
Population Population Population Population
1960 2005
Argentina 20,248,000 310,000a 37,900,000 185,000
Bahamas — — 300,000 300
Bolivia 3,311,000 4,000 8,800,000 500
Brazil 62,725,000 86,038a 179,100,000 96,700
Chile 7,298,000 30,000 16,000,000 20,800
Colombia 13,522,000 9,000 45,300,000 3,300
Costa Rica 1,072,000 1,500 4,200,000 2,500
Cuba 6,466,000 11,000 11,300,000 600
Curaçao 148,000 1,000 138,000 300b
Dominican
2,797,000 600 8,800,000 100
Republic
Ecuador 4,007,000 2,000 13,400,000 900
El Salvador 2,434,000 250 6,700,000 100
Guatemala 3,546,000 1,000 12,700,000 900
Honduras 1,282,000 150 6,700,000c 200c
Jamaica 1,630,000 2,200 2,600,000 300
Mexico 32,348,000 25,700 106,200,000 39,800
Netherlands
— — 215,000 200
Antilles
Nicaragua 1,578,000 200 5,570,000 60d
Argentina
In the midst of a wave of anti-Semitism following the abduction of Nazi
war criminal Adolf Eichmann by Mossad agents, the Jewish biweekly
La luz expressed its deep concern for the future of the Argentine Jewish
community:
For Argentine Jewry, the stormy year we have just left behind us
was the saddest of the hundred years of its existence in this coun-
try. This intolerable situation has caused Jews in some circles to
think that Jewish life may be impossible in Argentina . . . one thing
6
table 1: continued
Total Jewish Total Jewish
Population Population Population Population
1960 2005
Panama 995,000 2,500 3,200,000 5,000
Paraguay 1,677,000 2,000 6,000,000 900
Peru 10,213,000 3,500 27,500,000 2,300
Puerto Rico — — 3,900,000 1,500
Suriname 223,000 1,000 400,000 200
Trinidad 789,000 400 1,305,000 10e
Uruguay 2,700,000 50,000 3,400,000 19,500
Venezuela 6,320,000 8,000 26,200,000 15,500
Virgin Islands (U.S.) — — 115,000 300
Total 552,038 397,770
Source: American Jewish Year Book, Vol. 61 (New York: American Jewish Committee and Jewish
Publication Society, 1960), 352–53; American Jewish Year Book, Vol. 105 (New York: American
Jewish Committee and Jewish Publication Society, 2005), 100.
a
evised numbers from U. O. Schmelz and Sergio Del Lapergola, “The Demography of Latin
R
American Jewry,” American Jewish Year Book, Vol. 85 (New York: American Jewish Committee
and Jewish Publication Society, 1985), 51–102.
b
Jewish Virtual Library, www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Curacao.html#Curacao.
c
Jewish Virtual Library, www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Honduras.html.
d
United Jewish Committee, www.ujc.org/content_display.html?ArticleID=122735.
e
National Library and Information System Authority of Trinidad and Tobago, www.nalis.gov.tt/
Communities/COMMUNITIES_JEWSINTNT.html.
is clear now: the beautiful ideal, enveloped in rosy expectations con-

cerning the future, which the Jewish settlers brought with them . . .
began to crumble with each Jewish child slashed with swastikas, each
Jewish institution shot at. . . . The painful dilemma is posed: Does the
Jewish community have a future here, and is it worthwhile for Jews
to continue living in Argentina?1
This was neither the first nor the last time that such an alarm was
sounded by Jews in this South American republic. The first time was during
the 1919 pogrom in Buenos Aires known as the “Tragic Week”; the most
7
Introduction
recent instance followed the 2001–2002 economic crisis that severely hit
the middle classes to which most Argentine Jews belong.
Still, during a recent visit to Buenos Aires for the Jewish high holidays,
I could not but notice what a rich and varied life Argentine Jews enjoy.
Contrary to the image portrayed in too many studies on anti-Semitism in
Argentina and Brazil, Jews have integrated very well into Argentine soci-
ety, economy, and culture, often without rejecting the Jewish component of
their individual or collective identity.
The Argentine-Jewish community, the biggest in Latin America, is mainly
the product of the great wave of immigration from Europe during the last
quarter of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. As with
any other case of immigration, one has to analyze the factors that pushed
a certain group to leave their place of residence and those that drew them
toward other places, as well as the patterns of immigration adopted by that
particular group. In the late nineteenth century, Jews in Eastern Europe—
especially those from the Pale of Settlement, an area with a high proportion
of Jews that encompassed part of what is today Poland and Russia—felt a
growing pressure to seek a better future outside the European continent.
Physical harassment, social pressures, and economic plight all contributed
in this direction. While a few sought refuge in Palestine, their real or imag-
ined homeland, others looked for ways to cross the Atlantic and find a new
home in the Americas. Various proposals were being considered by Jewish
organizations for settling these Jews in new countries. One of them focused
on a practically unknown land in South America. Theodor Herzl himself
described the choice facing the Jewish masses in Eastern Europe as one
between “Palestine or the Argentine.” The agricultural settlements estab-
lished in Argentina, and later in Brazil as well, by the Jewish philanthropist
Baron Maurice de Hirsch seemed to offer a partial solution to the Jewish
national question at the time.
Coincidentally, at the same time as Jews were looking for a safe haven,
Argentine authorities adopted a well-conceived policy to encourage Euro
pean immigration. The desire to increase the relatively small population
and to improve—that is, “whiten”—it by bringing European immigrants,
hopefully from northern Europe, in order to ensure development and mod-
ernization were the main motivations behind the demographic policy of
Argentine statesmen. “Gobernar es poblar” was a maxim coined in 1853 by
Juan Bautista Alberdi, a prominent liberal intellectual and politician. And,
indeed, from the 1870s until the economic recession of the early 1930s,
a huge wave of immigrants descended on Argentine shores. In the early
8
twentieth century, about half the population of the federal capital, Buenos
Aires, was foreign-born.
Determined to turn their back on the former colonial power, Spain, elite
members looked toward republican France as a secular and progressive
model to emulate. This cultural and political orientation, together with grow-
ing economic and commercial ties with Great Britain, contributed to the insti-
tution of a liberal constitution in 1853 (which guaranteed freedom of worship),
the adoption of a liberal immigration law in 1876 (which did not discriminate
against non-Catholic immigrants), and the enactment of state education as
well as civil registration laws in 1884 (thus limiting the power and influence
of the Catholic Church).
Rumors about the possibilities offered by immigration to Argentina,
where one could live freely and prosper, spread among urban and rural Jews
in central and eastern Europe. In reality, for the majority of Jewish immi-
grants, Argentina did indeed prove to be the promised land, a place where
they could secure a living for themselves and an education for their children,
and which they could try to make their new home. Within a short time, they
established community institutions and Jewish schools that satisfied their
social, economic, and cultural needs. Thus they created a rich mosaic of
social, cultural, political, and ideological life, which reflected a wide variety of
faiths, identities, and social practices: Communists and Zionists, Orthodox
and secular, those who emphasized their Jewishness and others who pre-
ferred to stress their Argentine identity.2
This does not mean that Jews, or any other ethnic immigrant group
for that matter, were always welcomed by everybody. Among the liberal
elites, even the staunchest supporters of immigration shared the concept
of the melting pot. All newcomers, especially non-Catholics, were expected
to abandon the customs and idiosyncrasies they had brought with them
from their countries of origin in favor of the new culture that was emerg-
ing in the immigrant society of Argentina. This attitude was particularly
pronounced among those belonging to Catholic, nationalist, and xenopho-
bic sectors within Argentine society. Albeit a minority, these elements have
always existed in Argentine society, and in certain periods they have man-
aged to exert a degree of influence on political, military, and clerical circles,
as well as on the contemporary intellectual climate. This phenomenon was
a source of permanent unease among Argentine Jews who, due to their
mostly European origins and family ties with the Old World, could not but
look at local events in Argentina through a European perspective of growing
hostility toward Jews.
9
Introduction
There is a continued debate as to the number of Jews living in Argentina
during the twentieth century, as well as nowadays.3 Part of the problem lies
in the tendency of most studies to focus on those Jews affiliated with formal
community institutions, despite the fact that research has indicated that
most Jews—as is the case with members of other ethnic communities—
have never been affiliated with such institutions. Furthermore, in national
population censuses many Jews have preferred not to define themselves as
such, either because they feared to appear thus in government databases,
especially in times of authoritarian rule, or because the option of a hyphen-
ated identity was not included and they did not wish to give Jewishness pri-
ority over their Argentine identity. Moreover, adopting a religious and not a
cultural criterion in order to define Jews has created additional problems in
a community known for its highly secular character.
According to Sergio DellaPergola, one of the leading authorities in the
demography of the Jewish people, the number of Jews in Argentina grew
from 14,700 to 191,400 in 1930, reaching 273,400 at the end of World War II,
and a peak of 310,000 in the early 1960s (see table 1). From then on, num-
bers began to decline, with Jews emigrating from Argentina to Israel, the
United States, or to other countries in Latin America and Europe. There has
also been an increase in the number of exogamic marriages. Whereas in the
mid-1930s the rate of marriage to non-Jews was 1–5 percent of all marriages
involving a Jewish partner, in the early 1960s it rose to 20–25 percent, reach-
ing 35–40 percent in the mid-1980s. Current estimates put the number of
Jews now living in Argentina at around 200,000.
Jewish immigration to Argentina has been mostly Ashkenazi, although
Jews from Morocco were among the first to immigrate there, already in the
mid-nineteenth century. Later in the century, they were joined by Jewish
immigrants from the declining Ottoman Empire, especially from Aleppo
and Damascus, who arrived alongside the wave of Jews from eastern and
central Europe.
Chronologically, the first Jewish immigrants began to arrive as early
as the 1840s (unlike the case of Brazil, evidence of Portuguese conversos
during the colonial period is scant), and the first synagogue was established
in 1862. However, the first important milestone in Jewish immigration was
recorded in 1881 when, following pogroms in Russia, the Argentine gov-
ernment decided to encourage Jews to immigrate and a special emissary
was sent to invite Jews from czarist Russia to settle in Argentina. The first
organized group of immigrants, consisting of 820 Russian Jews, arrived
in August 1889 on board the ship Wesser. They were sent to the Jewish
10
agricultural colonies, and some members founded the by now mythological
colony of Moisesville.
The government’s immigration policy dramatically changed the demo-
graphic profile of the country, as became apparent in the 1914 census.
Within twenty years, the country’s population had almost doubled (to about
7.9 million). More than a third of the inhabitants were foreign-born. In the
capital city of Buenos Aires, this figure was around 50 percent. As for Jews,
the rate of growth was much higher—between the years 1895 and 1919, the
Jewish population increased from 6,000 to 125,000.
At any rate, the original vision of a Jewish agricultural enterprise as the
main focus of attraction for Jewish immigration did not last long. While in
the late nineteenth century most Argentine Jews were concentrated in the
Jewish Colonization Association (JCA) colonies, by the end of World War I
most of them were urban dwellers, with Buenos Aires housing the largest
Jewish population. With the exception of a temporary break in immigra-
tion during the Great War, when dwindling commercial ties with Europe
contributed to economic recession and unemployment, the flow of immi-
gration to Argentina continued, including many Jews. In contrast to the limi-
tations imposed on immigration by the United States and other countries,
Argentina’s liberal immigration policy remained almost unchanged, with
minor revisions instituted in the mid-1920s. It was only the world economic
recession in the wake of the Wall Street crash that would bring immigra-
tion practically to a halt. The ensuing political upheaval provoked the first
military coup in the country’s history (September 1930), in turn reinforcing
nationalist, Catholic, and xenophobic tendencies in Argentine society.
During the 1930s the Jewish population had grown in number to approx-
imately a quarter of a million. Contemporary restrictions on immigration
had to do with political as well as economic considerations. The social and
political ferment in Europe aroused fears among the Argentine elites con-
cerning the possible entry of “undesirable” elements, people who might
constitute a potential danger to the existing social and political order. Thus,
Republican exiles and refugees fleeing from the Spanish Civil War and the
new dictatorship of General Francisco Franco faced all kinds of obstacles in
their efforts to enter Argentina. National authorities feared that they might
bring with them a leftist “virus.”4 Moreover, in view of the economic reces-
sion, priority was given to those professionals who were needed by the local
economy, while xenophobic attitudes constituted further obstacles in the
way of non-Catholic immigrants, not just Jews, or those who might suppos-
edly have difficulties in adjusting to Argentine society and culture.
11
Introduction
Those Jews who had pinned their hopes on Argentina’s position at the
Évian Conference (France), convened by the League of Nations in July 1938
to discuss possible solutions to the problem of refugees from Germany
and Austria, were disappointed. Argentina, like most other countries, was
unwilling to open its gates to these refugees. This same restrictive policy
was maintained throughout World War II, although between 1933 and 1945
around forty thousand Jews did enter Argentina, whether legally or illegally,
almost a fifth of them during the years of the Holocaust.
In the mid-1940s, following the defeat of Fascism and the end of hostili-
ties in Europe, immigration to Argentina resumed, albeit not with the same
magnitude as in the past. The populist president, Juan Perón, lifted most
restrictions to immigration in 1947, and during the next three years over
three hundred thousand immigrants, chiefly from Spain and Italy, the two
“mother countries” of most Argentines, entered the country. As far as Jews
were concerned, only fifteen hundred entered Argentina in the second half
of the 1940s. More important, however, was the Peronist regime’s decision
to grant amnesty to all illegal residents, a measure that enabled some ten
thousand Jews to obtain legal status. At the same time, Nazi war criminals
and collaborators who had found shelter in Argentina, mostly under false
identities, also benefited from this amnesty. Their presence in the country
has greatly contributed to the myth of Argentina being an anti-Semitic and
pro-Nazi society.
The 1950s witnessed the last wave of Jewish immigration to Argentina
and to neighboring Brazil. These immigrants were mainly refugees from
the Communist repression in Hungary in 1956 or Jews who had escaped
from Egypt because of the hostile policy adopted by the Nasser regime after
the joint attack by Israel, Great Britain, and France. From that point onward,
the number of Jews in Argentina began to decline.
While it is true that anti-Semitic manifestations have always accompa-
nied the Jewish presence in Argentina, nonetheless one has to differenti-
ate between the various types of anti-Semitism, possibly one of the most
studied aspects of Jewish life in South America. Haim Avni has pointed
to three levels of this phenomenon in Argentina: popular, organized, and
government-sponsored anti-Semitism. Popular anti-Semitism is difficult
to measure.5 Deeply rooted in Catholic precepts, it has at times been fueled
either by Nazi propaganda (during the 1930s and World War II) or by Arab
propaganda (from the 1960s onward). Recent polls, however, emphasize
that Jews are hated no more than other ethnic or social groups, while many
12
people consider multinational corporations, the Catholic Church, banks,
politicians, or the army as being “too powerful,” more so than Jews.
Organized anti-Semitic groups first appeared in 1910, the year of the
centennial celebrations of Argentina’s de facto independence. In 1919 they
took advantage of a workers’ strike in order to attack Jewish neighborhoods,
which they perceived to be hubs of revolutionary ferment. Such violent inci-
dents did not repeat themselves, although in subsequent decades nation-
alist organizations often distributed anti-Semitic propaganda and even
carried out isolated attacks on Jewish institutions or even physical assaults
of individuals. Usually small in number, these groups occasionally curried
some influence in military, clerical, or political circles. Since the 1960s, anti-
Semitic propaganda has sometimes been couched as anti-Israeli or anti-
Zionist discourse.
In any case, government-sponsored anti-Semitism has been rare in
Argentina. It manifested itself in the limitations imposed on Jewish immi-
gration during the 1930s and the 1940s and was also noticeable during
the years of the brutal military dictatorship that ruled the country between
1976 and 1983. According to many testimonies, Jews arrested by the military
suffered more than non-Jews; yet, community institutions continued with
their normal activities, no anti-Semitic laws were ever instituted, and rela-
tions with the State of Israel were excellent.
The transition to democracy in the 1980s and 1990s witnessed the adop-
tion of a more tolerant policy toward ethnic minorities and a growing aware-
ness of the multicultural nature of Argentine society. However, this did not
signal the complete disappearance of anti-Semitism or even of its occasional
violent manifestations. In fact, the two bomb attacks on the Israeli embassy
and the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires—in 1992 and 1994,
respectively—represented a different kind of danger for Jews in Argentina:
transnational terror with local support. These bombings triggered grassroots
mobilization and a continuing polemic among Argentine Jews as to their
individual and collective identities, their place in Argentine society, and their
relations with their imagined homeland, the State of Israel.
Brazil
Jacques Schweidson was a Bessarabian who moved to Brazil in the early
twentieth century. He remembered how scary it seemed; he remembered
the rumors of “endemic diseases, yellow fever, typhoid, cholera and animal
13
Introduction
attacks.”6 For many Jewish immigrants to Brazil, there was more fear than
hope in the lives they were to begin. They were not going to the United
States and Canada, where their dreams had been focused. They were not
going to the more well-known nation of Argentina, considered the “Europe”
of Latin America, a contrast meant to emphasize the large population of
African descent in Brazil. While Schweidson and his coreligionists were
not the first Jews to settle in Brazil, they are remembered as critical to the
construction of the modern Brazilian nation and are falsely believed to
represent continuity with those Jews who came to the Portuguese colony of
Brazil in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, fleeing the Inquisition.
Those Jews (called Judaizantes, Marranos, conversos, and Cristãos Novos)
came in small numbers to escape the economic, social, and religious per-
secution of the church and Crown. Their presence, however, never encour-
aged large-scale Jewish immigration to colonial Brazil, even though New
Christians may have made up as much as 20 percent of the white popula-
tion of the colonial capital of Salvador, Bahia.
Until today there is a curious linkage of Inquisition-era and twentieth-
century Jews in Brazil even though the Brazilian census of 1872 recorded
no Jewish inhabitants. Also curious is that the first true Jewish community
in Brazil, the some three thousand North Africans who migrated to the
area around the Amazon to participate in the emerging rubber economy
of the mid- to late nineteenth century, are almost forgotten. A story told by
descendants of that group tells us much about the ways in which Jewish
Latin America was created.
Becoming Brazilian
When the Jews arrived they came without women or rabbis.
Many began relationships with indigenous women and wanted to
marry, yet there was no rabbi among the immigrants to conduct
conversion ceremonies. The leader of the immigrants appointed
the most learned member of the group to teach all the fiancées
about Judaism, emphasizing one principle—that the Jewish G-d
was the one and only G-d. The day of the marriage the bride-to-be
was brought into a room blindfolded and told that a spoonful of
molten gold would be put in her mouth. If she really believed that
the Jewish G-d was the one and only G-d, the gold would taste as
sweet as honey. And every woman believed and the gold always
tasted like honey.7
14
Brazil had a negative image among Europeans, including Jews, in the mid-
to late nineteenth century. In the early twentieth century, few European
Jews went to Brazil since more desirable locations, such as the United
States and Canada, constructed no barriers to Jewish entry. As the numbers
of Jews leaving Europe increased, the Baron Maurice de Hirsch de Gereuth
(Baron Moritz von Hirsch auf Gereuth), a Bavarian-born Jewish philan-
thropist living in Brussels, founded the Jewish Colonization Association
with the specific purpose of aiding poverty-stricken eastern European and
Balkan Jewry by establishing Jewish farming colonies in the Americas. In
1893 the JCA set up its first colony in Moisesville, Argentina, to provide for
Russian Jews already in the area. In early 1901 the JCA began to investigate
expansion into Brazil and Rio Grande do Sul, because of its proximity to the
Argentine colonies and the state government’s desire for new colonists.
Between 1904 and 1924 the JCA formed two Jewish agricultural colonies
on the frontier of Rio Grande do Sul. The eastern European Jewish colonists
who settled in Brazil never amounted to more than a few thousand people,
yet they played two critical roles. First, the mere existence of the agricultural
colonies challenged images of Jews as exclusively and insidiously oriented
toward finance and capital in urban areas. Furthermore, residents of the
colonies committed themselves to life in Brazil. This challenged notions
that Jews were a closed group, uninterested in becoming citizens of coun-
tries where they resided. The two farming colonies were the first step in the
regular and organized migration of Jews to Brazil.
The pattern of immigration to Brazil, both general and Jewish, changed
when the violence and dislocation of World War I was unleashed upon the
world. Although not militarily involved, Brazil suffered inflation, shortages,
and capital market dislocations that scarred its already troubled social and
economic face. Yet a quieter, more subtle change also occurred with the
coming of global war. Throughout the Americas the streams of immigrants
that had poured from Europe to new, promised lands were shut off. In
Europe, World War I temporarily strengthened local economies, demanded
men to fill its armies, and commandeered shipping and passenger space
for military purposes. With the end of the war, immigration restriction
became the rule and as nativist movements rose throughout the Western
Hemisphere, immigration decreased.
Such was almost the case in Brazil. The number of migrants entering
Brazil’s ports fell by over 50 percent between 1913 and 1914 and by another
60 percent the year after. In 1918 fewer than twenty thousand immigrants
entered Brazil, a low that would not again be approached until 1936. But,
15
Introduction
with the end of World War I, large numbers of people renewed their migra-
tion in part because Brazil did not respond to its local nationalist movements
with immigration quotas. Between 1918 and 1919 the number of arrivals to
Brazil’s ports almost doubled and in 1920 almost doubled again, reach-
ing sixty-nine thousand (see table 1). These postwar immigrants differed
in many ways from the prewar group, both in national origin and in their
view of success and opportunity. Although Portuguese, Italian, Spanish,
and German immigrants continued to predominate, two new groups now
entered in growing numbers: Japanese and eastern Europeans.
Eastern Europeans also began entering Brazil in large numbers after the
war. The upheavals created by the establishment of the new state of Poland
encouraged this emigration as did restrictive quotas in the United States,
Argentina, and Canada. Between 1924 and 1934 eastern European immigra-
tion to Brazil increased almost ten times as more than ninety-three thousand
entered. Jews made up about 45–50 percent of those immigrants arriving in
Brazil from eastern Europe. By the mid-1920s more than 10 percent of the
Jews emigrating from Europe chose Brazil as their destination, and by the
early 1930s the Jewish population of Brazil approached sixty thousand.
The eastern European Jews who arrived in Brazil after World War I and
the Russian Revolution settled primarily in the southern states of São Paulo,
Rio Grande do Sul, and Rio de Janeiro and achieved a level of economic suc-
cess matched by a few other immigrant groups in Brazil, notably those from
Asia and the Middle East. This occurred because Jewish immigrants usually
settled in or near urban centers, although they were no more city oriented
than any other immigrant group prior to migration. This urban placement
was fortuitous since the cities provided, in the 1920s and 1930s, economic
opportunities that may never have been available in rural areas. The ability
to quickly earn an income combined with the communal and ethnic-based
nature of the immigration process to lead Jewish immigrants into estab-
lishing burial societies, youth groups, schools, and synagogues. With the
establishment of Jewish institutions, Jewish families were more likely to
invest their time and capital in a Brazilian future and less likely to leave. By
the mid-1920s, Brazil was an attractive nation of relocation for Jews, and as
one relief worker exclaimed, “The European Jew has adopted a new slogan:
‘Go South, young man, go South!’”8
The combination of economic success and cultural difference made
Jews particular targets of nativists after the Depression. Immigrants had
been expected to save Brazil’s agricultural economy and Europeanize the
culture at the same time. Jews seemed to do neither. By 1934 immigration
16
quotas had been established via a new constitution, and criticism of Jewish
immigration was becoming a regular component of political discourse.
This clash between elite expectations of immigrants and the reality that
Jews did not fit them is what provides the background for the longest part
of this study. As popular and political nationalism grew, Jewish and Japa
nese immigrants found themselves targeted for negative treatment by the
Brazilian government.
The growing Jewish immigrant population, a worsening economy, and
rising nativism made the Jewish Question an important topic among intel-
lectuals, state politicians from urban areas, and federal leaders. Beginning
in 1935, Brazil began to deny visas to Jews. The existence of Nazi ideol-
ogy made anti-Semitism respectable, and this surely played a role in how
Brazilian policy makers reacted when confronted with growing pressure to
accept Jewish immigrants and refugees. Modern European racial theories
encouraged the view of Jews as an undesirable race.
Anti-Semitic ideas were rampant among Brazilian intellectuals and fed-
eral policy makers in the 1930s. Yet the growing public discourse oppos-
ing Jewish entry and the resulting prohibition on Jewish entrances neither
stopped Jewish entry nor particularly changed its pattern. One of the most
important reasons was that a philo-Semitic vision of “the Jew” began to gain
credence within the government. From this perspective, German-, Italian-,
and Austrian-Jewish refugees were increasingly seen as bringing skills and
capital to Brazil. International pressure to accept refugees was matched by a
change in perception among some of Brazil’s most important immigration
policy makers. By 1938 new rules regarding Jewish immigration reopened
Brazil’s gates to such an extent that more Jews were to enter that year than
in any of the ten years previous.
In the 1950s Jews again began to immigrate to Brazil in significant num-
bers, this time from the Middle East, especially following the Suez Crisis
of 1956. By 1960 Jewish-Brazilians numbered about 100,000, but, as is the
case in Argentina, disputes about population size abound. Information col-
lected for the 2000 Brazilian census showed a Jewish population of 86,825,
although Jewish organizations in Brazil dispute this figure and place the
number between 120,000 and 140,000. Probably the most reliable esti-
mate comes from Israeli demographer Sergio DellaPergola, who placed the
2002 number at 97,300, a slight decline from his 1980 figure of 100,000.
This made Brazilian Jewry the eleventh-largest Jewish community in the
world. The largest Jewish community in Brazil is in São Paulo, Brazil’s
largest city. The second-largest Jewish community was in Rio de Janeiro
17
Introduction
(25,000–30,000 Jews out of a population of 5.85 million); the third largest
was in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul (10,000–12,000 Jews in a popula-
tion of about 1.36 million), and there were other significant communities in
Belo Horizonte, Curitiba, Santos, and Recife (see table 1).
Independent of the exact numbers, Jewish-Brazilians live in a multi-
cultural nation that counts the largest populations of African and Japanese
descent of any country in the world as well as very large populations of
European and Middle Eastern descent. The multi-ethnicity of Brazil does
not hide the fact that Brazil is one of the most unequal countries (in terms of
income distribution) in the world, and Jews, who as a group sit at the upper
end of the pyramid, often find the line between class and ethnic tension hard
table 2: Latin American Immigration to Israel

by Countries of Origin and Periods
1948– 1952– 1961– 1965– 1972– 1980– 1990– 2001–
Period Total
1951 1960 1964 1971 1979 1989 2000 2004
Argentina 904 2,888 5,537 6,164 13,158 10,582 9,911 10,014 59,158
Brazil 304 763 637 1,964 1,763 1,763 2,161 793 10,148
Uruguay 66 425 726 1,118 2,199 2,014 827 1,158 8,533
Chile 48 401 322 1,468 1,180 1,040 604 299 5,362
Mexico 48 168 125 611 861 993 986 218 4,010
Colombia — — 126 289 552 475 598 275 2,315
Venezuela — — 109 188 245 180 378 201 1,301
Central
17 43 18 111 104 8 140 341 782
Americaa
Paraguay — 42 194 16 73 62 28 47 462
Total 1,387 4,730 7,794 11,929 20,135 17,117 15,633 13,346 92,071
Source: Luis Roniger and Deby Babis, “Latin American Israelis: The Collective Identity of an
Invisible Community,” in Jewish Identities in an Era of Globalization and Multiculturalism, ed.
Eliezer Ben-Rafael, Yosef Gorny, Judit Liwerant, and Raanan Rein (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming);
Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, “Table 4.2: Immigrants by Periods of Immigration and Last
Country of Residence,” Statistical Abstract of Israel 2006 57 (2006): 238–39.
a
entral America includes Costa Rica, Guatemala, Cuba, Panama, Puerto Rico, El Salvador,
C
and Haiti.
18
to define. Jews also find that Brazil’s well-diffused myth of “racial democracy”
(the false notion that Brazil is a country uniquely free of racism) is often a
complication rather than a comfort. For example, Brazil’s constitution-based
antiracism laws often go unenforced, although, in a case that made interna-
tional headlines, the author of a series of Holocaust denial books had his
conviction upheld by the Brazilian Supreme Court.
Most indicators would suggest that Jewish-Brazilian life is good (few
incidents of anti-Semitism, a middle-of-the-road Middle East policy by
consecutive governments representing very different ends of the political
spectrum, relative wealth of Jewish-Brazilians as compared to the overall
population). Even so, the anti-Semitic incidents in neighboring Argentina
mentioned previously often cast a pall over the different groups that make
up the Jewish-Brazilian community. Furthermore, typical of ethnic commu-
nities in the Americas, Jewish-Brazilians struggle with questions of formal
community affiliations and how to deal with the large numbers of Jews who
choose to intermarry, choose not to practice religious Judaism, or are not
active Zionists. Indeed, those Jews who would fall into one or more of these
categories are the majority in Brazil. Brazilian rates of aliya (immigration
to Israel and the taking of Israeli citizenship) are markedly lower than in
Argentina, where they have always represented a minority as well (table 2).
Conclusion
To make a single characterizing statement about contemporary Jewish-
Argentine or Jewish-Brazilian communities would be an error. The former
has shrunk markedly in a country with a relatively slow rate of population
growth. The latter has grown slightly in a country whose overall population
has exploded (see table 1). Intermarriage rates in both countries are high,
but so is the growth of religious worship. In both Argentina and Brazil dis-
courses of anti-Semitism remain critical to identity formation although acts
of violence against Jewish-Argentine institutions are more frequent than
against Jewish-Brazilian ones. Zionist movements are strong among affili-
ated Jews in both Argentina and Brazil, although the aliya rates in Brazil are
extremely low and in Argentina very high (see table 2).
There are currently around one hundred thousand Israeli citizens of Latin
American origin. Their integration into Israeli society is considered a suc-
cess story, since many have attained prominent positions in various fields.
However, as Roniger and Babis have shown, Latin American Israelis have
been an “invisible community,” preferring individual mobility to communal
19
Introduction
assertiveness.9 Two major factors help to explain this: First, there has never
been a “wave” of immigration from Latin America to Israel, although there
were peaks in the 1970s and 1980s, a time of military dictatorships in the
Southern Cone (see table 2). Second, the wide demographic distribution of
Latin Americans throughout Israel has made community building particu-
larly difficult.
The motivation for Latin Americans to immigrate to Israel has changed
over the years. During the fifties, sixties, and seventies most immigrants
moved for ideological reasons revolving around Zionism and Jewish iden-
tity, and their prime concern was for their children’s future as Jews. During
the brutal military dictatorships of the 1970s many Jews moved to Israel in
order to live under a democratic regime or fled in order to save their lives. In
recent years, conversely, economic upheavals constituted the main motives
for immigration to Israel. This has been particularly noticeable among
Argentines whose entry skyrocketed after the December 2001 economic
crisis and who continue to be the largest single group of Israelis of Latin
American descent.
The integration of Latin Americans into Israeli society was facilitated
by similar social behaviors of informality and improvisation. In addition,
Latin American music, novels, and films have enjoyed popularity in Israel
for decades. Interest in Latin American culture grew dramatically in recent
years as a result of the increase in the number of Israeli youngsters travel-
ing to South America and the rise in the popularity of the telenovelas (which
are shown daily on numerous stations) among the Israeli public. Compared
to many other newcomers to Israel, Latin Americans had a strong knowl-
edge of Israel, Zionism, Judaism, and the Hebrew language prior to their
immigration. Finally, there has been a dramatic increase in the number
of Latin-Israeli Internet sites that provide a space where Latin American
identity is asserted most noticeably. These sites serve simultaneously as an
instrument of cohesion among Latin American Israelis and as a means for
their integration in Israel.
The essays in this volume argue that Jews are normative Latin Americans
and that categories like “Argentine” and “Brazilian” are widely constructed
and include members of numerous “minority” groups. Each author has
looked critically at some of the traditional ideas about Jewish-Latin American
life and has asked if new approaches may generate new data and new con-
clusions. Taken together, they suggest that Jews are not in Latin America
but of Latin America.
20
Suggested Reading in English
general titles
Cohen, Jacob X. Jewish Life in South America: A Survey Study for the American
Jewish Congress. New York: Bloch Publishing, 1941.
Elkin, Judith Laikin. The Jews of Latin America. New York and London: Holmes
& Meier, 1998.
Elkin, Judith Laikin, and Gilbert W. Merkx, eds. The Jewish Presence in Latin
America. Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1987.
Herman, Donald L. The Latin American Jewish Community of Israel. New York:
Praeger, 1984.
Lesser, Jeffrey, and Ignacio Klich, eds. Arab and Jewish Immigrants in Latin
America: Images and Realities. London: Frank Cass, 1998.
Ruggiero, Kristin, ed. The Jewish Diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean:
Fragments of Memory. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2005.
Sheinin, David, and Lois Baer Barr, eds. The Jewish Diaspora in Latin America.
New York: Garland Publishing, 1996.
argentina
Avni, Haim. Argentina and the Jews: A History of Jewish Immigration. Translated
by Gila Brand. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1991.
Rein, Raanan. Argentina, Israel, and the Jews: Perón, the Eichmann Capture and
After. Translated by Martha Grezenback. Bethesda: University Press of
Maryland, 2003.
Sofer, Eugene F. From Pale to Pampa: A Social History of the Jews of Buenos Aires.
New York and London: Holmes & Meier, 1982.
Weisbrot, Robert. The Jews of Argentina: From the Inquisition to Perón. Philadelphia:
Jewish Publication Society of America, 1979.
brazil
Lesser, Jeffrey. Welcoming the Undesirables: Brazil and the Jewish Question. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1994.
Liebman, Seymour B. New World Jewry, 1493–1825: Requiem for the Forgotten.
New York: KTAV Publishing House, 1982.
Spitzer, Leo. Lives in Between: Assimilation and Marginality in Austria, Brazil,
West Africa, 1780–1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Wiznitzer, Arnold. Jews in Colonial Brazil. New York: Columbia University Press,
1960.
21
Introduction
Notes
1. La luz, October 5, 1962.
2. Haim Avni, Argentine Jewry; Social Status and Organizational Profile [Hebrew]
(Jerusalem: Institute of Contemporary Jewry, 1972); Efraim Zadoff, A Century
of Argentinean Jewry: In Search of a New Model of National Identity (Jerusalem:
Institute of the World Jewish Congress, 2000).
3. For recent studies, see Adrián Jmelnizky and Ezequiel Erdei, La población
judía de Buenos Aires: Estudio sociodemográfico (Buenos Aires: AMIA, 2005);
Yaacov Rubel, La población judía de la ciudad de Buenos Aires. Perfil sociode-
mográfico (Buenos Aires: Joint, 2005).
4. Leonardo Senkman, Argentina, la segunda guerra mundial y los refugiados
indeseables, 1933–1945 (Buenos Aires: GEL, 1991).
5. Haim Avni, “Antisemitism in Argentina: The Dimensions of Danger,” in
Approaches to Antisemitism, Context and Curriculum, ed. Michael Brown
(New York: AJC, 1994), 57–77.
6. Jacques Schweidson, Judeus de bombachas e chimarrão (Rio de Janeiro: José
Olympio Editora, 1985), 7.
7. Interview by Jeffrey Lesser with Sr. J. Belém do Pará, April 13, 1994.
8. Cecilia Razovsky, “The Jew Re-Discovers America (Jewish Immigration
to Latin American Countries),” Jewish Social Service Quarterly 5, nos. 2–3
(December 1928–March 1929): 127.
9. Luis Roniger and Deby Babis, “Latin American Israelis: The Collective
Identity of an Invisible Community,” in Jewish Identities in an Era of
Globalization and Multiculturalism, ed. Eliezer Ben-Rafael, Yosef Gorny,
Judit Liwerant, and Raanan Rein (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming).
22
chapter two
New Approaches to Ethnicity and Diaspora

in Twentieth-Century Latin America
!
jeffrey lesser • raanan rein
E thnicity is a topic that has become canonized in the study of nineteenth-

and twentieth-century Latin America. Among the most frequent themes
are the black/white continuum in places such as Brazil, the Caribbean, and
Venezuela; the indigenous/white continuum in Mexico, Central America,
and the Andes; and the hegemony of white Catholic Europeans over a
number of subaltern groups in the Southern Cone.1 The expansion of aca-
demic production on ethnicity, however, rarely focuses on Latin Americans
who trace their ancestry to the Middle East, Asia, or Eastern Europe, or those
whose ancestors were characterized religiously as non-Catholics. Today,
these groups comprise at least ten million Latin Americans.
Jews are one group in which there has been a notable increase in schol-
arly interest. For decades, the study of the group was relegated to “Jewish
studies,” an academic decision that suggested Jews were not legitimate
members of the nations in which they lived. This position continues in
much of the scholarship and teaching outside of the United States where
students learn about Latin America without hearing about the Jewish (or
Middle Eastern or Asian) presence. By contrast, in the United States the
study of Jews has begun to be integrated into Latin American studies, even
23
though, ironically, Jewish-Latin Americans continue to be marginalized in
Jewish studies.
A New Language
Critical to scholarship on ethnicity, which is defined most broadly as “a self
conscious collection of people united, or closely related, by shared experi-
ences,” is descriptive language.2 In many cases scholars use definitional
language that is quite different from that used either by the group they study
or by majority national populations. This is certainly the case not just for
the concept of Latin America itself but also for “Latin American Jewry.” The
term, frequently used in the academic literature, suggests a broad hemi-
spheric identity, but the subjects define themselves in three competing
ways: as Jews, without reference to nation; as nationals, without reference to
Jewish ethnicity; and as Jewish–(fill in the nation here). The notion of “Latin
American Jewry” derives from two different sources. One is transnational
Jewish social and political organizations, usually based in the United States
and Israel, which categorize Jews in regional rather than national ways.3
The second emerges from scholars, mainly based outside of Latin America,
whose Diasporic perspectives lead them to presume similarity based on lan-
guage (i.e., Spanish) and minority status (i.e., being Jews in predominantly
Catholic societies).4
The term “Latin American Jewry,” however, is neither neutral nor
descriptive, since it imposes an answer to what should be an important
research question: what is the relationship of minority group members to
the national state and the Diasporic homeland? This question is critical for
understanding the multilayered and fluid identities of individual and col-
lectives of Jews, Asians, Middle Easterners, and those of European descent
as well as populations that preceded the European arrival. The term “Latin
American Jewry” may be accurate for those who consider themselves first
and foremost Jews (and even question their Latin Americanness), but the
research does not bear out that this is the case for all Jews.
We propose scholars consider using the term “Jewish-Latin American”
rather than “Latin American Jewry.” This formulation emphasizes national
identity without denying the possibility of a Diasporic identity. In addi-
tion, the hyphen recalls the early days of ethnic studies in the sixties when
so many U.S. citizens fought to be called Japanese-American rather than
Japanese or Mexican-American rather than Mexican. Our use of the term
“Jewish-Latin American” thus shifts the dominant paradigm about ethnicity
24
in Latin America by returning the “nation” to a prominent position just at
a moment when the “trans-nation,” or perhaps no nation at all, is often an
unquestioned assumption. Another way of presenting our argument would
be to offer a continuum, with an ideal type of Latin American Jew at one end
and an ideal type of Jewish-Latin American on the other. Individuals and
groups make their own choices, and we would certainly not want to impose
a formula on or dictate a pattern to any of them. Therefore Jews in Latin
America would be found somewhere along this continuum. The “contin-
uum” replaces the false binaries and dichotomies that have been imposed
on the history of Jews since antiquity. Diaspora, after all, dominates the
history and imagination of the Jewish people. And the historiography has
tended to present the dilemma allegedly facing Diasporic Jews as between
two options: either to assimilate to the surrounding culture by diluting their
own traditions or to separate themselves from the world at large in order
to preserve the purity of their faith and heritage. Erich S. Gruen has shown
that already in the ancient period, “for most Jews, retention of a Jewish iden-
tity and accommodation to the circumstances of diaspora were joint goals
and often successfully achieved.”5
Jews, of course, have no monopoly on diaspora, and the relationship
between national- and immigrant-originated ethnic identity is not unique
to Jews. On the contrary, Jewish experiences enable us to better understand
the experiences of other ethnic groups in Latin America whose lives are
often portrayed only within closed community circles. Our approach is two-
pronged. First, the study of ethnicity must include people other than those
affiliated with community institutions. Indeed, contemporary research sug-
gests that most ethnic group members in Latin America are not affiliated
with local ethnic associations and frameworks. Notions of “ethnic commu-
nity” are misleading when they include only those affiliated with organiza-
tions, places of worship, social clubs, youth movements, etc. Second, we see
ethnicity as a piece within a broader identity mosaic. Identity is a coin in a
pocket filled with coins of different values. Sometimes we need twenty-five
cents, and we pull out one ethnicity quarter. Other times we need one hun-
dred cents, and the ethnicity coin is just a penny of the total.
Two notes of caution are needed before we elaborate on these issues.
First, it is critical that scholars shun essentialism. Most Jews in Latin America
are “Jewish” in the cultural sense—not on genetic, religious, ideological,
or communal grounds—and define themselves as such. Furthermore, our
comments do not focus on the first generation of immigrants. We are well
aware that in detailed studies more attention should be given to the specific
25
time and particular stage in the history of each minority group. Clearly for
the first generation of immigrants, the nationality of the “sending country”
carried more weight than that of the “receiving country.” For this first gen-
eration the fact that they represented a multiethnic national group was of
extreme importance; in that sense, the Jewish case represents a complicated
“multinational ethnic group.”
Scholarship on the Jewish Past

Jews are one of the smallest of Latin American ethnic groups in demo-
graphic terms and are not more prominent socially or economically than
those of Asian and Middle Eastern descent. Yet the volume of scholarly work
on Jewish-Latin Americans exceeds that on the other groups. The literature
falls into two broad categories. First, most ethnic communities in Latin
America have significant internal production that is often divorced from
the national historiography. These publications are produced by commu-
nity organizations or individuals linked to them and include institutional
histories, oral histories, novels, short stories, and hagiographies.6 Much
of the literature emphasizes uniqueness, or even cultural superiority, and
is aimed at fostering communal cohesion, maintaining an ethnonational
identity, and helping to mobilize resources.
Self-referential production, we must remember, is common among all
Latin American ethnic groups. The tendency toward internal production
is reinforced by the fact that many intellectuals in most of Latin America
reject ethnicity as an important analytical category, even if they themselves
are of ethnic backgrounds. This ambivalence also helps to explain why there
is relatively little academic scholarship on Latin American ethnicity.
One way in which the scholarship on Jewish Latin America stands out
is the recent boom in research published outside of the region, notably in
the United States. A brief glance at the holdings of any college or univer-
sity library reveals more books on Jewish-Latin Americans than on those
Latin Americans of Asian or Middle Eastern descent combined.7 This quan-
tity stems from a particular set of historical circumstances that have trans-
formed studies of Jewish Latin America into an accepted “field” of inquiry
in disciplines like history, literature, and cultural studies.8
The history of the “field” known most commonly as Latin American
Jewish studies began with the centering of Israeli university education
within a broader international context in the mid-sixties. In 1966 the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem created the Latin American section of the Institute
26
of Contemporary Jewry, a unit itself formed in 1960. The Israeli-based
scholars conducting research on Latin American produced two contradic-
tory trends. One placed Israeli academics comfortably within a worldwide
community of scholars of Latin American studies, as Haim Avni and Yoram
Shapira insisted in a 1974 article on Latin American studies in Israel in the
Latin American Research Review.9 Yet a new line of research that developed
in Israel was the study of Jews in Latin America. Scholars working on these
topics emphasized the growth of Zionism in Latin America, anti-Semitism,
the movement of Jews to Israel, and Israeli–Latin American relations.10
The ethnic studies approach that emerged from the early Institute of
Contemporary Jewry provoked a reaction among some Latin Americanists,
for whom the “nation” was preeminent. David Rock’s review of the En
glish edition of Avni’s classic Argentina and the Jews: A History of Jewish
Immigration (first published in Hebrew in 1982 and soon thereafter pub-
lished in Spanish by the AMIA, an organization representing the formal
Jewish community of Argentina) made this clear: “If the author may be
well versed in the modern history of the Jewish people, his knowledge of
Argentina is at best rudimentary.”11 Rock’s critique revealed what has con-
tinued to be a tension among scholars of ethnicity in Latin America.
The first generation of scholars studying Jewish-Latin Americans at the
Institute of Contemporary Jewry made a foundational contribution, but one
that was barely noticed outside of Israel. Indeed, one of the first non-Israeli
academic publications on Latin American Jewry was by Martin H. Sable, a
“Latin Americanist of the Jewish faith specializing in bibliography” at the
University of Wisconsin–Madison who recounts that the need for a bibli-
ography on Latin American Jewish topics occurred to him while returning
home from Sabbath prayers. While this classic ethnic memory recollection
was no doubt correct, Sable claims his deeper inspiration came not from
the academy but from reading about Latin American Jewry in Boston’s
The Jewish Advocate.12 Indeed, Sable’s massive collection of over five thou-
sand citations does not mention Avni and Shapira’s 1974 article in the Latin
American Research Review.
The great leap forward in recentering the study of Latin American Jewry
out of Israel came in 1982 when a group met at the Latin American Studies
Association conference to discuss “the intersection of Latin American
studies and Jewish studies.”13 Later that year the first conference on Latin
American Jewish studies was held at the Hebrew Union College–Jewish
Institute of Religion (Cincinnati). At that meeting, which linked studies of
Jewry in the United States and Latin America via the wide holding of the
27
American Jewish Archives, the Latin American Jewish Studies Association
(LAJSA) was established, with Judith Laikin Elkin, perhaps the first U.S.
scholar to write on Jews from a Latin Americanist background and to pub-
lish her work with a press known for its Latin American series, as its presi-
dent.14 The following year a second conference was held at the University
of New Mexico, not coincidentally then the home of the Latin American
Research Review and one of the most active Latin American studies programs
in the United States.15 Together these meetings suggested the wide-ranging
interests of LAJSA as both an ethnic studies and area studies organization.
The establishment of LAJSA changed the study of Latin American eth-
nicity. Today, to take a broad, modern Latin American studies course in the
United States without hearing something about Jews is virtually impossible
(although Middle Easterners and Asians still go unmentioned). Academic
conferences devoted to Latin America frequently have papers relating to
Jews, often on panels whose themes are not Jewish-Latin Americans.
Since LAJSA emerged out of Latin American (not Jewish) studies, it
might have been expected to take the position that Jews were one of many
components of a pluralistic Latin American society. The research produced
since 1982, however, is much like the earlier studies that emerged from the
Institute of Contemporary Jewry, often embedded with the idea of Diasporic
primacy rather than nation-based identity. What in 1982 appeared to be an
intellectual shift now seems more like a repositioning from Israel to the
United States and away from a seemingly Zionist outlook toward a seem-
ingly ethnic perspective.
Examining the post-1982 publications on Jewish Latin America, we see
two main intellectual positions. The first is the notion that Jewishness is
the primary (and at times exclusive) basis of identity. Jewish life in any one
Latin American country is often presented as similar to Jewish life in any
other specific country. Research frequently focuses on commonality, with
data being mined from formal community institutions. The classic exam-
ple is Judith Elkin’s foundational The Jews of the Latin American Republics
(1980), which compared Jewish life across the region. The production that
followed her groundbreaking book was often similar in focus. Edited col-
lections have titles like The Jewish Presence in Latin America, The Jewish
Diaspora in Latin America, or The Jewish Diaspora in Latin America and the
Caribbean.16 Surprisingly, nationally based volumes (i.e., Jews of Argentina
or Jews of Brazil) have taken the same approach, rarely making national
comparisons of Jews with other national ethnic minorities.17 Monographs
about Jews in Latin America, although about specific countries and often
28
focusing on specific topics, are similar to edited volumes in that compara-
tive references are almost always to Jews.18
A second dominant presumption is that Jews live in closed communi-
ties. This has emerged in part because much primary documentation about
Jewish-Latin Americans was written in Yiddish or Hebrew, languages not
considered normative in Latin American studies. Indeed, the issue of lan-
guage led to decades of scholarly invisibility for Jewish-Latin Americans, a
point Judith Elkin made more than twenty-five years ago in the preface to
her Jews of the Latin American Republics.19 These sources often create the
impression that Jews lived unconnected to general society, a phenomenon
we see in research on other ethnic groups as well. The closed community
approach also led to a lack of methodological debate, and we have never
seen a publication or heard a lecture that proposes that studying Jews, or
any other ethnic group in Latin America, demands a specific approach. In
this sense the establishment of the Latin American and Iberian section of
the Institute of Contemporary Jewry and the Latin American Jewish Studies
Association never achieved the implicit goal of creating a “field” in the clas-
sic academic sense of the word.
The study of Jewish Latin America, while not without debate, has ad
vanced in terms of quality and quantity of production in the last two decades.
Jews have been normalized into broader patterns of Latin American soci-
ety, particularly in the fields of Latin American literature, cultural studies,
and history. Scholarly work on Jews is often placed within a broader societal
perspective and major academic publishers and journals regularly publish
on these topics. Much innovative research on Jews is found in second or
third books written by those trained as scholars of Latin America.20 They see
Latin Americans of Jewish origins as part of the ethnic and cultural mosa-
ics that constitute Latin American societies, with their hybrid and complex
identities. For these authors, Jews do not just live in Latin America, and they
focus on the dynamic relations between Jews and non-Jews in economic,
social, cultural, and political life. Furthermore, a growing number of schol-
ars are asking what the experiences of Jews in Latin America reveal about
other immigrant and ethnic groups and about the overall character of Latin
American societies.
Rethinking Latin American Jewry

The tension of balancing the analysis of ethnic minorities as either diasporic
or national, and its concomitant rejection of the “or” in favor of the “and,”
29
is relevant to the study of ethnicity in Latin America in the broadest sense.
Thus the study of Jewish-Latin Americans can help to articulate new
approaches to the field of ethnic studies. Each of the interrelated comments
below begins with a reference to a commonly held assumption that we chal-
lenge by bringing forth new research propositions:
(1) Most studies of ethnicity emphasize exceptionalism. The assumption
of uniqueness as an a priori category of analysis manifests itself in scholar-
ship where historiographical points of reference only indicate the experi-
ences of members of the same group in different countries. This suggests
that Jews, for example, are a minority unlike others, and therefore when
studying Argentine Jews or Brazilian Jews, one should only be familiar with
the experiences of Jews in South Africa or Australia.21 Exceptionalism sug-
gests that ethnicity is a nonnational phenomenon and that ethnic group
members are either separate from, or victims of, national culture. This ten-
dency is not exclusive to scholarship on Jews. Research on Latin Americans
of Japanese, Chinese, and Lebanese descent, for example, usually presents
the group first and foremost in their diasporic condition.22
We propose that transnational ethnicity is not necessarily a more domi-
nant identity component than national identity. Research on Jewish-Latin
Americans might focus on engagement in the national context in order to
create comparison, and perhaps contact zones, with other ethnic minorities
such as those of Polish, Japanese, Chinese, Syrian, and Lebanese descent.23
We know of no research project that has ever tested the interrelated and
fluid relationship between national identity and the presumed primacy of
Diasporic solidarity among Jews. As Jorge Luis Borges once wrote about a
Jewish-Argentine author, one might say that Argentine Jews have always
struggled to be “unmistakably Argentine,” and we wonder if the tension
between ethnicity and nation that his comment reveals might be a start-
ing point for research.24 Anthropologists rather than historians seem to be
beginning to adopt this path.25
(2) Research on ethnicity in Latin America often presumes that the chil-
dren and grandchildren of immigrants express a special relationship to their
ancestors’ place of birth or imagined homeland. Implicit in this assumption
is the idea that ethnic minorities do not play a significant role in a national
identity formation. Studies of Jewish-Latin Americans, for example, often
assume that rank-and-file support of Zionist organizations has been first
and foremost about the state of Israel.
We propose that researchers ask whether participation in Zionist activity
is necessarily about the presumed homeland of Israel. Put differently, to what
30
homeland does Zionist activity in Latin America actually relate? Furthermore,
does support for Israel constitute a main ingredient of the identity of Latin
American Jews? A position often advanced but hardly tested.26 Some recent
research suggests that “Zionist activity” in Argentina, for example, is a strat-
egy that allows Jewish-Argentines to have a madre patria similar to that of
Italo-Argentines (Italy) and Spanish-Argentines (Spain). In this formulation,
supporting Zionism is the Jewish way of being typically Argentine.27 Arnd
Schneider’s recent sociological work on Argentine citizens who have gained
Italian passports suggests that holding a foreign passport is critical to con-
temporary middle-class Argentine identity.28
(3) Many scholars suggest that the ethnic “homeland” has a commit-
ment to its diasporic communities. This results from the often untested
assumption that the center of ethnic collective identity must be outside the
nation of residence. It also reflects a relative lack of debate about the location
of the diasporic center and periphery. Scholars often presume that Israel has
an exceptionally deep commitment to Jewish-Latin Americans and that its
interests are similar or complementary to theirs.
Recent scholarship challenges this assumption and suggests that the
bond between the Jewish Diaspora and the State of Israel is similar to other
diasporic/national links.29 In fact, many Israelis regard the Jewish Diaspora
with a certain disdain, and Israeli policy makers often show little sensitiv-
ity toward the needs and sensibilities of individual Jewish communities
in Latin America. This attitude was reflected, for example, in the Israeli
government’s decision to limit the help extended to Jewish-Argentine vic-
tims of the Argentine dictatorship (1976–1982) in order to maintain good
relations with the ruling junta.30 This realpolitik attitude combines founda-
tional Zionism’s “negation of the Diaspora” attitude with a contemporary
belief in Israel that Diasporic Jews should maintain a one-way connection
that includes loyalty, political and moral support, and financial assistance.
(4) Many scholars studying ethnicity in Latin America presume that her-
itage makes one a member of an ethnic community. The scholarship thus
mirrors the position of many Latin Americans who believe the same thing.
Yet when one examines exogamy, the rates are often above 50 percent, and
many individuals do not see themselves (or wish to be seen as) members of
a formally constituted ethnic community. There are many studies of ethnic
community leaders and institutions but few about what might be termed
“unaffiliated ethnics.”31
This broad tendency is repeated in studies of Jewish-Latin Americans.
Research has ignored the 50 percent (or more in many places) of Jews who
31
were or are not affiliated with Jewish institutions.32 The frequently used
term “Jewish community” is misleading if it refers only to those affiliated
with Jewish organizations, synagogues, social clubs, or youth movements.
Documenting life stories and reclaiming the memories of unaffiliated Jews
will provide important lessons on the nature of national and ethnic identity.
Studies might be conducted of Jews married to non-Jews, individuals who
express Jewish identity based on culture rather than on religion or ethnic-
ity, and authors who do not explicitly express their Jewishness (the Jewish-
Brazilian novelist Clarice Lispector comes to mind). Traditional studies,
for example, would ignore people like the Oscar-winning songwriter Jorge
Drexler (The Motorcycle Diaries). Drexler, born in Uruguay to a German-
Jewish refugee from Nazism, does not speak German yet holds a German
passport. He lived for a year in Israel but moved to Spain for professional
reasons. While his first songs were written in Hebrew, he is known for his
works in Spanish, including a few with Jewish themes like “Milonga del
moro judío” or “El pianista del gueto de Varsovia.” Recently, Drexler was
interviewed in the New York Times, and he characterized himself as a Jew and
“a lot of other things too,” since he is not affiliated with religious institutions
and is married to a Catholic.33 People like Drexler, with strong but nonexclu-
sive Jewish identities, should not be ignored.
(5) Much scholarship on Latin American ethnicity correctly notes that
dominant majority discourses are frequently racist. Yet there is often a gap
between rhetoric and social practice. Indeed, racist expressions have not pre-
vented many Latin American ethnic groups from entering into the dominant
political, cultural, economic, and social sectors. Yet scholars focusing on dis-
course tend to find victims, often suggesting that racism represents an abso-
lutely hegemonic structure.34 Thus, ethnic identity formation appears based
primarily on the struggle against discrimination and exclusion. Scholars
examining social status, on the other hand, come to a different conclusion.
They suggest that success among Asian, Middle Eastern, and Jewish-Latin
Americans places them in the “white” category.35
The scholarship on Jewish-Latin Americans is a case in point. The litera-
ture is almost uniform in suggesting that anti-Semitism in Latin America is
stronger than in other regions of the world. One might get the impression that
life for Jews on the continent is unbearable, a continued nightmare.36 Yet even
Haim Avni, whose own work often focuses on anti-Semitism, has correctly
noted the “overdeveloped focus of research energy [on] anti-Semitism.”37
(6) Much of the literature gives the mistaken impression of homog-
enous and unstratified immigrant-descended ethnic communities. Latin
32
Americans of Asian and Middle Eastern descent seem uniformly in the
middle class or higher, a position emphasized by a scholarly focus on ethnic
success stories like Alberto Fujimori (Peru), Celso Lafer (Brazil), or Carlos
Saúl Menem (Argentina). This image is even more accentuated with regard
to Jewish-Latin Americans, who are presented in the scholarship as having
rapidly and exclusively moved into middle- to upper-middle-class status.
This erroneous assumption leads many scholars to not even consider
research on the Jewish working class.38
There are, however, other approaches. First, we might learn a lesson
from scholars of Hollywood film who have correctly noted that a person
with a “non-Jewish” name is not necessarily a non-Jew. Who knows what
the biography of the Argentine political leader Emilio Perina, born Moisés
Konstantinovsky, would teach us about ethnicity? Second, discourses of
anti-Semitism, even when emerging from powerful centers of political
power, do not always translate into absolute oppression. Discussing racist
discourses together with individual and group mobility may well change
our understanding of the nature of both oppression and success. Third, we
question whether minority group identity is primarily a reaction to soci-
etal bigotry. Stereotypes often function because of their positive presump-
tions, and there is a distinction between Judeophobes (those who hate all
Jews) and anti-Semites (those who hold some or many negative stereotypi-
cal notions about Jews as a group). Furthermore, those who express nega-
tive stereotypes about Jews (or any other ethnic group) may hold positive
stereotypes as well.
(7) There are a number of other areas that have been underresearched
in Latin American ethnic studies generally and Jewish Latin American stud-
ies specifically. Notable among them is gender.39 Studies of Jewish women
in Latin America too often focus on prostitutes or novelists, although
Jewish women have played fundamental roles in all aspects of society.40
As Sandra McGee Deutsch emphasizes in chapter 8, “Jewish women are
virtually absent from the secondary historical sources. Studying them is
vital for its own sake, to recover the voices and tell the untold stories of the
unheard half of the Jewish population.” The same holds true for children
and sexual minorities.
Another issue relates to the presentation of homogenous ethnic com-
munities (i.e., “Jewish” community, “Arab” community, “Asian” commu-
nity). While the distinctions are occasionally more refined (Japanese and
Chinese and Indians; Syrians and Lebanese and Palestinians), the litera-
ture is primarily monolithic and community focused. Examining ethnic
33
groups grosso modo ignores intraethnic divisions that are often replicated
over many generations. The number of Okinawans among Latin American
Nikkei is very large, as is the number of Muslims among Middle Easterners
who are often presented in the scholarship only as Christians. Among
Jewish-Latin Americans there is a lack of research on Sephardic Jews (those
Jews from Mediterranean or Middle Eastern origins), themselves divided
(like Ashkenazim from Central and Eastern Europe) by nation and by city
of origin.41 Yet smaller numerical communities and subcommunities can
teach us much about ethnic relations, just as Leo Spitzer’s study of Jews in
the virtually ignored nation of Bolivia has become a model for the study of
ethnicity, Diaspora, and memory.42
!
This essay has proposed a “new ethnic studies” for Latin America and sug-
gests that the study of Jewish-Latin Americans is an example of how that
might be implemented. Yet our eagerness for change is put forward with
the understanding that our own trajectory is based deeply in that which we
have criticized. Indeed, we have contributed to many of the volumes men-
tioned, and our own scholarship might at times represent an example of the
limitations of the “old ethnic studies.”
Ethnic studies is not only about single ethnic communities (although
such research is critical) but also about comparing multiple ethnic groups
in a national context. From this comparative standpoint, many issues that
might appear unique to Jews are in fact of general applicability. Perhaps
in Latin America the commutative property holds true: if Jews are like
Asians, and Asians are like Arabs, then Arabs and Jews, in some respects,
are indeed one.
34
Notes
1. Nancy P. Appelbaum, Anne S. Macpherson, and Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt,
eds., Race and Nation in Modern Latin America (Chapel Hill: University
of North Carolina Press, 2003); Michael Hanchard, ed., Racial Politics in
Contemporary Brazil (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999); Samuel L.
Baily and Eduardo José Míguez, eds., Mass Migration to Modern Latin America
(Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2003).
2. Ellis Cashmore, Dictionary of Race and Ethnic Relations, 3rd ed. (London and
New York: Routledge, 1994), 102.
3. See, for example, the annual volumes of David Singer and Lawrence
Grossman, eds., American Jewish Year Book 2004: The Annual Record of
Jewish Civilization (New York: American Jewish Committee, various years).
The American Jewish Committee has also produced Comunidades Judías
de Latinoamérica. See also the studies produced by the B’nai Brith
International Latin American Affairs Division: www.bnaibrith.org/
ppolicy/lamerica/index.cfm?region=0.
4. Isaiah Raffalovich, “The Condition of Jewry and Judaism in South America,”
Central Conference of American Rabbis Yearbook XI (New York: Central
Conference of American Rabbis, 1930); Jacob X. Cohen, Jewish Life in South
America: A Survey Study for the American Jewish Congress (New York: Bloch
Publishing, 1941); Jacob Beller, Jews in Latin America (New York: Jonathan
David Publishers, 1969); Martin A. Cohen, ed., The Jewish Experience in Latin
America, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: American Jewish Historical Society, 1971);
U. O. Schmelz and Sergio DellaPergola, The Demography of the Jews in
Argentina and in Other Countries of Latin America [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv
University, 1974); Judith Laikin Elkin, Jews of the Latin American Republics
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980); Judith Laikin Elkin
and Gilbert W. Merkx, eds., The Jewish Presence in Latin America (Boston:
Allen & Unwin, 1987); AMILAT, Judaica latinoamericana: Estudios histórico-
sociales (Jerusalem: Editorial Universitaria Magnes, Universidad Hebrea,
published every four years beginning in 1988).
5. Erich S. Gruen, Diaspora: Jews amidst Greeks and Romans (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2002), vii.
6. Organización Sionista en el Uruguay, El Sionismo en el Uruguay: Editado con
motivo del 25 aniversario de la organización sionista en el Uruguay (Montevideo:
Editorial e Imprenta “ANCLA” de Bernardo Margulies, 1943); Tsentral farband
fun Galitsyaner Yidn in Argentine, Galitsyaner yidn: Yoyvel-bukh (Buenos
Aires: Tsentral farband fun Galitsyaner Yidn in Argentine, 1966); Mario
Nassí, La comunidad ashkenazi de Caracas: Breve historia institucional (Caracas:
Unión Israelita de Caracas, 1981); Egon e Frieda Wolff, Natal, uma comunidade
singular (Rio de Janeiro: Cemitério Comunal Israelita, 1984); Medio siglo de
vida judía en La Paz (La Paz: Circulo Israelita, 1987); S. Leon Trachtemberg,
Los Judíos de Lima y las provicias del Perú (Lima: Unión Israelita del Perú,
1989); Alicia Gojman de Backal, coordinadora, Generaciones judías en México:
La kehilá ashkenazí (1922–1992), 7 vols. (México, DF: Comunidad Ashkenazí
de México, 1993).
35
7. Some recent works on other ethnic communities include Lane Ryo
Hirabayashi, Akemi Kikumura, and James A. Hirabayashi, eds., New
Worlds, New Lives: Globalization and People of Japanese Descent in the Americas
and from Latin America in Japan (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,
2002); John Taufik Karam, “Distinguishing Arabesques: The Politics and
Pleasures of Being Arab in Neoliberal Brazil” (PhD diss., Department of
Anthropology, Syracuse University, 2003); Lok C. D. Siu, Memories of a Future
Home: Diasporic Citizenship of Chinese in Panama (Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 2005). For earlier works see Robert M. Levine, Race and
Ethnic Relations in Latin America and the Caribbean: An Historical Dictionary
and Bibliography (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1980).
8. For a listing of pre-1990 works on Jewish-Latin Americans, see Judith Laikin
Elkin and Ana Lya Sater, Latin American Jewish Studies: An Annotated Guide
to the Literature (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990). Dr. David Hirsch at the
UCLA library has compiled an updated list that can be found at www.library.
ucla.edu/libraries/url/colls/judaica/lajs.htm.
9. Haim Avni and Yoram Shapira, “Teaching and Research on Latin America in
Israel,” Latin American Research Review 9, no. 3 (Fall 1974): 39–51.
10. For Avni’s early publications, see the appendix to AMILAT, Latin American
Jewry: Essays in Honor of Haim Avni [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Hebrew University
Press, 2001).
11. David Rock, “Ideas, Immigrants et Alia in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century
Argentina,” Latin American Research Review 29, no. 1 (1994): 172–83.
12. Martin H. Sable, Latin American Jewry: A Research Guide (New York: Ktav,
1978), xi.
13. Judith Laikin Elkin, ed., Resources for Latin American Jewish Studies:
Proceedings of the First Research Conference of the Latin American Jewish Studies
Association, Held on the Cincinnati Campus of Hebrew Union College–Jewish
Institute of Religion on October 30–November 1, 1982 (Cincinnati, OH: Latin
American Jewish Studies Association, 1982), ix.
14. Elkin, Jews of the Latin American Republics. The proceedings of the first
LAJSA conference can be found in Judith Laikin Elkin, ed., Resources for Latin
American Jewish Studies: Proceedings of the First Research Conference of the Latin
American Jewish Studies Association, Held on the Cincinnati Campus of Hebrew
Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion on October 30–November 1, 1982 (Ann
Arbor, MI: Latin American Jewish Studies Association, 1984).
15. A selection of the papers from that first conference was published in Elkin
and Merkx, eds., The Jewish Presence in Latin America.
16. Ibid.; David Sheinin and Lois Baer Barr, eds., The Jewish Diaspora in Latin
America: New Studies on History and Literature (New York: Garland, 1996), or
Kristin Ruggiero, ed., The Jewish Diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean:
Fragments of Memory (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2005); Marjorie
Agosín, ed., Memory, Oblivion, and Jewish Culture in Latin America (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 2005); Judit Bokser Liwerant and Alicia Gojman
de Backal, eds., Encuentro y alteridad, vida y cultura judía en América Latina
(Mexico City: UNAM, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1999).
36
17. Monica Grin and Nelson H. Vieira, eds., Experiência cultural judaica no Brasil
/ Recepção, inclusão e ambivalência (Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks, 2004); Ricardo
Feierstein and Stephen A. Sadow, eds., Recreando la cultura judeoargentina:
1894–2001: En el umbral del segundo siglo: Encuentro 2001 (Buenos Aires: Mila,
2002); Judit Bokser de Liwerant et al., Imagenes de un encuentro: La presencia
judía en México durante la primera mitad del siglo XX (Mexico City: UNAM/
Tribuna Israelita, 1992).
18. Jeffrey Lesser, Welcoming the Undesirables: Brazil and the Jewish Question
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); Adina Cimet, Ashkenazi
Jews in Mexico: Ideologies in the Structuring of a Community (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1997); Katherine Morris, Odyssey of Exile:
Jewish Women Flee the Nazis for Brazil (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University
Press, 1996); Robert Levine, Tropical Diaspora: The Jewish Experience in
Cuba (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1993).
19. Elkin, Jews of the Latin American Republics; Eliahu Toker, El idish es tabién
latinoamerica (Buenos Aires: Instituto Movilizador de Fondos Cooperativos,
2003).
20. See the authors in Jewish History 18, no. 1 (2004), special issue on “Gender,
Ethnicity, and Politics: Latin American Jewry Revisited,” guest edited by
Raanan Rein, or Shofar 19, no. 3 (Spring 2001), special issue on “The Jewish
Diaspora of Latin America,” guest edited by Nelson H. Vieira. For the hybrid
and complex identities of Jewish-Latin American writers, see Edna Aizenberg,
Books and Bombs in Buenos Aires: Borges, Gerchunoff, and Argentine-Jewish
Writing (Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 2002).
21. Daniel Elazar and Peter Medding, Jewish Communities in Frontier Societies:
Argentina, Australia and South Africa (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1983).
22. Albert Hourani and Nadim Shehadi, eds., The Lebanese in the World: A
Century of Emigration (London and New York: I. B. Tauris and St. Martin’s
Press, 1992); The Americas 53, no. 1 (July 1996), special issue on “Turco
Immigrants in Latin America,” guest edited by Ignacio Klich and Jeffrey
Lesser; Jeffrey Lesser, ed., Searching for Home Abroad: Japanese Brazilians and
Transnationalism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003); Wanni W.
Anderson and Robert G. Lee, eds., Displacements and Diasporas: Asians in
the Americas (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005).
23. Two early attempts at such an approach are Ignacio Klich and Jeffrey Lesser,
eds., Arab and Jewish Immigrants in Latin America: Images and Realities
(London: Frank Cass, 1998), and Jeffrey Lesser, Negotiating National Identity:
Immigrants, Minorities and the Struggle for Ethnicity in Brazil (Durham, NC:
Duke University Press, 1999). Portuguese version: Negociando a identidade
nacional: Imigrantes, minorias e a luta pela etnicidade no Brasil (São Paulo:
Editora UNESP, 2001).
24. Jorge Luis Borges in his 1940 prologue to Carlos M Grünberg, Mester de
judería; Prólogo de Jorge Luis Borges (Buenos Aires: Editorial Argirópolis, 1940).
25. For early examples of this effort to explore the relations between Jews, other
European immigrants, and local populations, see Shari Jacobson, “Looking
Forward to the Past: The Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Community of Buenos
Aires” (PhD diss., Stanford University, 1999); Misha Klein, “Braided Lives:
37
On Being Jewish and Brazilian in São Paulo” (PhD diss., University of Cali
fornia, Berkeley, 2002); Judith Noemí Freidenberg, Memorias de Villa Clara
(Buenos Aires: Antropofagia, 2005); Teresa Porzecanski, La vida empezo aca:
Inmigrantes judíos al Uruguay: Historias de vida y perspectiva antropológica de la
conformacion de la comunidad judía uruguaya, contrastes culturales y procesos de
enculturacion (Montevideo: Lindari y Russo, 2005).
26. Haim Avni, “El sionismo en la Argentina: El aspecto ideológico,” in Judaica
latinoamericana: Estudios histórico-sociales 5, ed. AMILAT (Jerusalem:
Editorial Universitaria Magnes, Universidad Hebrea, 2005), 145–68;
Silvia Schenkolewsky-Kroll, The Zionist Movement and the Zionist Parties
in Argentina, 1935–1948 [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1996); Judit
Liwerant de Bokser, “El movimiento nacional judío: El sionismo en México,
1922–1947,” (PhD diss., UNAM, Mexico, 1991); Sigue Friesel, Bror Chail:
História do movimento e do kibutz brasileiro (Jerusalem: Departamento da
Juventude e do Chalutz da Organização Sionista Mundial, 1956).
27. Raanan Rein, “Together yet Apart: Israel and Argentine Jews” (keynote
address at the conference of the Latin American Jewish Studies Association,
Dartmouth College, 2004); Mollie Lewis, “Becoming ‘Israelitas-Argentinos’:
Looking for Argentine Sephardic Identity in the Weekly Israel, 1925–1935”
(paper presented at the conference of the Latin American Jewish Studies
Association, Dartmouth College, 2004).
28. Arnd Schneider, Futures Lost: Nostalgia and Identity among Italian Immigrants
in Argentina (Oxford and New York: P. Lang, 2000).
29. A recent essay that questions the assumption of Jewish exceptionalism
is Gabriel Sheffer, “Is the Jewish Diaspora Unique? Reflections on the
Diaspora’s Current Situation,” Israel Studies 10, no. 1 (Spring 2005): 1–35.
See also Raanan Rein, Argentina, Israel and the Jews: Perón, the Eichmann
Capture and After (Bethesda: University Press of Maryland, 2003), in Spanish
Argentina, Israel y los Judíos: Encuentros e desencuentros, mitos e realidades
(Buenos Aires: Ediciones Lumiere, 2001).
30. For the polemic surrounding this debate, see Marcel Zohar, Let My People Go
to Perdition: Betrayal in Blue and White [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Tsitrin, 1990); Luis
Roniger and Mario Sznajder “From Argentina to Israel: Escape, Evacuation
and Exile,” Journal of Latin American Studies 37, no. 2 (2005): 351–77; Joel
Barromi, “Israel frente a la dictadura military argentina. El episodio de
Córdoba y el caso Timerman,” in El legado del autoritarismo: Derechos humanos
y antisemitismo en la Argentina contemporánea, ed. Leonardo Senkman and
Mario Szanjder (Buenos Aires: Grupo Editor Latinoamericano, 1995).
31. In Lane Ryo Hirabayashi, Akemi Kikumura, and James A. Hirabayashi, eds.,
New Worlds, New Lives: Globalization and People of Japanese Descent in the
Americas and from Latin America in Japan (Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press, 2002); Comissão de Elaboração da História dos 80 Anos da Imigração
Japonesa no Brasil, Uma epopéia moderna: 80 anos da imigração japonesa no
Brasil (São Paulo: Editora Hucitec, 1992); María Bjerg and Hernán Otero,
eds., Inmigracíon y redes sociales en la Argentina moderna (Tandil: CEMLA,
IEHS, 1995); Hourani and Shehadi, eds., The Lebanese in the World; Jose C.
38
Moya, Cousins and Strangers: Spanish Immigrants in Buenos Aires, 1850–1930
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).
32. Among the few studies that include unaffiliated Jews are Henrique Rattner,
Tradição e mudança: A comunidade judaica em São Paulo (São Paulo: Editora
Atica, 1977), and Eugene Sofer, From Pale to Pampa: A Social History of the
Jews of Buenos Aires (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1982).
33. “Latin American Singer’s Rainbow Coalition of Identities,” New York Times,
July 12, 2005.
34. Ignacio Klich and Mario Rapoport, eds., Discriminacíon y racismo en América
Latina (Buenos Aires: Grupo Editor Latinoamericano, 1997); Martin N.
Dreher, Arthur Blásio Rambo, and Marcos Justo Tramontini, eds., Imigração
e imprensa: XV simpósio de históriada imigração e colonização (Porto Alegre:
Instituto Histórico de São Leopoldo, 2004).
35. George Reid Andrews, Blacks and Whites in São Paulo, Brazil, 1888–1988
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), 56; Robert Stam, Tropical
Multiculturalism: A Comparative History of Race in Brazilian Cinema and
Culture (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998), 76; Ruben E. Reina,
Parana—Social Boundaries in an Argentine City (Austin: University of Texas
Press, 1973).
36. Maria Luiza Tucci Carneiro, O anti-semitismo na era Vargas: Fantasmas de
uma geração (1930–1945) (São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1988); Graciela Ben-Dror,
Católicos, Nazis y Judíos: La iglesia argentina en los tiempos del Tercer Reich
(Buenos Aires: Lumiere, 2003); Laura Pérez Rosales, “Anticardenismo and
Anti-Semitism in Mexico, 1940,” in The Jewish Diaspora in Latin America:
New Studies on History and Literature, ed. David Sheinin and Lois Baer Barr
(New York: Garland, 1996), 183–97; Margalit Bejarano, “Antisemitism in
Cuba under Democratic, Military and Revolutionary Regimes, 1944–1963,”
Patterns of Prejudice 24, no. 1 (1990): 32–46; Clara Adrighi et al., Antisemitismo
en Uruguay: Raices, discursos, imágenes (Montevideo: Trilce, 2000).
37. Haim Avni, “Post War Latin American Jewry: An Agenda for the Study of
the Last Five Decades,” in The Jewish Diaspora in Latin America: New Studies
on History and Literature, ed. David Sheinin and Lois Baer Barr (New York:
Garland, 1996), 3–19. In a recent paper Bernardo Sorj characterized most
studies on anti-Semitism in Brazil as a gross inflation and exaggeration. See
his “La sociabilidad brasilera y la identidad judía” in the international col-
loquium “Las identidades judías en una era de globalización y multicultural-
ismo,” Mexico City, September 2005.
38. Rafael Kogan and David Diskin, both of whom became supporters of Perón,
were key figures in Argentine trade unions in the 1940s but have received
little scholarly attention so far.
39. One recent volume that represents an important step forward is Florencia E.
Mallon, Courage Tastes of Blood: The Mapuche of Nicolás Aliaño and the Chilean
State, 1906–2001 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005).
40. Gerardo Bra, La organización negra: La increible historia de la Zvi Migdal
(Buenos Aires: Corregidor, 1982); Victor A. Mirelman, En busqueda de una
identidad: Los inmigrantes judíos en Buenos Aires, 1890–1939 (Buenos Aires:
Editorial Milá, 1988), chap. 9; Donna J. Guy, Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires:
39
Prostitution, Family, and Nation in Argentina (Lincoln and London: University
of Nebraska Press, 1991), passim; Nora Glickman, The Jewish White Slave
Trade and the Untold Story of Raquel Libernan (New York: Garland, 2000);
Isabel Vincent, Bodies and Souls: The Tragic Plight of Three Jewish Women
Forced into Prostitution in the Americas (New York: William Morrow, 2005);
Beatriz Kushnir, Baile de máscaras: Mulheres judias e prostituição: As polacas e
suas associações de ajuda mutual (Rio de Janeiro: Imago Editora, 1996).
41. Margalit Bejarano examines the modest production on Sephardic Jewry
in Latin America in her recent article “Sephardic Communities in Latin
America—Past and Present,” in Judaica latinoamericana: Estudios histórico-
sociales 5, ed. AMILAT (Jerusalem: Editorial Universitaria Magnes,
Universidad Hebrea, 2005), 9–26. See also Liz Hamui de Halabe, Identidad
colectiva. Rasgos culturales de los inmigrantes judeo alepinos en México (Mexico
City: JGH Editores, 1977), and Adriana M. Brodsky, “The Contours of Identity:
Sephardic Jews and the Construction of Jewish Communities in Argentina,
1880 to the Present” (PhD diss., Duke University, 2004).
42. Leo Spitzer, Hotel Bolivia: The Culture of Memory in a Refuge from Nazism
(New York: Hill and Wang, 1998).
40
chapter three
How the Jews Became Japanese

and Other Stories of Nation and Ethnicity
!
jeffrey lesser
I n the field of Jewish studies many scholars portray Jews as divorced from
the nations that they call home. Jews, when viewed as unintegrated into
majority society, are often presented as victims. When integrated, they are
often represented as not fully Jewish. Such notions have been taken a step
further in the study of Latin American Jewry. In this area of research, where
nations often have nonwhite majorities, Jews are often placed unquestion-
ingly in the “white” category along with others of European descent (only
recently have studies of Sephardic Jews been seriously undertaken by those
conducting research on modern Latin America).1 Indeed the studies of
Jewish “whiteness” (or lack thereof) that have become so central to the study
of Jews (and other ethnic groups) in the United States have been generally
ignored in the Latin American case.2
Such attitudes had a deep effect on my early research on Jewish life in
Latin America. My aforementioned Welcoming the Undesirables: Brazil and the
Jewish Question is a prime example of a study that began with the assumption
that Jews were “white,” just like all other immigrants of European descent.
Yet the documentation told a different story. Jews were neither white nor
black: they were located in a category that the traditional scholarship never
41
examined. My assumption was that this placement was related to the very
specific history of Jewish-Gentile relations in the Americas, and thus I tried
to understand the question of Jewish “race” in Brazil via a comparison with
Jewish life in other countries in the hemisphere.
This approach was put to the test when Albert Hourani, a leading scholar
of the Arab experience, asked me to contribute to a volume he was writing
on the Lebanese diaspora.3 “Professor Hourani,” I implored in a classic
expression of traditional ethnic studies, “I study Jews, not Arabs.” The pro-
fessor was not interested in my excuses. “Go back to the documents,” he
told me, and of course I did. What I found led me to reevaluate my assump-
tions regarding Jews and other ethnic groups. Virtually every public discus-
sion of Jews in Brazil included Arabs and Japanese as well. Typical was a
1934 Jornal do comercio editorial from the Society of the Friends of Alberto
Torres whose membership was filled with nativist intellectuals, diplomats,
and powerful federal and state politicians.
The threat which hovers over Brazil of an invasion of the inhabitants

of Iraq, which England wished to place in Paraná, was a signal of
alarm which awakened our people and warned them against certain
currents of immigration which have been coming our way. We refer
in particular to the Japanese and the Jews who for good reasons are
undesirable immigrants rejected today by all nations that are in need
of foreign labor.4
What could it mean that these three groups, who arrived in Brazil at
different times, inserted themselves into the economy in different ways,
and had little to do with each other, were linked in the discourses of the
Brazilian elite? And why did the traditional scholarship ignore these groups
by functionally lumping them into a kind of honorary “white” category? As
I researched these questions, I began to realize the logic in these linkages.
My goal with this essay, then, is to use the broad framework of comparative
minority statuses to expand the academic dialogue about Jewish and non-
Jewish ethnicity in Latin America and elsewhere.5 My goal is not to provide
set answers but rather to ask new questions.
Comparing different ethnic groups within a national context suggests
my approach to the study of Jews is primarily as a student of Brazil, a coun-
try whose national identity has been characterized from at least the nine-
teenth century onward by a public discourse of racial mixture that is often
rejected in the private sphere. Put more bluntly, there is a widely proffered
42
Jeffrey Lesser
public notion that Brazil is a nation with an unusually low level of racism
(or with none at all!) and that distinctions between what appear to be racial
groups are actually based on class. The belief that race is subsumed by
class, and is thus inconsequential, often makes Brazil a racial showcase.
A postwar UNESCO study suggested that Brazil was a location of posi-
tive race relations and an example of the permanence of racial inequality
without legal segregation.6 This research suggested that socially ascen-
dant individuals and groups could not be victims of racism. With class
as the critical marker, many “ethnic” Brazilians (such as those of Jewish,
Japanese, and Middle Eastern descent) became part of a vague whiteness.
Yet these notions are contradicted by a social, political, and economic
structure that leads to extremely high correlations between race and indi-
cators such as income and education, with “blackness” representing the
lower ends of the scale. In addition, racialist language is a regular part of
Brazilian life. Any study of ethnicity in Brazil—centering on Jews or any
other ethnic group—must, therefore, ask what it means to have a norma-
tive discourse about race and ethnicity that few people accept in practice.
The structural and discursive ways in which race is constructed lead
many Brazilians to have multiple stable identities that are brought forth
in situational ways. A person of Japanese descent may, in some situ-
ations, complain bitterly about the assumption by the majority that he
is “Japanese” and not “Brazilian” but in others may assert exactly his
“Japaneseness” to suggest he is unusually hardworking and honest. In
Brazil (like elsewhere) ethnicity is not “natural” but constructed. As indi-
viduals move in and out of different cultural, economic, and social spaces
(like the home, the workplace, and relationships with relatives, friends,
and lovers), the ways in which ethnicity is expressed is ever changing.
While such constructions are often implicit, that is not always the case. At
times ethnicity/identity/home seem to be a resource that is deployed in
response to specific circumstances. While one may assert ethnicity in the
workplace to reinforce an idea of hard work, the same person may reject
ethnicity in a dance club where they want to be viewed as “fun” rather than
as “uptight.”7
Those who study the United States will perhaps be surprised to think
of ethnicity as currency in the marketplace of jobs, marriage partners, or
cultural action, yet this seems to be the case in Brazil. Ethnicity, however,
is not simply strategic. Indeed, it is sometimes “real” in that it provides an
emotional way for people to be at ease about themselves in both comfort-
able and awkward circumstances. Brazilian ethnicity seems to be less of
43
How the Jews Became Japanese and Other Stories
an é (from the verb “to be” [ser] in its nontransitional usage) and more of an
está (from the verb “to be” [estar] in its transitional usage).
Since comparing different groups in the same national context is the key
to my argument, let me begin with a joke that I recently received through
the Internet:
Walking through San Francisco’s Chinatown, a tourist is fascinated

with all the Chinese restaurants, shops, signs and banners. He turns
a corner and sees a building with the sign, Saul Dumbrowski’s
Chinese Laundry.
“Saul Dumbrowski?” he muses. “How the heck does that fit in
here?” So he walks into the shop and sees an old Chinese gentleman
behind the counter. The tourist asks, “How did this place get a name
like ‘Saul Dumbrowski’s Chinese Laundry’?”
The old man answers, “Is name of owner.”
The tourist asks, “Well, who and where is the owner?”
“Me, is right here,” replies the old man.
“You? How did you ever get a name like ‘Saul Dumbrowski’?”
“Is simple,” says the old man. “Many, many year ago when come
to this country, was stand in line at Documentation Center. Man in
front is Jewish gentleman from Poland. Lady look at him and go,
‘What your name?’ He say, ‘Saul Dumbrowski.’ Then she look at me
and go, ‘What your name?’ I say, ‘Sem Ting’” (drum roll).
This joke is funny (I have retold it to great success at both academic

conferences and dinner parties and laughed heartily when I read it) for a
number of reasons. By mixing ideas of nation, race, and religion, it assumes,
incorrectly, that Chinese Jews cannot exist.8 Yet the formulation of both
“Jews” and “Chinese” as static and pure categories presumes that listeners
will find it absurd that the two groups might be confused. Such assump-
tions, however, are problematic from a scholarly perspective. To find cul-
tural similarities among “different” ethnic groups is far from absurd, and
nation can become ethnicity (and vice versa) quite easily.
While Saul Dumbrowski lives in San Francisco, the joke could easily be
reformulated to include those Brazilians who define themselves as Jewish,
Arab (often called Siro-Lebanese), Japanese (often called Nikkei), or Korean.
But what are the implications, following the logic of the joke, of saying that
Jews, Arabs, Japanese, and Koreans are the “same thing.” Certainly this logic
implies a need to expand the traditional approach of making ethnic–ethnic
44
Jeffrey Lesser
comparisons (how “Jews” or “Japanese” in the United States are like, or not,
“Jews” and “Japanese” in Brazil). At the same time it suggests that the com-
parative examination of minority groups may add to our understanding of
both the groups and broader national cultures in which they live.
Such an approach exposes the ways that ethnic and racial identity in
Brazil is constantly up for grabs. It is a place where a federal deputy (in
1935) could state before the Brazilian House of Deputies that “the Japanese
colonists . . . are even whiter than the Portuguese [ones]” and find most
of his colleagues in complete agreement.9 It is a place where the famous
painter Santa Rosa can tell a young Afro-Brazilian complaining about racial
barriers to his ascent in the diplomatic service that “I understand your case
perfectly, my dear boy, I was black once too.”10 It is a place where everyone
understood the advertisement for the very popular 1980s soap opera The
Immigrants: “Portuguese, Japanese, Spanish, Italians, Arabs—Don’t Miss
the Most Brazilian Soap Opera on Television.”11
Each of these cases shows a fluidity that is not common in the United
States where race and ethnicity are highly essentialized (for example, it is
rare to find a person in the United States who claims to be African-American
during the week but is Euro-American on weekends). Yet embedded in the
fluidity is an equally strong sense of the unchangeable, especially in the lan-
guage that Brazilians use to describe ethnicity. A third-generation Brazilian
of Japanese or Jewish descent remains “Japanese” or “Jewish” and not
“Japanese-Brazilian” or “Jewish-Brazilian.” Being a Brazilian citizen thus
does not end the condition of foreignness whether eating Brazilianized sushi
in São Paulo’s “Japanese” neighborhood of Liberdade or Brazilianized matzo
ball soup in the formerly “Jewish” and now “Korean” bairro of Bom Retiro.
In Rio Grande do Sul, local tourists visit the “German” town of Gramado or
the “Italian” one of Caxias do Sul. In all these places the message is the same,
that this is alien territory, that normative “Brazil” cannot include ethnicity
that differs from nationality.
My second goal in this article is to examine public ethnic identity in order

to find the places where it is constructed on the back of majority notions of
otherness. Public definitions of group identity and otherness—what may
be called a negotiation between in-group and popular discourses—allow
members of both minority and majority groups to create identity by holding
deep stereotypes even as tolerance is asserted. For example, Jewish-, Arab-,
Japanese-, and Korean-Brazilians frequently complain in public about ste-
reotypes regarding their supposed hard work and intelligence while pointing
45
out in “ethnic” settings (schools, neighborhoods, places of worship, restau-
rants, and other spaces where members of the majority are not present) that
such stereotypes are accurate and thus make them “better Brazilians” than
those in the majority who have been tainted by a combination of “latinidade”
and “Africanness.” The integration of such seemingly contradictory notions
allows minority groups that are in the upper echelons of Brazilian society to
both fit in and remain separate at the same time.
My points, and the cultural flexibility that they imply, are illustrated in
some of the ethnicized origin myths that are often heard in Brazil.
Story One
Brazil’s Jewish community has about 120,000 people or less than one-
tenth of 1 percent of the Brazilian population. The overwhelming majority
of this community descends from immigrants who arrived between 1920
and 1940. The myth, however, suggests that during the Inquisition, Jews in
colonial Portugal chose non-Jewish names based on biblical animals and
trees. The claim is that anyone with a name like Coelho (rabbit) or Pinheiro
(pine tree) descends from Jews. I did a quick search for both names just on
the basis of people registered with e-mail accounts, clearly a tiny percentage
of Brazil’s generally poor population: for both names there were thousands
of entries, demonstrating that these names are extremely common among
non-Jews. Still, Gerações, the newsletter of the São Paulo–based Sociedade
Genealogica Judaica do Brasil, published a genealogical tree in 1995 sug-
gesting that Fernando Henrique Cardoso, president of Brazil between 1994
and 2002, is descended from Jews because his last name was one of those
found on Inquisition lists of crypto-Jews.12
Story Two
This is a myth that started circulating around Brazil in the 1870s and was
picked up by intellectuals of Arab descent. There are about a quarter of a
million Brazilians of Arab descent in Brazil. Beginning in the nineteenth
century, a number of well-respected French crackpot theorists suggested
that King Solomon sailed the Amazon River and that the Quechua language
of the Andean region was an offshoot of ancient Hebrew. This theory was
Brazilianized in the 1930s by Salomão Jorge, a renowned Brazilian poet,
author, and radio commentator. Jorge modified the myth to suggest that
Brazil’s indigenous tribes were actually descendants of Solomon who, he
46
Jeffrey Lesser
claimed, was an ancestor of Jesus.13 The Jewish version of the same myth
simply dismisses the Jesus connection.
Story Three: The “Legend of the Town of Marataize”

There once was a group of peddlers who sold their wares in the interior of
Espírito Santo, going from place to place by mule. One of the peddlers was
named Aziz, and his wife (marat in colloquial Arabic) was considered the
leader of the women who stayed behind as the men went out to sell their
goods. These women washed their clothes in a place called the “Turkish
bath” (bacia das turcas), and over time, the town that grew up around the
place came to be called Marataize in honor of the wife (marat) of Aziz.14
Story Four
Between 1908 and 1941 about 190,000 Japanese entered Brazil, and today
more than one million Brazilians claim Japanese descent. Rokuro Koyama
came to Brazil in 1908 on the first ship bringing Japanese immigrants. He
was one of the interpreters on the ship since he spoke some Spanish. He
settled in Bauru, a small city in the interior of the state of São Paulo, and
was known as the “father of Nikkei journalism” after establishing the Seishu
shinpo (São Paulo Weekly) in 1921. Koyama became fascinated with Brazil’s
indigenous population after having a vision of a naked Indian who “looked
like a Japanese” crouching naked on a huge rock alongside a railroad line.
This fascination led to a study of the Tupi language, and he asked in the
introduction to his Tupi-Japanese-Portuguese dictionary: “Did we Japanese
and Tupi-Guarani originally come from and share the same Polynesian
seed? Do we meet again now, after four thousand years? Was the language
of the Tupi-Guarani natives the same as that of the very ancient Japanese?”15
Such ideas were picked up in the 1920s by Hachiro Fukuhara, a wealthy
businessperson from Japan who decided to set up a farming colony in the
Amazon that would be populated by Japanese immigrants. He returned
from an exploratory trip to the area north of Bélem do Pára, at the mouth of
the river, claiming that Brazil was “founded by Asiatics” since “the natives
who live along the River Amazon look exactly like the Japanese. There is
also a close resemblance between them in manners and customs . . . [and]
a certain Chinese secretary in the German Embassy at Rio [has] made a
careful study [of language] and concluded that these Indians descended
from Mongols.” Fukuhara even stated that he knew of a Buddhist ceremony
47
performed in the Himalayas where a woman holds a tree as she is bearing a
child and her husband walks around her, and he exclaimed excitedly, “I saw
the same thing in the Amazon.”16
Story Five
Brazil today has a Korean immigrant and descent community of between
120,000 and 150,000 people, many of whom live in the São Paulo neighbor-
hood of Bom Retiro, a space associated throughout much of the twentieth
century with Jews. In oral histories with Korean residents of that neighbor-
hood, a frequent comment is that Jews, who are often constructed as pri-
mordial Brazilians (i.e., they were there long before the Koreans arrived),
received Koreans “like family” because of the great similarities between the
groups: a respect for family, hard work, and education.17
These “origins myths” have much in common. Each includes an imagined

indigenous culture that maintains its solidarity and melds with others to
create the Brazilian nation in its early moments. In seeing themselves this
way, immigrants and their descendants become more “original” or “authen-
tic” Brazilians than other members of Brazilian society, whether they be of
European or African descent. The strategies behind these myths are simple
to fathom. Each allows minority groups to reject the notion of a uniform,
white, Catholic society while fully accepting the claim that Brazil’s major
social and economic problem was the “blackness” of the nonelite major-
ity. They suggest a simultaneous insider/outsider status in which ethnic
groups, or at least those who express “ethnic” positions publicly, want to be
fully accepted as “typical” Brazilians as well as be recognized for their differ-
ence from the Brazilian norm.
Myths, however, are not only consumed within ethnic culture. Indeed,
those in the Brazilian majority elite, generally Catholic and of European
descent, also had contradictory ideas about Jews and Japanese. Thus images
of Jews and Japanese in twentieth-century Brazil were simultaneously posi-
tive and negative, and both groups were seen as part of a category that would
both ruin Brazil from afar and save Brazil from itself.18 In other words,
those imagined to be ethnically visible and socially ascendant were symbols
of the elite’s own anxiety about Brazil and its people since supposed group-
inherent qualities positioned them as both nonblacks and nonwhites.
This anxiety was not confined to Brazil. As Eric Goldstein has shown,
North American commentators sometimes grouped Jews and Japanese
48
Jeffrey Lesser
together as problematic peoples who defied easy categorization within the
dominant black/white system. No less an institution than the New York Times
asserted in 1906 that a number of Japanese statesmen were “Russian Jews,
bearing without a doubt more of the marks of Asia than their brethren in
Western Europe, but still the posterity of Jacob.”19
More recently, although with perhaps less of a eugenics twist, those in
the United States have seen the wide dissemination of the stereotype of
Jews as “JAPS” (Jewish American Princesses/Princes).20
The Jewish role in this majority search for identity stems from a notion
that was well diffused among elite members of the Christian faith: that despite
seemingly negative characteristics, Jews were also carriers of an ethnic cul-
ture whose relation to capital expansion was central to the future of Brazilian
society. What is important to note, however, is that the Christian conclusion
was not exclusive to Jews. Rather, Japanese, Middle Eastern, and Korean
immigrants and their descendants were also seen in much the same way: as
carriers of both degenerate and positive characteristics. An illustration of this
broadening of images across ethnic lines can be seen when one examines
paid sexual relations. Early twentieth-century sex workers who defined them-
selves as polacas (a code word for Jews) were seen as excitingly sexual and
consequently dangerous to the nation. This situation has been matched in the
last quarter century by the phenomenal growth of japonesinhas (little Jap girls)
as a category of paid sexual laborers. One must note that the ethnic categories
asserted may—or may not—be related to actual individual genealogies; “pola-
cas” were as infrequently Jewish as “japonesinhas” are Japanese. In the last
decade, as Korean migration to Brazil has increased markedly, there has even
been a suggestion that most female participants in this migratory stream are
paid sex workers masquerading as “japonesinhas.”
The same phenomenon can be found in the contemporary discovery
of the “converso” background of famous Brazilians by Jews and non-Jews
alike. Here again we see a search for authenticity but with a twist. For non-
elite, non-Jewish Brazilians, discovering a “converso” in the family allows
them to both be “Jews” (the rich and powerful kind), while not being actual
“Jews” (the sneaky and problematic kind). Jews who participate in converso
mythmaking seem to be searching for authenticity, pure and simple.21 By
attributing converso backgrounds to everyone from Andre Reboucas (a
leading nineteenth-century mulatto abolitionist) to Fernando Henrique
Cardoso (the former president), Jews become the exclusively authentic
Brazilians.22 Among Brazilian Jews, the frequent assertion (without real
linguistic evidence) that many Portuguese words are Hebrew in origin
49
reminds me of the father figure in the recent U.S. film My Big Fat Greek
Wedding who was able to “prove” to his daughter that the Japanese word
“kimono” had Greek roots.
The varieties of cultural discourses are important because members of

Brazil’s ethnic elite have always sought to incorporate ambivalence into their
own expressions of national identity. Most ethnic Brazilians, for example,
stress that they are not of African descent. The myths retold previously thus
make Arabs, Japanese, or Jews into Indians, placing these nineteenth- and
twentieth-century immigrant groups in Brazil prior to the arrival of Africans
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Yet the alleged Jewish connection
to indigenous populations does much more than assert non-Africanness,
since assertions that the indigenous populations were “the lost tribes” were
common among Spanish and Portuguese clergy and explorers.23 Such
claims have correlates among Brazil’s Japanese-Brazilian community (the
largest Japanese-descent population in the world) and among those mil-
lions of Brazilians who are of Middle Eastern descent. One myth commonly
heard among Japanese-Brazilians is that the Americas were peopled by
Japanese sailors who had been blown to the region by a divine wind in the
thirteenth century, while Syrian-Lebanese (the term for Brazilians of Middle
Eastern descent) celebrated the 1922 centennial by placing a huge statue
in Sao Paulo’s main park that included figures of “Syrian,” “Indigenous,”
and “Brazilian” brothers, which suggested a consanguinity between these
ostensibly different ethnic groups.24 If the Jews were Amerindians and
Amerindians were Japanese, we need no more than the commutative prop-
erty to see how we might generate scientific proof that Jews are Japanese.
Conclusion
This article aims to examine the intellectual paths scholars walk when they
assume that ethnic specificity is a dominant social or cultural phenomenon
that overshadows commonality. Thus I have proposed that cross-ethnic
comparison allows us to introduce new questions into our research on
Jews, or members of any other ethnic group. In the examples above I have
focused on the question of national culture and how it creates similarities in
some areas of ethnic life—other conclusions might appear in cross-ethnic
studies that I have not broached.
I am not, of course, suggesting that Jews and Japanese and Koreans and
Arabs are “exactly the same.” Yet the assumption of “difference” seems to
50
Jeffrey Lesser
be as theoretically problematic as the assumption of “sameness.” Put dif-
ferently, the comparative analysis of Jews and Japanese within one national
context highlights the moments and spaces where Jews are, and are not, the
“same thing” as Japanese. For those studying Jewish ethnicity, asking ques-
tions about the intersections of “whiteness,” “blackness,” and “Indianness”
seems critical and will enrich our understanding of Jews and ethnicity in
the Americas.
51
Notes
1. Traditionally, “Sephardic” referred to Jews from the Iberian Peninsula (Spain
and Portugal), including the descendants of those subject to the 1492 expul-
sion order of the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella. More recently
the term “Sephardi” has come to include Jews of Arabic and Persian back-
grounds who have no historical connection to Spain except their use of the
Sephardic liturgy.
2. Matthew Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants
and the Alchemy of Race (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998);
Karen Brodkin, How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says about
Race in America (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998); Noel
Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White (New York: Routledge, 1995); David R.
Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American
Working Class (London: Verso, 1991).
3. Albert Habib Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (Cambridge, MA:
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1991); Albert Habib Hourani,
The Emergence of the Modern Middle East (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1981).
4. “Disrespecting the Constitution with Regard to Immigration—An Appeal by
the Society of the Friends of Alberto Torres to the President of the Republic,”
Jornal do Comércio, November 1, 1934, 1. For more on the McDonald Mission,
see my Welcoming the Undesirables: Brazil and the Jewish Question (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1995), 68–77.
5. For some examples of comparisons of Jewish life in different countries, see
Todd M. Endleman, ed., Comparing Jewish Societies (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 1997), and Sander L. Gilman and Milton Shain, eds., Jewries
at the Frontier: Accommodation, Identity, Conflict (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1999). For a comparison of Jews and Arabs in specific countries, see
Ignacio Klich and Jeffrey Lesser, eds., Arab and Jewish Immigrants in Latin
America: Images and Realities (London: Frank Cass, 1998).
6. W. D. Borrie, ed., The Cultural Integration of Immigrants: A Survey Based upon
the Papers and Proceeding of the UNESCO Conference Held in Havana, April
1956 (New York: UNESCO, 1957); Marcos Chor Maio, “O Brasil no ‘concerto’
das nações: A luta contra o racismo nos primórdios da UNESCO,” História,
Ciências e Saúde—Manguinhos (Rio de Janeiro) 5, no. 2 (1998): 375–413.
Marcos Chor Maio, “UNESCO and the Study of Race Relations in Brazil:
Regional or National Issue?” Latin American Research Review 36, no. 2 (2001):
118–36.
7. Angelo Ishi, “Searching for Home, Wealth, Pride and ‘Class’: Japanese-
Brazilians in the Land of ‘Yen,’” in Searching for Home Abroad: Japanese-
Brazilians and Transnationalism, ed. Jeffrey Lesser (Durham, NC: Duke
University Press, 2003), 75–102.
8. For images of Jews in China, see Zhou Xun, Chinese Perceptions of the “Jews”
and Judaism: A History of the Youtai (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2001).
For broader examinations of minority communities, including Jews, see
Frank Dikötter, ed., The Construction of Racial Identities in China and Japan:
Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i
52
Jeffrey Lesser
Press, 1997), and Marcia R. Ristaino, Port of Last Resort: The Communities
of Shanghai (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001). More
traditional studies of Jews in China are Jonathan Goldstein, The Jews of
China (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1999), and Michael Pollak, Mandarins,
Jews, and Missionaries: The Jewish Experience in the Chinese Empire
(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1980).
9. Speech of Acylino de Leão, September 18, 1935, in “Republica dos Estados
Unidos do Brasil,” Annaes da camara dos deputados: Sessões de 16 a 24 de
Setembro de 1935 (Rio de Janeiro: Off. Graphica D’ “A Noite,” 1935), 17:432.
10. Darcy Ribeiro, The Brazilian People: The Formation and Meaning of Brazil,
trans. Gregory Rabassa (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000),
156–57. O povo brasileiro: A formação e o sentido do Brasil (São Paulo:
Companhia das Letras, 1995).
11. Advertisement for the Bandeirantes Television Network telenovela Os
imigrantes (1981), Jornal do Imigrante 4, no. 422 (September 1981): 2.
12. Gerações (newsletter of the Sociedade Genealogica Judaica do Brasil,
São Paulo) 1, no. 2 (May 1995): 13.
13. Vicomte Enrique Onffroy de Thoron, Voyages des flottes de Salomon et d’Hiram
en Amerique: Position geographique de Parvaim, Ophir & Tarschisch (Paris: Imp.
G. Towne, 1868); “O Rei Salomão no Rio Amazonas,” in As vantagens da immi-
gracao syria no Brasil: Em torno de uma polemica entre os Snrs. Herbert V. Levy e
Salomão Jorge, no “Diario de São Paulo,” ed. Júnior Amarilio (Rio de Janeiro:
Off. Gr. da S. A. A Noite, 1925), 87–103; Viriato Correia, “O Rei Salomão no
Rio Amazonas,” in Album da colonia sírio libanesa no Brasil, ed. Salomão
Jorge (São Paulo: Sociedade Impressora Brasileira, 1948), 471–79.
14. This story has been told to me in various forms of which I repeat only one. A
slightly different version can be found in Claude Fahd Hajjar, Imigração árabe:
100 anos de reflexão (São Paulo: Icone Editora, 1985), 145.
15. Rojuro Koyama, Tupi tango shu (The Tupi Lexicon) (São Paulo: Teikoku Shoin,
1951), 1. See also Shuhei Hosokawa, “Speaking in the Tongue of the Antipode:
Japanese-Brazilian Fantasy on the Origin of Language,” in Searching for Home
Abroad: Japanese-Brazilians and the Transnational Moment, ed. Jeffrey Lesser
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003).
16. Article by Hachiro Fukuhara, “Brazil Founded by Asiatics?” Japan Times and
Mail, June 26, 1927.
17. Interview by Jeffrey Lesser with Y. B. in his home, June 12, 1999.
18. Jeffrey Lesser, Negotiating National Identity: Immigrants, Minorities and the
Struggle for Ethnicity in Brazil (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999);
Lesser, Welcoming the Undesirables, Hebrew version: Brazil ve-hashela ha-
yehudit: Hagira, diplomatia ve-deot kdumot (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University/
University Publishing Projects, 1997).
19. Eric L. Goldstein, “Race and the Construction of Jewish Identity in America,
1875–1945” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2000), 101.
20. Other popular culture references that link Japanese and Jews outside of Brazil
can be seen in the recording made by musician Costes entitled “Jap Jew” (see
costes.org/cd11.htm).
53
21. Arthur Benveniste, “Finding Our Lost Brothers and Sisters: The Crypto Jews
of Brazil,” Western States Jewish History 29, no. 3 (April 1997): 103–9. A cri-
tique of the U.S. version of this phenomenon can be found in Barbara Ferry
and Debbie Nathan, “Mistaken Identity: The Case of New Mexico’s ‘Hidden
Jews,’” Atlantic Monthly (December 2000): 85–96.
22. Leo Spitzer, Lives in Between: The Experience of Marginality in a Century of
Emancipation (New York: Hill and Wang, 1999), 108.
23. Richard H. Popkin, “The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Indian Theory,” in
Hebrew and the Bible in America: The First Two Centuries, ed. Shalom Goldman
(Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 1993), 70–90;
Jacques Lafaye, Quetzalcóatl and Guadalupe: The Formation of Mexican
National Consciousness, 1531–1815, trans. Benjamin Keen (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1976).
24. Lesser, Negotiating National Identity, 55–59.
54
Jeffrey Lesser
chapter four
What’s in a Stereotype? The Case of Jewish

Anarchists in Argentina
!
josé c. moya
D uring the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Jews were
often imaged through the paradoxical stereotypes of greedy capitalists and
anticapitalist radicals. The contradiction lay mainly at the conceptual level.
Functionally, both images served, literally, to decenter, that is, to exclude
Jews from the mainstream and locate them on the margins.1 Thus the capi-
talist stereotype rarely included notions or figures that connoted normality
or respectability (production, ownership, investment, the middle class, the
“business community,” industrialists, entrepreneurs). Instead, Jews were
usually assigned the extreme roles of petty peddlers or big-time financiers,
which, again despite the apparent gap, share implications of unproductiv-
ity, profiteering, chicanery, and alterity. Similarly, the anticapitalist image
rarely included forms—like populism, nativism, economic nationalism,
and anticolonial struggles—perceived as homegrown and autochthonous.
It stressed instead otherness and subversion, and few movements fitted the
bill as suitably as anarchism.2
Stereotypes, of course, are more than mere instruments of exclusion.
They can also function as cognitive mechanisms that handle bewildering
diversity by organizing knowledge into formulas that, although simplified,
55
reflect real traits.3 Yet finding out the degree to which the Jewish anarchist
stereotype represented this type of generalization is not an easy task. There
is little information about Jewish participation in anarchist activities in
regions (such as North Africa and the Middle East) where they were numer-
ous and the movement small or, conversely, in places (such as Spain, Italy,
and Switzerland) where the movement was widespread and the Jewish pop-
ulation small. Given the fact that most of the evidence on the topic comes
from impressionistic observations by contemporaries rather than from
quantitative comparisons of the participation of different ethnic groups, it
would be precisely in these two situations that any exceptional Jewish pre-
disposition toward anarchism would be apparent. That is, a few remarks by
contemporary observers about Jewish involvement in the anarchist move-
ment would be much more significant if made about, say, Cairo or Rome
rather than Warsaw or New York.
We have more information for places where both the Jewish popula-
tions and the anarchist movements were important. As stated above, these
studies rarely include data that actually show Jewish under- or overrepre-
sentation. But using qualitative sources they have shown what seems to be
a remarkably high level of participation among the Ashkenazim. Various
historians have asserted that in Russia the anarchist movement was born
and attained its highest intensity in the Jewish towns of the western and
southwestern borderlands.4
From the towns and shtetls of the Pale, emigrants took this militancy
to the ghettos of European and American cities. In London’s East End they
founded in 1885 the Arbeter fraynd, apparently the first Yiddish anarchist
newspaper, which by 1905 reached a circulation of five thousand, and a
federation of Jewish anarchist associations in 1902. Scholars have offered
diverging assessments of the relative importance of these institutions.5 But
they were active and visible enough to convince the well-known German
Gentile anarchist Rudolf Rocker to learn Yiddish and become the editor
of the Arbeter fraynd and the community’s principal leader.6 A similar,
although apparently smaller, community existed in Paris.7 Rocker himself
first learned about the existence of Jewish anarchists while living there.8
The community of Jewish anarchists in New York’s Lower East Side devel-
oped a few years later than London’s but eventually surpassed it in impor-
tance. Another German goy, the fiery Johann Most, became an early apostle
for immigrant anarchists.9 But Russian Jews soon developed a leadership
that came to transcend the immigrant milieu.10 By the early decades of the
twentieth century, Jews, along with Italians, had replaced Germans and
56
José C. Moya
Bohemians as the mainstay of the anarchist movement in the urban cen-
ters of the East Coast and the Midwest.11
Buenos Aires offers an appropriate case to study this international phe-
nomenon. By the outbreak of World War I, the city had become the second-
largest metropolis in the Atlantic world, after New York, and probably the
second-most important center of anarchist activism, after Barcelona,12 and
it boasted a large and expanding Jewish population (16,500 in 1909 and
120,177 by 1936).13
Temporally, the most salient feature of Jewish radicalism in Argentina
is its belated appearance one or two decades later than in London or New
York. Although one can find isolated pioneers, like the German socialist
Augusto Kuhn, one of the organizers of the first May Day celebration in
1890, and his better-known comrade Enrique Dickman, Jews were notice-
ably absent from the local radical scene until the middle years of the first
decade of the twentieth century. A 1902 police registry of 661 anarchists
included 389 Italians, 149 Spaniards, and 21 Frenchmen, but only 1 Russian,
and he does not appear to be Jewish.14 None appears either before 1904 in
a database of some ten thousand anarchists and labor militants that I have
constructed from various sources. The Israeli historian Iaacov Oved does
not mention any in his thorough book that goes up to the same year, and
neither do other studies.15
The principal reason for such a belated appearance is the timing of
Jewish arrival in Argentina. Jewish transatlantic migration in general, with
the exception of sporadic crossings of Sephardim during the colonial period
and of German streams from the middle of the nineteenth century, forms
part of the “new” migrations out of eastern and southern Europe that began
around 1880, some decades after the “old” waves from the western and north-
ern regions of the continent. But unlike Italian migration, which acquired
massive dimensions in Argentina before it did in the United States, the
Jewish movement to South America takes off even later than to the north.
By 1890 only 5,160 immigrants had arrived in Argentina from the Russian
empire, the principal source of the Jewish exodus at the time, compared to
a quarter of a million to the United States. In the next decade 17,466 headed
for Argentina and half a million for the United States. The yearly flow to
Argentina first surpassed 10,000 in 1905, and the bulk of the immigrants
from Russia (141,000) arrived between the beginning of the century and the
outbreak of World War I.16 Moreover, much of the early Jewish settlement
in Argentina took place in organized agricultural colonies so that as late as
1887 there were only 289 Jews in Buenos Aires.17
57
What’s in a Stereotype?
This relatively late arrival did not stop Jews from a precocious, and dom-
inant, participation in a different sort of “antisocial” activity. Of 164 pimps
in a police file of 1893–1894, no less than 121 (74 percent) and as many as 150
(92 percent) were Jewish.18 The relationship of this group, and others like
them, to common immigration is not clear. Unlike most immigrants, who
tended to come from specific localities through chain migration mecha-
nisms, they formed a motley crew originating in nineteen different coun-
tries.19 The linkages that made possible such an extensive international
network differed from those of common immigrants in that they clearly
could not have been based primarily on hometown and kinship relations.
But some local clusters existed. Sixteen were born in Constantinople, fifteen
in Warsaw, ten in Odessa, nine in Vienna, eight in London. Intriguingly, all
those born in Turkey had Ashkenazic, rather than Sephardic, surnames,
which suggests family ties with Eastern Europe (since the Jewish commu-
nity in Turkey was Sephardic). Nine pairs shared surnames. More than half
were married, and half of these had been in Argentina for more than five
years, suggesting the existence of family connections. About a dozen had
arrived in the 1870s, making them veritable pioneers of Jewish immigration
in Argentina. It is indeed likely that many of them played that role, provid-
ing through letters, remittances, and visits to their hometowns and families
the information and assistance that made later immigration, and thus the
growth of Argentine-Jewish anarchism, possible.
Was this the only possible connection between Jewish prostitution
rings and anarchism? Unlike orthodox Marxism, which viewed the prole-
tariat as the only revolutionary class, anarchism embraced all sorts of mar-
ginal groups. The mere titles of newspapers illustrate such a difference.
Instead of the usual “Worker” or “Proletariat” used by socialist newspa-
pers, anarchists everywhere used a broad array of titles that connoted inclu-
siveness: Universal (Moscow), Mother Earth (New York), El oprimido (“The
Oppressed”—Buenos Aires, New York, and Algeciras, Spain), Il grido del
popolo (“The Cry of the People”—Turin), El esclavo (“The Slave”—Tampa,
Florida), Espartaco (Barcelona and Rio de Janeiro), Los parias (Lima), A plebe
(Sao Paulo). The embrace was ample enough to include the lumpen prole-
tariat, petty delinquents, and ruffians (a term that, coincidentally, retained in
Argentina its original French/Italian meaning of pimp). Anarchist rhetoric
elevated, instead of disdaining or dismissing, as socialists normally did, the
“dregs of society.” An editorial published in Spanish, Italian, and French by
one of the earliest anarchist papers in Buenos Aires on its first issue in 1890
and titled “Who Are We and What Will We Do” phrased it this way: “We are
58
José C. Moya
the vagrants, the malefactors, the rabble, the scum of society, the sublimate
corrosive of the present social order.”20 This may have reflected the anarchist
penchant for shocking rhetoric. But the police consistently maintained that
anarchist demonstrations, unlike their socialist counterparts, attracted all
sorts of “antisocial elements” that were not part of the movement or were
only marginally related to it. Common delinquents often couched their activ-
ities in the language of anarchism and hung around anarchist centers. Police
raids of anarchists at times rounded up petty criminals and pimps as well.
During normal times, they identified the putative offense of those appre-
hended. But in 1909–1910 the raids became so massive that they stopped
doing this, making it difficult at times to differentiate between anarchists
and pimps among the hundreds of individuals being arrested in the Jewish
quarter. Some pimps were deported along with more than three hundred
anarchists who were expelled from Argentina during the first decade of the
twentieth century.
Why would the authorities pick only these few specific pimps for
deportation? Could it be that they had some relationship with anarchism?
Some documents suggest this was so. A week after the passage of the Resi
dency Law, which allowed the deportation of dangerous foreigners, on
November 23, 1902, the police contacted a “person from the Jewish com-
munity” who confidentially gave information about three characters who
had applied for Argentine citizenship. According to him or her, the first
individual ran a prostitution house, the second “imported women for pros-
titution,” and the third had given up pimping and now imported lamps
instead of women. The reformed pimp, however, appeared three years later
in a police list of anarchists.21 These schemes to avoid deportation by pro-
curing naturalization papers were, according to the British ambassador,
quite common among “undesirables, especially pimps and anarchists.”22 A
1905 internal report by the Argentine police connected anarchism and pros-
titution at a different level. It warned that almost every day new anarchist
groups appeared “with thundering names befitting their violent mission.”
They were made up by a “foreign, demagogic, and seditious element that
fuel the conflagration they have already provoked by making the apotheosis
of crime and prostitution as integral parts of human emancipation.”23
A British diplomatic dispatch of 1909 suggested an even closer connec-
tion between pimps and anarchists. It stated,
His Majesty’s Consul received one [a letter] some days ago purporting
to have been issued by an Anarchistical [sic] Society, warning him that
59
he has been condemned to be blown up by means of a bomb within
the year, because he has not rendered sufficiently energetic assistance
to Russians, bearers of British passports. The letter says that he is to
be blown up “by means of one of the bombs now in circulation, one
of which is intended for the President of the Republic.” It is possible
that the letter is a hoax, but it has been placed in the hands of the
police, and the foundation of the charge may exist in the fact that two
Russians, bearers of British passports, and believed to be connected
with the White Slave traffic have been arrested recently.24
The “Russians” turned out to be English-born Jews, and two weeks later
another report informed the Home Office that seven of them, expelled as
pimps, were aboard the SSR De Grimonllie on their way to London.25 The
matter reached the highest levels of government, involving Secretary of
State Sir Edward Grey and Winston Churchill.26 The British authorities
worried that the Argentine government would “make a practice of send-
ing to this country anyone whom they wish to expel and who says he was
born here.” They observed that the names of those expelled were “foreign”
and wanted to know how the Argentine authorities ascertained their birth-
place.27 The Argentine foreign minister, Victorino de la Plaza, responded
that his government tried to verify the nationality of deportees with docu-
ments that certified their birthplace and that when these were not avail-
able, it relied on their own declarations, double-checking them, whenever
possible, through other investigations.28 Such concern at the highest level
of government suggests that, regardless of whether the anarchist letter
was a hoax, it was taken seriously. Foreign ministers and heads of state do
not usually become involved in cases concerning a few common pimps.
About the same time, the French embassy in Argentina also informed its
government of the expulsion of a French-Jewish anarchist as a pimp and
a thief, and the French minister of the interior called for collaboration
between the police forces of the two countries to repress anarchism and
white slavery.29
One may wonder whether the Argentine police were simply trying to
tarnish the anarchist movement by associating it with prostitution. But the
fact that they did so in internal memos never made public indicates that
this was not the case. Indeed, they had no incentive to do so. The expulsion
law of 1902 specifically targeted anarchists. And, after two assassination
attempts on Argentine presidents, a successful one on the chief of police,
and a string of bombs that killed several police officers, “anarchist” was
60
José C. Moya
definitely a more insulting tag in their eyes—and in those of the upper and
middle classes—than “pimp.”
The connection between Jewish prostitution rings and anarchism, how-
ever, was neither consequential nor mutual. That is, some pimps may have
gravitated toward a movement that was a constant presence in the working-
class neighborhoods of the city, including the Jewish quarter of “Once,”
and an ideology that denounced bourgeois morality and self-righteousness.
Indeed, anarchism’s contempt for social conventions and decorum must
have had a natural appeal for a group that has traditionally represented,
more so than prostitutes, quintessential ignominy in conventional propriety.
But the reverse was not true. Although anarchists, and other revolutionaries,
have at times engaged in criminal activities or established ties with criminal
groups to raise funds for the cause, there is no such evidence in this case.
Even xenophobic writers, such as Francisco Stach, who denounced Jewish
immigration (“the so-called Rusos”) as “the most undesirable element, full
of anarchists, pimps, and prostitutes all capable of criminal acts,” did not
maintain that formal ties existed between the first and the last two groups.30
Some anarchists, particularly of the individualist or Nietzschean type, did
dismiss condemnations of prostitution as straitlaced and pharisaical, as
one more example of liberal society’s inability to accept individual freedom
and difference when it truly conflicted with accepted mores. But the major-
ity shared the common view—expressed by the entire ideological spectrum
from conservative Catholics to socialists—of prostitutes as victims and
pimps as exploiters. Anarchist apologies for delinquency embraced crimes
directed at the power-elite and property (for example, assassinations of polit-
ical leaders or theft, defended as expropriation) but not those that victimized
the dispossessed. Pimping was usually placed in the latter category.
The Dreyfus affair in France provided the background for the first, and
a very different, expression of common interest between anarchists and
the Jewish community in Buenos Aires. As in France, many anarchists in
Argentina originally viewed the affair as a dispute within the bourgeoisie and
hesitated to support an army officer. But as it became evident that Dreyfus’s
denouncers represented a fusion of just about every group abhorred by
internationalist radicals, their support for Dreyfus became unequivocal.
In an article of August 15, 1899, titled “Montjuich Dreyfus,” the newspaper
El rebelde blamed the same block of forces for the “infamies” committed
against anarchists in the infamous Barcelona prison and against Dreyfus:
national chauvinism, “military-bourgeois corruption,” and the “Jesuit reac-
tion.” It urged the people of Barcelona and Paris to demand justice with
61
“chemistry.” The allusion to bombs was clear to readers, but the fact that
the front-page article appeared next to an eulogy to Sato Caserio (the assas-
sin of French president Sadi Carnot) made it more poignant. In subsequent
denunciations, the newspaper began to group the anti-Dreyfus “dark forces”
under the generic rubric of “antisemitas.”31 Another anarchist newspaper in
Buenos Aires, L’Avvenire, maintained that as a people driven by a sense of
justice rather than politics, anarchists had supported Dreyfus long before
political opportunists jumped on the Dreyfus bandwagon.32 A subsequent
article titled “L’Antisemitismo” argued that this movement, despite its name,
could not spring from racial animosity, since Jews had mixed with other
Europeans for so long that there was little “Semitic” or racially distinct about
them.33 Instead, the article located the source of anti-Semitism in religious
obscurantism and its modern reincarnation: patriotism. Capitalists manipu-
lated these superstitions to use a historically persecuted people as scapegoats
for popular resentment and to weaken workers’ solidarity. Anarchists thus
had the duty to illuminate the people and prevent such stratagems. Three
years later, when news of Emile Zola’s death, on October 16, 1902, reached
Buenos Aires, labor unions organized a meeting in his memory. Four to
five thousand people marched through the city’s streets. The French ambas-
sador noted the irony that while anarchist speakers, who “claimed Zola as
one of their own,” stressed the antireligiosity of his oeuvre, a funeral service
was held at a synagogue in recognition of his successful intervention in the
defense of Dreyfus.34
Jewish anarchist activism in the city became more visible in 1905. In
Russia, the outbreak of revolution in January of that year produced an up
surge of both anarchist militancy and official repression. More so than the
pogroms of 1903, which were generically anti-Semitic and attracted limited
attention from the international left, those of 1905 targeted radicals specifi-
cally and shocked revolutionaries everywhere.35 Anarchists in particular felt
that the Bloody Sunday massacre in Saint Petersburg would be avenged
by the dispossessed and lead to their long awaited, and apocalyptic, social
revolution. Police spies in Buenos Aires reported a rush of activity in anar-
chist circles.36 On January 26, the group Caballeros del Ideal organized a
meeting that “packed the house.” Orators, according to the informer, outdid
each other in threatening that “the dagger and sweet dynamite” would soon
avenge their fallen Russian comrades. In the midst of the “pandemonium
characteristic of these anarchist gatherings,” they called for a street demon-
stration two days later for workers to engage in “revolutionary gymnastics.”
There, the Uruguayan anarchist Virginia Bolten denounced czarist atrocities
62
José C. Moya
and compared the Argentine government to the Russian autocracy—a rhe-
torical device that became a leitmotiv of anarchist discourse. That same
day, five thousand people marched in Bolten’s hometown, Montevideo, to
denounce the Russian massacre.37 On February 2, four hundred leaders
(cabecillas) met in Buenos Aires. One of them called for another street dem-
onstration, urging his comrades to go armed, so that they could take target
practice on the police—an idea dismissed by the next speaker who ques-
tioned the “need for handguns today, when chemistry is readily available to
the entire proletariat.”38
Two days later an attempted military revolt, the only one to occur between
1890 and 1930, put a temporary hold on the planned demonstration and
on all leftist militancy. The Radical Party, which orchestrated the uprising,
was—despite its name, which indicated going back to “roots” rather than
extremism—a mainstream organization that would win the presidency
eleven years later. But rumors had it that the Radicals planned to arm social-
ists and anarchists during the revolt. Three days after the outbreak of the
revolt, the Argentine president himself told the British ambassador that
bombs had been found in anarchist centers and that the anarchists had
planned to seize the arsenal, break open the prisons, and capture him and
his ministers, describing the situation as “très grave.”39 The leftist press—
and most historians—later denied such a connection. But regardless of
whether it existed, it would not have been out of character for a group thirst-
ing for “direct action” to take advantage of the situation. Bands of armed
anarchists roamed the streets, hoping to turn a bourgeois revolt into a rev-
olutionary upheaval. Authorities clamped down, arresting hundreds and
deporting twenty-five.40 Although the revolt was put down in less than a
week, the state of siege lasted more than three months, preventing street
demonstrations, including those on May Day itself.
Under cover of the apparent calm, anarchists continued their activ-
ism within the city (indoor meetings were actually not prohibited during
the state of siege), from exile in Montevideo, and—as the authorities later
discovered—even from within prison. On May 14 alone they held twenty-
four meetings at labor union halls and called for a street demonstration
on May 21 to protest the abuses committed by the government during the
state of siege, a proposal that the socialists joined. The authorities granted
the permit under condition that no flags other than the “national emblem
that unites us all” might be waved. Not a group likely to be moved by such
patriotic appeals, many among the thirty thousand marchers raised their
red and black banners. When the police tried to prevent this, the marchers
63
responded with shouts of “down with the Cossacks,” again revealing the
impact of the 1905 Russian Revolution, and with something more lethal
than words.
Who began the shooting was, as usual, disputed.41 But the result pro-
vides some evidence of Jews’ participation in the movement during a period
when their recent arrival and inability to write in Spanish led to their pres-
ence going unrecorded in common historical sources such as newspapers.
Three of the fourteen persons wounded (other than four police officers), and
one of the two killed, were Jewish.42 Because it is highly unlikely that in the
midst of the turmoil, the police would, or could, have aimed their guns at
Jews, a group that was not physically distinguishable from other protesters,
the numbers must be random. This does not mean that because a fourth
of the casualties were Jewish this proportion applies to all the demonstra-
tors. The shooting took place in Plaza Lavalle, a neighborhood where many
of the early Jewish arrivals had settled.43 Two of the wounded were merely
nine years old, and all claimed they were there by coincidence. On the other
hand, neither the definition nor the meaning of childhood was the same
a century ago as it is today. Nine-year-old “children” often worked, spent a
larger proportion of their time on the streets, and participated in “adult”
activities. Contemporary photographs often show young boys and girls in
street demonstrations. And all the wounded, Jewish or not, claimed that they
were at the site by coincidence. To tell the authorities otherwise would have
been odd, thereby incriminating themselves in the shooting of police. Thus
the ethnicity of the casualties may indeed indicate a relatively high Jewish
presence in local anarchism already by 1905. A newspaper in Montevideo,
edited by an anarchist expelled from Argentina, alluded to this connection
with the following line: “Exiles, tortured, hanged, victims of San Petersburg
and Warsaw: add to the black list the name of Buenos Aires!”44
Police reports provide further evidence of the Jewish presence in the
movement in 1905.45 Among those arrested at the May 21 demonstration was
Julio Herschenbaum, a twenty-three-year-old Russian-born furniture maker
who had arrived in 1903 and—failing to “withdraw from subversive activi-
ties,” as he had promised authorities in 1904—became the first Jewish anar-
chist deported from Argentina. Another of the protesters, David Bernstein,
a twenty-four-year-old day laborer who had arrived right after the Russian
Bloody Sunday of January 1905 via Hamburg, this time evaded authorities,
but five years later he was expelled. On September 29, José Weisman, a thirty-
three-year-old stevedore and journalist from Trieste, appeared as an orator
with other anarchists at a conference in the Centro Escuela Moderna, a school
64
José C. Moya
organized on the principles of the famous Catalan anarchist-pedagogue
Francisco Ferrer, and later that same day, at a reunion of the store clerks’
union. On October 6, Bernardo Sernaguer, a twenty-one-year-old Russian-
born immigrant described by the police as a particularly exalted and eloquent
anarchist, addressed a group of rent strikers. Twenty days later, anarchists
turned a funeral march for a comrade shot during the rent strike into an
occasion to “vituperate the Russian government for the massacre of Jews.”
In December, detectives reported on meetings of the Sociedad Rusa de
Desarrollo Intellectual y de Socorros Mutuos, described as nonsubversive,
which must be the Yiddisher Arbeter-Farband, a mutual aid society founded
in 1896, and of the Agrupación Rusa Amigo de los Obreros, described as
anarchist. The latter must be the Arbeter Fend, a group founded in 1905
by immigrants who had been in London and influenced there by Peter
Kropotkin and Rudolf Rocker.46
The cover for the December 2, 1905, issue of Caras y caretas, the maga-
zine with the largest circulation in Buenos Aires, offers a different sort of
evidence about the impact of the Russian Revolution of that year and the
increased arrival of Jewish anarchists. Under the caption “Los Inmigrantes,”
the illustration shows a line of long-haired and bearded immigrants dis-
embarking from a ship. On the dock, a police officer watches with sur-
prise while a figure with a top hat representing Argentina or its president
exclaims, “Onward, Russian gentlemen. Come in, you will find yourselves
right at home.” The first Russian on the line holds a suitcase stamped
“Odesa–Buenos Aires” with one hand and a bomb in the other.
The arrest on March 2, 1906, of twenty-two Jewish anarchists for car-
rying weapons provides a rare, though incomplete, demographic portrait
of activists during this period.47 All were listed as being born in Russia
(although one appears in a different document with “Israel” as his birth-
place). Their ages reflected the youthful character of the movement. The
youngest was sixteen, the oldest thirty-four, and the median age twenty-
three. Their place of residence, however, diverged from the norm. While
most anarchists resided in the southern districts of the city, particularly in
the heavily Italian and Spanish neighborhoods of La Boca and Barracas, all
but two of the Jewish anarchists arrested lived in the older Jewish neigh-
borhood of Plaza Lavalle or in the Jewish quarter then forming to the
north of Plaza Once. This suggests their recent arrival in the country and
reflects the fact that Jews, with a segregation index of 47.5, were at the time
the most segregated group in the city after the Sirio-Lebanese (Is 49.0).
Although these indices were high, we must note that they were lower
65
than those of the Jewish population in North American cities, London, and
Paris, and that they declined faster.48
In 1906 a Zionist-Socialist organization, the Poale Sion, was founded in
Buenos Aires. Its two leaders, Zalman Sorkin and Leon Jazanovich, were
denounced as anarchists and expelled in 1910. But neither had been active
in the anarchist movement, and Jazanovich, who had been a member of
the Socialist Party in Russia, felt that the denunciation had come from the
Jewish Colonization Association, which he had battled in his efforts to radi-
calize Jewish agricultural settlers.49 The relationship of Jewish anarchists
with this association is difficult to determine. The Italian historian Furio
Biagini claims that some of the anarchists “developed a sincere sympathy
for the socialist Zionism of the Poale Sion.”50 Anarchists considered them-
selves the true socialists, often describing themselves as revolutionary or
libertarian-socialists as opposed to the “legalitarian” or “authoritarian” social-
ists of the party. They constantly denounced the Socialist Party’s reformism
and participation in parliamentary politics and competed with socialists for
the allegiance of the working class. But they also cooperated with them, and
with other progressive groups, in the struggle against common enemies.
On April 15, 1906, for example, the Liberal Party organized an anticlerical
demonstration attended by about three thousand persons. The police noted
the presence of socialists and particularly of anarchist agitators who sang
revolutionary songs and shouted “viva la anarquía . . . down with the police
. . . let’s burn the convents” (which they attempted to do).51 Interestingly, the
protest took place in the Jewish neighborhood of Once, and it included the
participation of the Jewish anarchist group Ruso Compañero de los Obreros
(Arbeter Friend) led by Boris London or Gelman, one of those arrested in
the raid of the previous month.
Another of the individuals arrested for arms possession in the March
1906 raid, Abraham Hartenstein, a nineteen-year-old boilermaker, used his
craft to move on quickly to bigger “things.” On September 17 of the follow-
ing year, the Spanish embassy in Buenos Aires telegraphed Madrid that this
“dangerous anarchist” had departed for Barcelona to join his comrades in
their bombing campaign.52 We do not know if he accomplished his putative
goal in Barcelona—the Spanish authorities were not able to find him. But he
soon returned to Buenos Aires. On January 18, 1908, Caras y caretas printed
his photograph and an article describing him as the founder of the group
Banda Negra and as the introducer of anarchist terrorism to Argentina.
The police had arrested him, together with five other Spanish, Italian, and
Argentine anarchists (which, as much as his trip to Barcelona, shows how
66
José C. Moya
cosmopolitan the movement was), at the headquarters of the boilermakers’
union. The magazine included pictures of the chemical laboratory and the
cache of weapons and bombs that the police had found. The Black Gang had
planned to use their “chemistry” to blow up the public water building and
the main electrical power plant in the city.
Spanish authorities were searching again for another Jewish anarchist
from Argentina later on in 1908. On March 16, they received a telegram
from Buenos Aires reporting a conversation overheard in a café about a
“ruso-polaco” by the name of Hago or Jacobo Hantover traveling with an
Argentine passport to Vigo and Madrid to assassinate King Alfonso XIII.
Two days later, they boarded the steamer as it stopped in Lisbon, but they
could not find him among the six hundred or so returning immigrants.
The captain, however, did remember a tall man with a short, dark mustache
registered under the name of Aye Antever, whom he thought was Spanish
because he spoke that language well and who retrieved the money he had
kept in the safe-deposit box that day. He later telegraphed Spanish police:
“man not on board.” How Hantover reached Vigo thus is unknown. But
police arrested him there two days later. He turned out to be a twenty-four-
year-old electrician born in Warsaw, who claimed he was going to Madrid to
visit a Candida Mendez de Samper, whom he had met in Buenos Aires. The
Spanish detectives did not find any anarchist documents on him and soon
received a telegram from Buenos Aires saying that Hantover did not have a
previous record and that the denunciation may have been born of a personal
vendetta.53 Apparently, the Spanish diplomats’ research was less than thor-
ough. Argentine court records do include an entry for Hantover, although
the actual documents have been destroyed.54 Whatever the case, this and
various other examples like it show that some of the Jewish anarchists in
Argentina during this early period were transnational radicals whose range
of action transcended the boundaries of the River Plate.
The printed page provided a vehicle for both transnational and local
connections. In 1907, the Arbeter Friend group founded Das arbeter lebn,
the first Yiddish-language anarchist periodical in Argentina. This monthly,
directed by A. Shapiro, lasted only a few months. In 1908 Pedro Springberg
and E. Edelstein published another anarchist periodical, the Lebn und
freiheit. This one also had a short life, and on June of the same year the
police reported about a meeting of the Grupo Ruso la Protesta.55 The meet-
ing included the presentation of two plays, El cristo moderno and Resurreción
de los héroes. The report does not indicate whether these were performed
in Yiddish, but the purpose of the meeting was to plan the publication of a
67
section in that language in the anarchist daily La protesta, which began to
appear the next year. Around the same time (the first citation I encountered
dates from 1908) a Jewish library, the Biblioteca Rusa, was founded, which,
although usually identified as anarchist, seems to have congregated—
extrapolating from the speakers at its functions—leftists of different stripes
(socialists, syndicalists, Bundists, and anarchists).56
By 1907 there were also trade unions, or “resistance societies,” as anar-
chists called them, that were either officially or de facto Jewish. On Febru-
ary 23, a police spy reported on a meeting of about one hundred striking hat
makers at a union hall, stating that he could not inform on the substance
of the speeches because they were delivered in Russian.57 References to the
Russian language also appeared in La prensa, Buenos Aires’ principal daily,
which noted during the anarchist May Day demonstrations of 1908 and 1910
that “Jewish agitators [agitadores israelitas] gave speeches for their conationals
in Russian.” Some Jewish radicals did prefer to use that language as an indi-
cation of their internationalist, or at least nonparticularist, class conscious-
ness.58 But since immigrants also came from regions within and outside the
czarist empire where Russian was not widely spoken, the language heard by
the police informer and the reporters of La prensa must have been Yiddish.
Jewish anarchism became particularly visible during the May Day dem-
onstration of 1909 and the disturbances and repression that followed it. From
April 24, the police had reported a high level of activity among “subversives.”
Dozens of meetings were taking place daily in union halls and anarchist cen-
ters. On the twenty-sixth, a street march against the rising price of bread
attracted fifteen hundred participants. Anarchists were reportedly stocking
up on bullets, and at 1:00 a.m. on May 1, they were still meeting, planning
how to bring public transportation to a halt by bombing the tramways. Still,
police arrested less than a dozen militants before May Day, which seems lax
compared to preventive measures taken in European cities.59 On May Day,
eight thousand people marched in a parade sponsored by the Socialist Party
that began at 3:00 p.m. and ended two hours later in “absolute order.” The
anarchist march drew as many as thirty thousand people and ended, soon
after it had begun, in a shootout that left five dead and forty wounded.60 As
usual, the police blamed the anarchists. But this time, according to press
reports, they were more specific, maintaining that the first shots had come
from a group of Russian anarchists.61 They also found banners abandoned
by three groups of demonstrators: the union of waiters, that of masons, and
“an association of Russian anarchists called Burevestnik” that met at Calle
Lavalle 2196, in the heart of the Jewish quarter.62 The banners of the latter had
68
José C. Moya
inscribed in “Hebrew” (ebreo) “Death to Capital and Long Live the Anarcho-
Communists.”63 Referring to these “anarchist trophies left on the asphalt,”
the Buenos Aires Herald (May 4, 1909) proposed that “the only way to deal with
these gentry is to proclaim a state of siege and rush them off to Russia, where
there are policemen carefully trained to deal with wolves and wild beasts.”
Most of the rest of the local press, according to foreign diplomats, blamed
the police for the events—although the American and British ambassadors
observed that this was the opposition press and defended the conduct of the
police.64 Anarchists claimed, with little diplomacy but considerable logic,
that had they started the shooting, police casualties would have been higher
(four police officers and five police horses, including one shot with five bul-
lets, had been wounded).65 Whoever started the gunplay, the civilian casu-
alties—whom the French minister observed were mostly shot in the back
as they were fleeing—were principally, if not entirely, protesters, not casual
bystanders. All of them resided more than five blocks away from the scene
of the shooting, and three-quarters more than ten blocks. The chances that
any of them were there on work-related business, on a day that had become
a de facto holiday, were low. Three-quarters of them were in their teens and
twenties, which also fits the demographic profile of the anarchist move-
ment. Of the five demonstrators killed, one was Jewish, as were six of the
thirty-six wounded, which again suggests that the participation of Jews in
the anarchist movement was disproportionately high, as had also been the
case during the events of 1905.
The May Day mayhem was followed by a week of protests, riots, and
repression that came to be known in Argentine history as the Semana Roja.66
The anarchist and socialist labor federations called a general strike that para-
lyzed the city and much of the country. On May 4, sixty to eighty thousand
people marched during the funerals for those killed on May 1. On May 10,
the American chargé d’affaires informed the State Department that “for the
last nine days the city of Buenos Aires has been under the dominion of mob
Law.”67 La prensa (May 3–8, 1909) called attention to the omnipresence of
“anarquistas rusos” during the protests and riots and to the zeal of their mil-
itancy. Close to a thousand people were arrested. Humidity has rendered
illegible much of the relevant documentation, and so the ethnicity of those
arrested is difficult to determine. But the police archives contain an intrigu-
ing report dated May 8, 1909. It states,
Through confidential sources I have learned that the carter Caurro

told the anarchist Ramón Martínez that he had met with Mr. Benito
69
Villanueva [the interim president of the Argentine Senate], who
manifested his desire to solve the present labor conflict and to
that effect promised to procure the reopening of all workers’ halls
recently closed, the repeal of the Municipal Code of penalties [on cart
drivers], and the release of all those detained, with the exception of
the Russians.68
That the president of the Argentine Senate would hold a secret meeting
with a humble carter may seem implausible. But transportation workers,
incensed by the municipal ordinance mentioned in the report, had been
the backbone of the strike, and the fact that Benito Villanueva was trying
to negotiate a solution to the conflict became public knowledge soon after
this. Less apparent is whether Villanueva actually mentioned excluding
“Russians” from the proposed release of detainees, and if so, why. Possibly,
the carter or the confidential informant made up the alleged statement
about Russians. But what incentive could they have had to invent such a
specific detail? If the incident indeed took place, does this indicate that the
government, or sectors within it, considered Jewish anarchists more dan-
gerous than their Gentile “coreligionists”?69 Up to this point there was little
ground for such an interpretation, but then, prejudice is rarely grounded
on rational analysis. A more calculating motive could have been the desire
to promote splits within the working class. The police had admitted, in
internal documents, to using this tactic during previous commotions
when they selectively repressed anarchists rather than socialists, hoping to
exploit in this case ideological rather than ethnocultural differences.70
If this was the intent, it did not work. Subsequent police reports
describe the formation of a negotiating commission of anarchist and
socialist groups, which demanded and obtained the release of all those
detained after May 1. During this period a new anarchist Jewish group had
emerged: the Grupo Ruso Pro-Victimas del Primero de Mayo. On May 23,
about 150 of them, “of both sexes,” met to watch a Yiddish version of the
French anarchist writer Octave Mirbeau’s play The Bad Shepherds.71
A workers’ demand during the Semana Roja that had not been met
was the removal of the chief of police Ramón Falcón. One of the Yiddish
banners confiscated by police during the May Day protest recommended
the assassination of “Cossacks.” On November 14, 1909, a Yiddish-speaking
teenager who had taken part in the May Day protests fulfilled the unmet
demand of the Semana Roja. Before dying, the “Big Cossack” supposedly
exclaimed, “The anarchists finally got me.” Enrique Müller, the officer who
70
José C. Moya
subdued the bomber, declared that he tried to commit suicide rather than
surrender—a detail that added to the aura that soon encircled him.72 The
detainee refused to give his name, saying only that he had avenged the
workers fallen on May Day and that he still had plenty of bombs left to
throw at the police.
Subsequent interrogations of both the detainee and others revealed that
his name was Simon Radowisky, and he was eighteen years old and had
been born in a shtetl in the province of Kiev. In Russia, he had worked as
a smith and mechanic since the age of ten. During the 1905 revolution, at
the age of fourteen, he was shot, wounded, and arrested as an anarchist,
spending six months in jail. He migrated to Argentina in April 1908, and,
like most other arrivals, he at first stayed within the confines of the immi-
grant community. He had come to join a brother, worked in a Jewish-owned
metal shop, found a tenement room in the Jewish quarter, and frequented
the radical Biblioteca Rusa.73 But he began to move beyond those bound-
aries sooner than most arrivals. Within a year he left his job to work at an
Italian-owned shop where the salary was higher, found non-Jewish anar-
chist roommates and acquaintances, and learned sufficient Spanish so that
his interrogation, unlike that of other Russian immigrants, was conducted
without an interpreter.74 Apparently, he read Spanish-language newspapers
regularly, because he had learned of the whereabouts of the chief of police
on the day of the assassination while reading the local daily La Argentina.
Some months later, he wrote a letter in proper Spanish to the director of
the national prison, threatening to go on a hunger strike if he was not
transferred to a facility where he could work to relieve the boredom; the
letter contains a few orthographical errors, but these are ones commonly
found in similar documents written by working-class native speakers.75
Belonging to what could be described as a transethnic ideological commu-
nity seems to have facilitated the integration of arrivals like Radowisky into
his new host society, or at least into a wider milieu beyond the confines of
immigrant networks.
The interrogation of another witness suggests a gendered dimension
to the process. Sofia Lisichsky, a twenty-five-year-old seamstress, had also
been jailed in Russia as an anarchist and now resided in Once. She did not
deny her political views, which she attributed to her reading and interest in
female emancipation, stressing that women should struggle hand in hand
with men for these ideals that she also referred to as “agrarian socialism”
(a synonym of Tolstoyan anarchism), which envisioned a return to an egali-
tarian rural society and denounced political violence. Yet, despite her belief
71
in female emancipation, she described a rather cloistered existence. She
did not leave home often because there was a telephone in the tenement
building, and she used it to order groceries delivered to her apartment. She
did not go out with her husband, Pablo Karaschine, another Russian-Jewish
anarchist, because he would come home from work, eat, and leave for the
Biblioteca Rusa. Besides, he was very jealous and acted so nastily toward
male visitors that they stopped coming. Her interaction with the outside
world was limited to delivering dresses to her clients, most of whom lived
in brothels (another instance of contacts between anarchists and prosti-
tution). Unlike the interrogated males, who at least acknowledged know-
ing Radowisky, or of him, she claimed she had never seen him nor any of
his acquaintances. She noted that their surnames indicated that many of
them were ethnic Russians and that there was a big division between these
Russians and (Russian) Jews.
Yet it would be well to take declarations made during an interrogation
about the assassination of a police chief with more than a grain of salt.
Lisichsky was clearly trying to distance herself from anything having to do
with the case and from her husband, who had been caught a week before
trying to blow up a church where a funeral mass was being held for Carlos
de Borbón, a member of the Spanish royal family. This and some contradic-
tions in her testimony imply that she exaggerated the seclusion of her daily
life. She had maintained that she always ordered home delivery of groceries
and that her relationship with her husband was strained to the point that
she had asked him to leave the house. But the day she was arrested she had
been shopping for groceries to prepare food to take to her jailed husband
and actually tried to visit him three times that day. She had claimed that
male visitors had stopped coming to her house. But she also mentioned a
discussion there with a Jewish anarchist who, during the protest against
the execution of the Spanish anarchist-pedagogue Francisco Ferrer, barely
a month before, had argued that demonstrations were not enough and that
more violent means were required. Not surprisingly, she claimed to have
kicked this anarchist out of the house for expressing such violent views and
asked him never to come back. Nonetheless, however much she exagger-
ated her seclusion, her daily routine likely placed her more in the home and
her immediate community than did that of her male coreligionists. To wit,
although Lisichsky had been in Argentina a year longer than Radowisky,
she needed an interpreter during the interrogation.
The prosecutor’s presentation of the case illustrates contemporary offi-
cial attitudes toward Jews and radicalism. The prosecutor first asserted that
72
José C. Moya
the assassination of the chief of police and Alberto Lartigau, his twenty-
year-old personal secretary, represented the most savage example of what
a police spokesperson had defined as “neomysticism” and “today is known
as terrorism.” The act was the more heinous because it had taken place
in a democracy whose economic and political opportunities and liberal
laws annulled “even the pretext of the revolutionary explosions in which
the lower depths of European societies relieve their caste hatreds in con-
ditions that are completely foreign to our social organization.”76 He then
asserted that
Simon Radowisky belongs to that caste of helots that germinate in the

Russian steppes, dragging their miserable lives between the harsh-
ness of nature and an inferior [social] condition. Pariahs of the politi-
cal absolutisms of that milieu, subjected to the discretionary powers
of the master, persecuted and massacred by the ignorance and fanati-
cism of a people that see in the Jew an enemy of society, they finally
emigrate, like Radowisky, after having suffered sentences for the
mere fact of professing subversive ideas. And when their entry into
a free society, like ours, generously returns to them their rights of
men, opening to them wide horizons of regeneration and prosperity,
when they should consider these societies as a true promised land,
the instinct of perversity in them bursts out, poorly disguised under
the pretext of vindications that no longer have any justification, per-
petrating assassination, devastation, and disorder.
Rather than anti-Semitism or overt class prejudice, this language corre-

sponded to a standard liberal discourse in countries of immigration about
Old World miseries and repressions, New World liberties and opportu-
nities, and ungrateful radical immigrants—a discourse that could have
been as easily heard in a New York or Chicago courtroom. The prosecu-
tor added that “excessive development of the lower mandible, preeminence
of the zygomatic and supracilial arches, depression of the forehead, light
facial asymmetry” constituted the somatic characteristics that revealed in
Radowisky “the criminal type.” Again, to read these phrenological “obser-
vations” as an effort to racialize Jews would be specious; they were quite
common, one could even say de rigueur, in contemporary criminology and
applied regardless of ethnic background. Yet, perhaps one can detect in the
text the incipient construction of the Jewish radical stereotype as a mecha-
nism of exclusion like that discussed at the beginning of this chapter.
73
Indeed, the Radowisky affair, added to the bombing attempt the previous
week by Pablo Karaschine and the events of the Semana Roja, seems to have
cemented, in a surprisingly short period, the association of Jews with anar-
chism in the Argentine political imagination. Even before the identity of
the assassin of the police chief was established, diplomats from the United
Kingdom, the United States, France, Spain, and Brazil had informed their
home governments, based on local police reports, that he was, or appeared
to be, Russian.77 The decree for the state of siege sent by the president to
Congress on the day of the assassination used language similar to that of the
prosecutor about ungrateful immigrants, but it also referred to Radowisky’s
and Karaschine’s deeds as part of a “sinister plan.” The police investiga-
tions centered on a conspiracy by a group of Russian anarchists referred to
as La Comuna. Some of the putative members of this cabal were actually
white Russians. But the term “ruso” had become so identified with Jews
that these ethnic differences went unnoticed. The state of siege prevented
the local press from printing anything about the police repression following
the assassination, but letters from anarchists to their friends in Montevideo
refer to massive detentions that included “the majority of the Russian com-
rades.”78 I have not yet transferred the surviving arrest records from the
period into a database. Yet a cursory look at the material suffices to show
that the arrests were indeed massive and that Jews were highly overrepre-
sented. Data on expulsions provide a measure of the trend. Jews accounted
for none of the 68 anarchists deported from Argentina before 1905; for
6 of the 159 expelled between 1905 and 1908; and for 38 of the 172 expelled
during 1909–1910, representing 22.0 percent of those expelled at a time
when Jews made up only 2.3 percent of the foreign-born population of the
city. This was by far the highest relative rate of deportation for any ethnic or
national group during those years. Apparently, more were banished from
the country without being officially deported. On March 8, 1910, “a Russian
who declined to give his name” told the American consul in Buenos Aires
that Argentine authorities had paid the captains of two ships, one sailing
from Buenos Aires to New York and the other from La Plata to Pensacola, six
pounds for each of nine Russian anarchists (all suffering from trachoma!)
they were taking on board as seamen.79 The identification of Jews with
anarchism became so strong that even those who supported Jewish immi-
gration felt the need to specify that anarchists and revolutionaries must
be excluded.80
To return to the questions we raised at the start: what was the relation-
ship between the stereotype of Jews as anarchists and social reality, and
74
José C. Moya
could such a stereotype function only as a signifier of alterity or a mecha-
nism for exclusion? To begin with, we should point out that the existence
of the stereotype does not necessarily support the notion of Jewish “excep-
tionalism.” Another group in Buenos Aires was also consistently identi-
fied as anarchist, something that offers an opportunity to place the Jewish
case in comparative perspective. Less than a month before the Radowisky
affair, the American ambassador noted that Argentines blamed the events
of the Semana Roja on Catalans and felt that the danger posed by the radi-
cal minority coming out of Barcelona offset the benefits of Spanish immi-
gration in general.81 The newspaper La tribuna (May 8, 1909) complained
that if authorities did not stop the entry of foreign anarchists, the image
of Argentina overseas would soon change from a land of opportunity to “a
corner of Russia or a branch of Barcelona.” Two days after the assassination
of Falcón, the Times of London maintained that “the bomb-throwing party
consists of foreigners recruited from Europe” and that most of the eleven
thousand militant anarchists known to the police in Buenos Aires were
“Italians, Russians, or Catalonians.”82
The mention of Italians is neither surprising nor particularly telling.
They accounted, after all, for more than half of the foreign-born population
of the city. But Catalans were a small minority that represented, like Russian
Jews, only about 2 percent of the immigrant population. Instructively, they
were often referred to as “the Jews of Spain” and had been traditionally
imaged through the same paradoxical stereotypes of rapacious capitalists
and anticapitalist radicals. In what is often considered the first anti-Semitic
novel in Argentina, La bolsa, the two miser characters are a Catalan and a
Jew.83 The figure of the Catalan anarchist also became a stock character
in Argentine theater.84 During the labor riots and right-wing reaction of
May 1910 and of the “Tragic Week” of January 1919, Catalans became, along
with Jews, the main targets of nativist vigilantes.85 Right after the Tragic
Week, the Spanish embassy in Rio de Janeiro reported that the Brazilian
government had restricted entries into the country, fearing an avalanche of
anarchist refugees from Argentina, particularly Russians and Catalans, who
were considered the most dangerous because they had led the revolt.86
To be sure, the majority of anarchists in Buenos Aires were neither
Jewish nor Catalan. For this to have been true would be almost impossi-
ble since, together, Catalans and Jews represented less than 5 percent of
the foreign-born and less than 3 percent of the total population of the city.
But this does not mean that the stereotypes simply reflected anti-Semitism
and anti-Catalanism. Jews and Catalans each accounted for about a tenth
75
of all the anarchists expelled from Argentina between the passing of the
Residency Law in 1902 and the outbreak of World War I, by far the high-
est relative proportions of any ethnic groups. One could argue that this
still may have been a sign of discriminatory behavior from the authorities
rather reflecting the relative participation of members of these two groups
in the anarchist movement. But Catalans were also, as we saw was the case
with Jews, highly overrepresented among casualties during anarchist dem-
onstrations and disturbances, and, once again, as with the Jews, it would
be hard to attribute this result to police discrimination. Like Jews, Catalans
were not physically distinguishable from other demonstrators, less so in the
heat of street turmoil.
Nor can stereotypes explain the fact that Jews and Catalans had com-
mitted the most visible acts of anarchist terrorism in the country. The fact
that three of these had taken place within a span of a month (October 17 to
November 14, 1909) increased their impact on the public and the identifica-
tion of Jews and Catalans with anarchism in both the official and popular
imaginary.87 That the perpetrators were recent immigrants with a history of
anarchist activism in their home countries buttressed the notion that radi-
calism was a preexisting and essential characteristic of Jews and Catalans
rather than the result of their experiences in the new land. And the wide-
spread image of Barcelona, since the 1890s, and Russia, since 1905, as hot-
beds of revolutionary ferment reinforced the notion. The stereotypes could
have been, and were indeed, used as mechanisms of exclusion, but at the
most primary level they represented generalized and simplified accounts
that nonetheless corresponded to social reality.
What could explain, then, this disproportionately high participation
among the two groups? For Jews, a line of argument has centered on the
overlap of Judaism’s eschatology and ethics and the anarchist worldview.
A historian of Jewish anarchism argued that “the prophetic exigency of
social justice, the model of liberation of Exodus, and the messianic idea”
created an affinity for libertarian socialism.88 Like similar arguments based
on intellectual history—Weber’s idea of the link between Protestantism and
capitalism would be a parallel case—this one is difficult to confirm or refute
empirically. Logically, it is not amiss. Anarchism did contain, to a greater
degree than socialism, a pronounced transcendental element. Its demand
for social justice was as absolute as its invocation of individual liberty and
usually expressed in the righteous tone of a jeremiad. Its faith in the regen-
erating power of the “Social Revolution” bore a striking resemblance to the
religious notion of redemption. The revolution itself had clear apocalyptic
76
José C. Moya
overtones. And anarchists’ prophesies about the imminent coming of the
libertarian utopia were millenarian by definition.
There are, however, at least two problems with the argument (besides
the generic one related to the notion of collective mentalities or attitudes).
One is that it fails to explain the intense participation of non-Jewish groups,
like the Catalans (or the lack of participation of non-Ashkenazic Jews for that
matter). The other is that all the quasi-spiritual traits of anarchism mentioned
above are as akin to Christian as they are to Jewish eschatology. Indeed,
eschatological notions such as redemption, salvation, messianic hope, the
Second Coming, and the Last Judgment form the very core of Christology
and of much of Christian theology in general. And if the philosophical affin-
ity of anarchism is to Judeo-Christian principles in general, how could this
explain the high participation of Jews and Catalans and the relative lack of
participation of countless other “Judeo-Christian” groups, including many
with a similar history of emigration? In Buenos Aires, for example, British
and German Gentiles were more numerous than Jews and Catalans up to
the early years of the twentieth century, and Lebanese Maronites became as
numerous later. But the participation of all of these groups in the local anar-
chist movement was insignificant.
The best explanation for Jewish, and Catalan, anarchist militancy seems to
lie in two more mundane facts. One is somewhat tautological. They simply
came from regions where the anarchist movement was already particularly
developed. Although less intensively and visibly than Jews and Catalans, other
immigrants who originated from similar regions, like southern Andalusians
and Tuscans, were also overrepresented in the Argentine anarchist move-
ment. In the case of Jews, the Russian Revolution of 1905 must have radical-
ized many on both sides of the Atlantic and produced a stream of anarchist
refugees to Argentina and other host societies. The Argentine elite’s defini-
tion of anarchism as an imported disease was clearly self-serving. But the
recent arrival of Jewish immigrants during this period and the histories of
the few dozen for whom I was able to cull sufficient biographical informa-
tion indicate that their radicalism had indeed premigratory roots.89 Those
roots then found a fertile soil in a local anarchist movement that, by the time
of their arrival, had already become one of the most vibrant in the Atlantic
world. Their arrival, in turn, further energized the movement.
The second explanation has to do with the groups’ socio-occupational
makeup. Compared to almost all other immigrant groups, both Jews and
Catalans were highly underrepresented among unskilled laborers and
77
factory workers and highly overrepresented among skilled workers and arti-
sans. This class of literate typographers, tailors, bakers, shoemakers, and so
on, working independently or in small and medium-sized shops, was pre-
cisely what made up the bulk of the anarchist movement just about every-
where. In Buenos Aires, 98 percent of the anarchists were literate. Sixty
percent were skilled workers, a proportion twice as high as that of the city’s
labor force in general. The only other significant occupational groups were
port and transportation workers, and to a lesser degree store clerks, jour-
nalists, and students. Samples that I have gathered in Italian and German
archives show a similar occupational structure for anarchists in Europe.90
Not only did the stereotype of Jews as anarchists capture a basic reality,
albeit in an exaggerated form, but it also had a positive side. The image, and
the realities behind it, no doubt intensified anti-Jewish feelings among the
ruling groups and much of the native and immigrant middle class. But it
had the opposite effect on the working-class majority. In London or in New
York, the anarchist leanings of Jews separated them from the mainstream
trade unions and from a native working class that was much less radical.
In Buenos Aires, three-quarters of the working class was foreign-born, and
anarchists had played the key role in its organization. Moreover, the other
important labor organizers were the socialists, who may have argued end-
lessly with anarchists about tactics but shared a similar vision and definitely
did not hold against them a visceral animosity. In this context, the stereo-
type made Jews more, not less, acceptable. It undermined, rather than bol-
stered, popular anti-Semitism. It made Jews the object of emulation, not
rejection. Anarchist pamphlets, newspapers, and speeches are replete with
appeals to follow the example of “our Russian [or our Catalan] comrades.”
In this light the Radowisky affair takes on a different meaning. Because
Argentine law exempted minors from the death penalty, Radowisky was
condemned to life in prison, something that turned his freedom into one of
the main goals of anarchists in Argentina. In January 1911, they dug a tunnel
under the national penitentiary. Salvador Planas Virella and Francisco
Solano Regis, who had tried to assassinate two different Argentine presi-
dents, escaped and were never heard of again. Radowisky had been sent to
the prison’s printing shop a few minutes before and lost this opportunity,
but not the next, or almost not. In November 1918, anarchists used a boat to
ferry him out of the national penitentiary, which had been moved to Tierra
del Fuego, but the Chilean police captured them later. The campaign never
stopped. General strikes were called in support of Radowisky.91 More than
a dozen books and thousands of newspaper articles and leaflets appeared
78
José C. Moya
to eulogize “our Simón.” In none of these books or articles are the words
“murderer” or “assassin”—the common terms employed in the “bourgeois”
press—used. Radowisky was always the “avenger,” the “retaliator,” the “jus-
tice giver” (el justiciero), the “martyr of Ushuaia” (the town where the prison
was located), the “libertarian saint” (santo ácrata).92 In May 1918, thousands
of pamphlets filled the streets accusing the saint’s jailers of sexual sadism.
Other accounts give an opposite twist: that the charisma, the kindness, the
mystical magnetism of this libertarian (Jewish) Saint Francis had turned
him into a hero for jailers and common criminals alike. Graphic artists con-
tributed hundreds of sketches and reproductions of photographs.
The consistency and intensity of the anarchist hagiography had the
desired effect. Radowisky became a martyr of the working class in gen-
eral rather than of anarchists. Even bourgeois journalists began to write of
him sympathetically, which, in turn, aroused the empathy of many within
the middle classes. Eventually, popular pressure reached such a point that
President Yrigoyen pardoned Radowisky in 1930, despite Yrigoyen’s fears of
a military coup. In this light, Radowisky’s crime became another feather on
the collective Jewish cap rather than a stigma.
This and the general stereotype of Jews as anarchists actually does much
to explain the relative absence of working-class anti-Semitism in Argentina
during the first third of the twentieth century. Whether, and how, this atti-
tude changed after the inroads of nationalism into the labor movement
during the 1940s is an important question. It is also one that is beyond this
present essay’s scope.
Nonetheless, the situation examined in this chapter serves to highlight
the importance of place and time in defining Jewish ethnicity. Jewish immi-
gration to Latin America outside of Argentina, Uruguay, and southern Brazil
represented a small-scale mercantile diaspora. These movements were akin
to certain streams of Chinese to Southeast Asia, Indians to East Africa, or
Lebanese to West Africa rather than to European migration to the River
Plate region or North America. Immigrants in these cases—with the excep-
tion of indentured servants—did not move in search of wage employment.
Labor was too abundant in the destinations and wages too low to make
this a viable option. They went to work on their own or for relatives with a
clear plan to become independent business owners. Most began the quest
as humble peddlers. But from the beginning they did not identify or were
identified by others as members of the laboring classes. So Jewish ethnic-
ity in these low-wage destinations—like Palestinian ethnicity in Honduras
or Lebanese ethnicity in Ecuador, to mention only two similar cases—was
79
self- and externally produced as petit bourgeois at the beginning and even-
tually as bourgeois.
The situation in Argentina—like that in Uruguay, southern Brazil, the
United States, and Canada—was, as we have seen, drastically different.
Jews arrived in numbers that were too large to permit complete concentra-
tion in mercantile activities or any other single sector of the economy. The
existence of large commercial middle classes of immigrant or native back-
ground in these countries further prevented such concentration. Therefore
Jews, like other immigrants, occupied a broad socioeconomic spectrum
within the host society. With time and upward mobility, they would move
increasingly into the middle class. But this was a slower process than we
have traditionally thought, one that took a generation or more. Thus, during
the migration period, before the world depression of 1930 and probably
before World War II, most Jews in Argentina thought of themselves, and
were perceived by others, as working class. Moreover, Jewish ethnicity was
shaped not simply vis-à-vis a preexisting national norm but vis-à-vis the cul-
tures of other arrivals who, after all, made up the majority of the population.
Jewish alterity was less sharp in such settings. Defining “the other” is not
an easy endeavor in a place like early twentieth-century Buenos Aires where
three-quarters of the adult population had been born outside of Argentina.
Jewish ethnicity could not be constructed and construed as the opposite of
the native and the norm—as it could in most of the rest of Latin America—
because their immigration and adaptation experience actually represented
the norm. Some Argentine cultural nationalists would try to turn the gaucho
into the authentic emblem of the nation. But such myths clashed with a
social reality in which gauchos were a small and diminishing minority and
the tales rarely transcended the realm of nostalgic novels, steak houses, and
tourist shops. A popular Argentine aphorism offers a more accurate axiom
of national origins: “Mexicans descend from the Aztecs, Peruvians from the
Incas, and we from the boats.” The positive side of stereotypes examined in
this chapter is part of, and reflects, this axiom. Jewish ethnicity in Argentina
fitted within this national ethos because they “descend from the boats” and
arrived en masse.
80
José C. Moya
Notes
1. Contemporary dictionaries of argot illustrate this function of the stereo-
type. For example, Aristide Bruant, Dictionnaire francais-argot: L’Argot de XXe
siècle (Paris: Flammarion, 1901) lists fifteen terms for juif, more than for any
other ethnic group, which despite the variety seem to share the connotation
of otherness.
2. The stereotype was exploited even within the labor movement. A good
example of this can be found in a booklet on the perils of anarchism written
under the pseudonym of Max Nomad and published by the Retail, Wholesale
and Chain Store Food Employees Union in New York in 1944, titled The
Jewish Conspiracy. For the gender dimensions of the stereotype see Naomi
Shepherd, A Price below Rubies: Jewish Women as Rebels and Radicals (London:
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1993).
3. In a less functionalist, and more totalizing, definition, Roland Barthes
maintained that “All official institutions of language are repeating machines:
school, sports, advertising, popular songs, news, all continually repeat the
same structure, the same meaning, often the same words: the stereotype is
a political fact, the major figure of ideology.” Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of
the Text (New York: Hill & Wang, 1975), 2.
4. Paul Avrich, The Russian Anarchists (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1967), 17, 40–44; Furio Biagini, Nati altrove: Il movimiento anar-
chico ebraico tra Mosca e New York (Pisa: BFS, 1998), 61; Jonathan Frankel,
Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian Jews, 1862–1917
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 230; Erich Haberer, Jews
and Revolution in Nineteenth-Century Russia (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1995).
5. William J. Fishman, Jewish Radicals: From Czarist Stetl to London Ghetto (New
York: Pantheon Books, 1975), stresses the disproportionate weight of Jews in
London’s anarchist movement. George Woodcock, Anarchism: A History of
Libertarian Ideas and Movements (New York, 1962), 284, maintains that they
furnished more recruits to the movement than all the rest of the British popu-
lation. But H. Oliver, The International Anarchist Movement in Late Victorian
London (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983), while highlighting the cosmo-
politan nature of the movement, does not privilege their participation over
that of Gentile German, Italian, Russian, Spanish, and French expatriates,
devoting only a few lines to Jewish militancy (pp. 5, 20–21, 50–51, 65–66).
6. Mina Graur, An Anarchist “Rabbi”: The Life and Teachings of Rudolf Rocker
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997). Although Rocker was well known
in international anarchist circles as a theorist of anarcho-syndicalism, he
acquired a legendary stature among Jewish anarchists. Two of the earli-
est books published in Yiddish by anarchists in Buenos Aires were his Di
parlamentarishe tetigkayt in der arbayter bevegung—Ratensistem oder diktatur?
(Parliamentary Activity in the Workers’ Movement: Soviets or Dictatorship?)
(1920) and Bolshevizm un anarkhizm (1922).
7. Richard D. Sonn, Anarchism and Cultural Politics in Fin de Siècle France
(Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1989), has more to
say about anti-Semitism than about Jews but does refer to a “considerable
81
number of Jewish anarchists [most of them immigrants from eastern Europe]
among the proletariat and the litterateurs” (46–47).
8. Rudolf Rocker, La juventud de un rebelde (Buenos Aires, 1947), 309.
9. Furio Biagini, “L’anarchia nel ghetto: Appunti per una storia del movi-
miento anarchico di lingua yiddish negli Stati Uniti,” in America anarchica,
1850–1930, ed. Antonio Donno (Rome: Piero Lacaita editore, 1990), 214.
10. These leaders included the poet David Edelstadt, one of the first editors of
what became the largest Yiddish anarchist newspaper in the world, the Fraye
arbeter shtime; Alexander Berkman, who in 1892 attempted to assassinate
steel magnate Henry Clay Frick and had a long international career even
after spending two decades in prison; and Emma Goldman, who purchased
the revolver in 1892 and later became the best-known anarchist in the United
States. See Ori Kritz, The Poetics of Anarchy: David Edelshtat’s Revolutionary
Poetry (New York: P. Lang, 1997); Kenneth C. Wenzer, Anarchists Adrift:
Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman (St. James, NY: Brandywine Press,
1996); and Candace Falk, ed., Emma Goldman: A Guide to Her Life and
Documentary Sources (Alexandria, VA: Chadwyck-Healey, 1995). For a filmic
treatment see Steven Fischler and Joel Sucher, The Free Voice of Labor: The
Jewish Anarchists, a sixty-minute documentary produced by the Pacific Street
Film Collective in 1989.
11. The United States had an autochthonous tradition of individualist anarchism
with its roots in the Protestant upper-middle class of New England. As a mass
movement, however, it was always an immigrant phenomenon and tied to the
socialist, rather than individualist, current in anarchism.
12. Richard Yoast, “The Development of Argentine Anarchism: A Socio-
Ideological Analysis” (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1975),
begins categorically on the issue: “The Argentine anarchist movement was
the largest, most coherent libertarian effort of its time,” although a few lines
later he wonders whether “Buenos Aires or Barcelona, was, in its time, more
the focal point of world anarchist thought.” If the attention of the interna-
tional press is an indication, the Argentine capital came in second. I checked
the Times of London from 1909 to 1914, and it contained more anarchist-
related articles on Buenos Aires than on any other place, with the exception
of Barcelona.
13. Buenos Aires’ municipal censuses of 1909, vol. 1, 3–17, and 1936, vol. 3,
295–99. Eighty percent of the city’s Jewish population in 1909 was foreign-
born, a proportion that declined to 39 percent by 1936.
14. Archivo de la Policía (APC) (Chacabuco St., Buenos Aires), Policía de la
Capital, División de Investigaciones, Sección Orden Social, Antecedentes de
Anarquistas, 1902, no. 1.
15. El anarquismo y el movimiento obrero en Argentina (Mexico: Siglo Veintiuno,
1978); Edgardo J. Bilsky, La F.O.R.A. y el movimiento obrero, 1900–1910, 2 vols.
(Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1985); G. Zaragoza Ruvira,
Anarquismo argentino, 1876–1902 (Madrid: Ediciones de la Torre, 1996); Juan
Suriano, Anarquistas: Cultura y política libertaria en Buenos Aires, 1890–1910
(Buenos Aires: Manantial, 2001).
82
José C. Moya
16. About a quarter of a million Jews are estimated to have arrived in Argentina
between 1880 and 1940.
17. Censo general de la ciudad de Buenos Aires, 1887, vol. 2, 22.
18. Centro de Estudios de la Policía (Lavalle St. 2625, Buenos Aires), Policía de
la Capital, División de Investigaciones, Planillas de Rufianes, 1893–1894. The
records did not have information on religion. But they included the individu-
als’ age, marital status, place and country of birth, length of residence in
Argentina, first and family names, and at times those of their parents,
which I used to identify Jews. The 121 I identified as such were relatively
clear cases (e.g., a Moises Zukerman born in Galitzia to Abraham and Esther).
The twenty-nine identified as likely Jewish had more ambiguous fore- or
surnames (e.g., Mauricio Shiffman from Vienna with no information on
parents). If anything, the method undercounts the number of Jews since
it excludes those without typical naming patterns.
19. Thirty-six had been born in Russia, twenty-five in Austro-Hungary, twenty-
one in Turkey, nineteen in Poland, sixteen in Rumania, thirteen in England,
and the rest in Germany, France, Greece, Egypt, Bulgaria, Argentina,
Australia, Brazil, the United States, Italy, Holland, Switzerland, and India.
20. El perseguido, Voz de los explotados, May 18, 1890. My UCLA colleague Carlo
Ginzburg felt that the use of certain terms suggests that the Italian version of
the editorial must have been the original: “Noi siamo i vagabondi, i paltonieri,
i randagi, la canaglia, i malfattori, il precipitato putrido, il sublimato corrosivo
della dierna organizzazione sociale.” The fact that two-thirds of the paper was
written in that language supports his opinion. “Sublimate” is used in the text
in its chemical meaning; the psychological sense of the term did not exist yet.
21. APC, Policía de la Capital, División de Investigaciones, Sección Guardia,
Copiador de Notas, December 1902; and idem, Orden Social, Copiador de
Notas n. 12, 1905.
22. Public Record Office (PRO), London, FO 371 825, September 20, 1910.
El diario, October 27, 1905, made similar claims about people who made a
lucrative business of obtaining citizenship papers for anarchists and other
dangerous characters.
23. APC, Policía de la Capital, División de Investigaciones, Sección Orden Social,
Copiador de Notas n. 11, January 9–April 7, 1905.
24. PRO, London, FO 371 598, 1909, 219.
25. Ibid., FO 369 272, 1910, December 6, 1909.
26. Ibid., FO 371 823, January 29 and April 14, 1910.
27. Ibid., December 6, 1909.
28. Ibid., FO 371 825, June 30, 1910. See also FO 371 825, September 20, 1910.
29. Archives des Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Paris, Correspondence
Politique et Commerciale (Nouvelle Serie), Argentina, Politique Interieur,
3, 1910–1917, 59–60 and 68.
30. Francisco Stach, La defensa social y la inmigración (Buenos Aires: Museo Social
Argentino, 1916), 26–28.
31. El rebelde: Periódico anarquista (Buenos Aires), September 3, 17, 1899.
32. L’Avvenire: Periodico comunista-anarchico (Buenos Aires), October 16, 1898.
83
33. L’Avvenire, September 10, 1899. For other articles on the Dreyfus affair, see
issues of August 27 and September 23, 1899.
Politique et Commerciale (Nouvelle Serie), Argentina, Politique Etranger,
1902, 32–33.
35. Avrich, The Russian Anarchists, 17–18, 42, 60.
37. El obrero, Montevideo, February 11, 1905.
39. PRO, London, FO 6 490, 41.
40. In a column devoted to news from various countries and under the ironic title
of “Rusia-Argentina,” the newspaper L’Agitatore indivudualista anarchico from
Bahia Blanca, in the south of the province of Buenos Aires, claimed that about
three hundred had been arrested and sixty to seventy expelled to Montevideo
(March 30, 1905, 4). But internal police sources only list twenty-five individu-
als expelled.
41. At least one policeman, in a loud discussion with a fellow officer on a tram-
way, blamed his own institution for provoking the shooting. Such insubordi-
nate interpretation was quickly reported to a district sheriff.
42. Archivo General de la Nación, Buenos Aires, Ministerio del Interior, legajo 15,
letter from the Chief of Police to the Minister of the Interior, May 24, 1905.
43. Eugene F. Sofer, From Pale to Pampa: A Social History of Jews in Buenos Aires
(New York: Holmes & Meier, 1982), 66–69.
44. El obrero, May 27, 1905.
45. APC, Policía de la Capital, División Investigaciones, Sección Orden Social,
Reuniones Sociológicas, 1905.
46. Biagini, Nati altrove, 152.
47. The principal void here is the absence of women. They played an important
role in the local anarchist movement but, for reasons that I have discussed
elsewhere, were less likely to appear in police records. See Jose C. Moya,
“Italians in Buenos Aires’ Anarchist Movement: Gender Ideology and
Women’s Participation,” in Women, Gender, and Transnational Lives: Italian
Workers of the World, ed. Donna Gabaccia and Franca Iacovetta (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 2002).
48. Jose C. Moya, Cousins and Strangers: Spanish Immigrants in Buenos Aires,
1850–1930 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), chapter 4. The
segregation index indicates the percentage of a given group (in this case Jews)
who would have to move in order for the group to be completely integrated
residentially with the rest of the population. The formula for the index of seg-
regation is Is = 1/2∑  Xi–Yi  where Xi represents the proportion of all mem-
bers of any particular group residing in any areal unit i, and Yi represents the
proportion of all members of the group with which the first group is being
compared (or the rest of the population) who reside in that areal unit.
84
José C. Moya
49. David Schers, “Inmigrantes y política: Los primeros pasos del partido sionista
socialista poalei sion en la Argentina, 1910–1916,” Estudios Interdisciplinarios de
America Latina y el Caribe (Tel Aviv) 3, no. 2 (July–December 1992): 75–88.
50. Biagini, Nati altrove, 152.
51. Archivo General de la Nación, Buenos Aires, Archivo de Figueroa Alcorta,
noncataloged. I thank Dr. Olga Bordi and archivist Liliana Crespi for making
this document accessible. The anarchist attempt to burn the convent of
Caballido during the protest resulted in a shootout that led to eighty arrests
and left three wounded. A police officer was shot in the chest, but the
bullet miraculously hit his pocket watch. The humorous magazine Caras y
caretas (April 21, 1906, n. 394) published a photograph of the watch with
the encrusted bullet and a comic strip on “Preventive Means for All Types
of Demonstrations.” One of the cartoons included a man with a huge pocket
watch and the caption “Buy a 12-caliber watch, the best shield against police
bullets.” This bullet in particular was not likely to have come from the
police, unless they were shooting each other. But the fact that the magazine
described it as such is in line with its position that police excesses caused
the turmoil.
52. Archivo del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Madrid, Política Interna, Orden
Público, legajo H2750.
53. Ibid., legajo 2754. A similar case is that of Russian-born Gregorio
Fleischmann, who was deported from Argentina in 1919 and apprehended
in Spain with his wife because the British embassy in Madrid denounced
him as dangerous. The Spanish authorities were going to expel him when
word arrived from Buenos Aires that an Argentine colonel vouched for
Fleischmann as a philosophical anarchist and an honest person.
54. Archivo de Tribunales, Buenos Aires, División Antecedentes Judiciales, cards
in file cabinet. Hantover again appears in the police arrest records during
the turmoil of May 1910. APC, Policía de la Capital, División Investigaciones,
Sección Guardia, Entrada de Presos, vol. 16.
55. APC, Policía de la Capital, División Investigaciones, Sección Orden Social,
Reuniones Sociológicas, 1908.
56. Ibid. These “popular” libraries were not peculiar to Jews and anarchists.
Other ethnic and ideological groups also founded many, and they existed in
most working-class neighborhoods of the city.
57. Ibid., Copiador de Notas, February 1907.
58. According to P. Katz, an early secretary of Buenos Aires’ Poalei Sion quoted in
David Schers’s “Inmigrantes y política,” the use of Russian and depreciation
of Yiddish was particularly noticeable among socialists.
59. The Parisian police, for example, normally arrested scores of radicals before
May Day and actually prohibited street demonstrations. Prefecture de Police,
Paris, Cabinet du Prefet, Archives, PP, Serie BA, 1, carton 1628 (manifesta-
tions du 1er mai, 1899–1932).
85
60. La protesta, May 2, 1909, reported higher casualties: 8 dead and 105 wounded.
61. La prensa, May 3, 1909. The day before, the paper had quoted police as
saying the first shots had come from the anarchist antimilitarist group Luz al
Soldado. If both statements were correct, it would mean that many Russians
belonged to that group.
62. APC, Policía de la Capital, División de Investigaciones, Sección Guardia,
Copiador de Notas, May 1909.
63. Anarcho-Communism, which envisioned a future society where resources
would be allocated according to need, instead of productivity as proposed by
anarcho-collectivists, had become the dominant strain of anarchist ideology
in Argentina, and in the Atlantic world in general, since the early 1890s.
2, 1903–1909, 153–56; National Archives (NARA), College Park, Maryland,
M862, 20058; PRO, London, FO 368 269, May 12, 1909.
65. La prensa, May 2, 1909.
66. How the term “Red Week” originated is not clear, but the daily El tiempo used
it already on May 8, 1909.
67. NARA, M862, 20058, May 10, 1909.
Copiador de Notas, May 8, 1909.
69. This was actually the term most commonly used by contemporary anarchists
and socialists to refer to their comrades. It defines, after all, not only those
who have the same religion but also those who share an ideal or ideology.
Copiador de Notas n. 11, February 26, 1905.
71. Ibid., May 1909. Although other leftists, such as socialists and syndicalists,
also used theater as a didactic tool, the practice was much more common
among anarchists. Moya, “Italians in Buenos Aires’ Anarchist Movement.”
72. Archivo General de la Nación, Buenos Aires, Tribunales Criminales, R-5, 10.
73. In the annual report sent to London by the British ambassador (PRO 371
1824, page 4 of the report), he wrote that Radowisky and his brother had been
proved to have participated in the rioting of the Semana Roja and that the
brother had been confined in an asylum for the insane.
74. The British ambassador was “assured that he [Radowisky] spoke very pure
Spanish under the stress of his first emotions.” PRO, FO 371 598, 476.
75. Archivo General de la Nación, Buenos Aires, Tribunales Criminales, R-5, 53,
53.5, 63–90, 204, 236.
76. Ibid., 169–72.
77. PRO, FO 371 598, telegraph of November 15, 1909. NARA, M 862, 4519/61;
Archives des Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Paris, Correspondence
2, telegram n. 32; Archivo del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Madrid,
Política Interna, Orden Público, legajo H2750; Archivo Histórico do
Ministério das Relacoés Exteriores, Rio de Janerio, Missões Diplomaticas
Brasileiras, Buenos Aires, 206–2-06.
86
José C. Moya
78. La nueva senda, Montevideo, November 19, 1909. The letters also men-
tion that the police occupied the offices of the anarchist daily La protesta,
destroying its printing press and taking the money that had been collected
by the “committee pro-Russian revolutionaries.”
79. NARA, M 862, 23894/2.
80. A good example is the ex-minister of agriculture Damián M. Torino, El
problema del inmigrante y el problema agrario en la Argentina (Buenos Aires,
1912), 30–31. He found “much good” in Jewish immigrants and maintained
that “the Jew is dangerous or damaging only in poor and lethargic countries.
It is a microbe that harms weak and tired organisms but adapts well to potent
and virile ones. His laborious intelligence and commercial instinct strains the
social fabric of weak peoples who see in them a whip. Among peoples who,
on the contrary, are endowed with similar aptitudes, or even superior ones to
that of the Jew, he competes with equal rivals, and his arrival yields in these
prosperous environments nothing but extra vitality.” He considered Argentina
such an environment but explained that this welcome of course did not extend
to Jewish anarchists.
81. NARA M 862, 8717/16, August 23, 1909. A report of May 15, 1910 (NARA M
514, 77), also stated that Argentine authorities feared that Catalan anarchists
would try to assassinate the infanta Isabel de Borbón, then visiting Argentina
for the celebration of the independence centennial (the first member of
the Spanish royal family to have done so), as revenge for the execution of
Francisco Ferrer.
82. The Times, November 16 and 17, 1909, 5, c. 6.
83. Julián Martel, La bolsa (1891; repr., Buenos Aires: Plus Ultra, 1975), 214–16.
Ironically, Martel’s real surname was the unmistakably Catalan “Miró.”
84. Moya, Cousins and Strangers, 371.
85. María Inés Barbero and Fernando Devoto, Los nacionalistas, 1910–1932
(Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1983), 40. Although I have
not found any corroborating source, a letter of May 19, 1910, sent by an
Italian anarchist in Buenos Aires to a companion in Italy claimed that “the
Russian anarchist group that was attacked defended itself heroically forcing
the assailants to retreat with many wounded and some dead,” Il terrore nella
repubblica argentina (Castellammare, Italy: Camillo di Sciullo editore, 1910),
21. The repression of the Tragic Week did not stop the development of Jewish
anarchism in the city. Soon after it, the Yidishe Ratsionalistishe Gezelshaft
began printing what seem to be the first Yiddish-language anarchist books
published in Argentina. See The Kate Sharpley Library Yiddish Anarchist
Bibliography (London: Kate Sharpley, 1998).
86. Archivo del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Madrid, Política Interna, Orden
Público, legajo H2753. The ambassador added that although the restriction
was “in open opposition to the letter of the [Brazilian] Constitution, it has
been highly praised by the press and politicians, who declare that when its
founders wrote the policy of ‘open doors’ to all the world, they could not have
conceived that there would exist individuals whose only purpose would be to
ruin it and destroy it.”
87
87. On August 12, 1905, Salvador Planes Virella, a twenty-three-year-old typogra-
pher from Barcelona, made an attempt on the life of President Quintana. On
October 17, 1909, José Matabosch, a twenty-two-year-old mason, and Pascual
Primo Valero, a bookbinder of the same age, both from Barcelona, planted a
bomb on the Spanish consulate in protest of the execution of Francisco Ferrer
in Barcelona. Two weeks later Pablo Karaschine tried to blow up a church for
the same reason. And on November 14, Radowisky killed the chief of police
and his secretary. On May 25, 1910, a bomb exploded in the cathedral. The
bomber was not caught but was rumored to be Jewish. Exactly a month later,
another bomb exploded during an opera performance at the Colon Theater.
One of the two accused was Russian.
88. Biagini, Nati altrove, 22 and ff.
89. The degree to which this is true for immigrant groups that had been in
Argentina longer than Jews is more difficult to determine. About half of
a group of 220 Italians for whom I was able to find documents in Italian
archives had been identified as anarchists by the Italian police before they
emigrated to Argentina. This, however, likely underestimates the proportion
with a history of premigratory radicalism since it does not include those who
were ideologically anarchists but had not been arrested or investigated by the
police before they left the country.
90. In a random sample of 175 Italian anarchists I took from the Caselario Politico
Centralle at Rome’s Archivio Centralle dello Stato, 54 percent were skilled
workers. Data from a three-volume file on 1,465 European anarchists assembled
by the German police around 1900 and held at Hamburg’s Staatsarchiv shows
a similar proportion of skilled workers (57 percent) for the 244 Italians in the
file with occupations listed, and higher proportions for most other groups:
Germans, 79 percent (n = 260); Austrians, 73 percent (n = 62); Bohemians,
63 percent (n = 65), French, 49 percent (n = 66).
91. L’Allarme, foglio anarchico di propaganda e d’agitazione, Buenos Aires, Octo‑
ber 20 and November 13, 1928. The general strike was called, poignantly,
on November 14, the anniversary of Radowisky’s assassination of the chief
of police.
92. A good example is the book written by the Spanish anarchist militant and
historian Diego Abad de Santillan, Simon Radowitzky, el vengador y el mártir
(Buenos Aires: F.O.R.A., 1927).
88
José C. Moya
chapter five
Beyond the State and Ideology

Immigration of the Jewish Community to Brazil, 1937–1945
roney cytrynowicz
I n 1938, during the “Estado Novo” (New State) dictatorship (1937–1945) in

Brazil, a state educational inspector visited Escola Israelita Brasileira Luiz
Fleitlich (Brazilian Jewish School Luiz Fleitlich), one of the many Jewish
schools in São Paulo, and registered irregularities such as “teachers giving
foreign language lessons in the first year and nonregistered teachers giving
classes.”1 As a result, the inspector demanded the school stop teaching for-
eign languages and religion to children under ten years of age and register
teachers with the state within eight days.
The inspector’s attitude was related to one of the most important ideolog-
ical principles in President Getúlio Vargas’s civic-pedagogical semi-Fascist
project intended to reformulate Brazilian society. A “new” nationalist and
xenophobic educational system was the core of this project, and the inspec-
tor often came to visit the Escola Israelita Brasileira Luiz Fleitlich. While
the inspector’s actions might appear to be just one more story of a semi-
Fascist dictatorship in operation, a careful examination of the documenta-
tion shows that the inspector regularly noted old and new “irregularities”
because the educational practices in the school continued exactly the same
as they had in the past, teaching Judaism and Hebrew to children. Put
89
differently, the semi-Fascist ideology of the state appears to have had little
effect on the social and daily life of Brazilian-Jewish communities from 1937
to 1945, even as repression and violence against other immigrant groups,
for example those of Japanese descent, appeared to increase.
Given this dissonance, why is there general agreement among scholars
who study the history of Jews in Brazil during the twentieth century that anti-
Semitism, prejudice, and persecution were dominant in the lives of Jewish
immigrants? Indeed, the historiographical interpretations, and the social
memories of the immigrants themselves, suggest that the ideology and the
political actions of the Estado Novo were similar to that of Nazi Germany.2
One reason is that the Brazilian historiography focuses on state policies rather
than social and cultural lived experiences. Such an approach, however, hides
the fact that while Brazil’s official discourse resembled Fascism, Brazilian
popular culture and daily life did not follow that path. Indeed the population
did not support the nationalistic appeals of the government, even after 1942
when Brazil entered World War II on the Allied side. This chapter suggests
that the standard characterization of the experiences of Jewish immigrants in
Brazil as dominated by anti-Semitism tells only part of the story.3
Between 1937 and 1945 Jews living in São Paulo adapted and developed
subtle and sophisticated strategies against the restrictions imposed by the
Estado Novo. São Paulo had the most dynamic and the largest Jewish com-
munity in Brazil, and this case study proposes methods and approaches
that can be used to analyze Jewish communities in other capitals and major
cities in Brazil. An examination of the records of a range of Jewish insti-
tutions—charities, schools, synagogues, and cultural institutions—shows
how they reacted against the formal legal restrictions imposed by the Estado
Novo. For example, while there were restrictions against public expres-
sions of foreignness (such as speaking and studying languages other than
Portuguese), we see that Jewish institutions maintained their ties to tradi-
tional Judaism, often with the knowledge of the authorities.
Jeffrey Lesser’s interpretative guidelines on immigration suggest how
different minorities act under adverse circumstances. He argues that the
Brazilian state’s restrictions on immigrants and minorities led to a common
set of responses within a broader set of diverse ethnic identity strategies. By
studying Jewish, Syrian-Lebanese, and Japanese immigration, Lesser argues
that there are active, ethnically affirmative strategies designed to influence
the majority discourse. In this sense, ethnic identity is a process under con-
tinuous “negotiation,” always in dialogue with tradition and between the
minority and majority groups.4
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Roney Cytrynowicz
Brazilian Jews, when negotiating identity and community issues that
emerged as a result of the state policies, engendered their Brazilian-Jewish
identity, establishing a pattern of social integration, not the segregation that
most literature suggests. By recognizing that Jews, like a number of other
minority groups in Brazil, were not simply passive actors of the state or
the official ideology, we move away from the passivity-oriented positions of
much scholarship regarding contemporary Brazilian history.5
We cannot understand the negotiation of Jewish identity during the
1930s and 1940s without understanding the growth of the city of São Paulo
as it became the largest and most important city in Brazil, overtaking the
federal capital of Rio de Janeiro. In São Paulo, during the period of the
Estado Novo and World War II, daily life changed just as immigrants from
around the world, and their children, were having an impact on all aspects
of the city’s cultural, social, economic, and political life. Thus, when the Axis
imposed a commercial blockade after Brazil entered the war on the side of
the Allies in 1942, immigrants were the ones who often bore the brunt of
anti-Axis discourses. For example, Jews (as incredible as it may seem) were
told by authorities to stop speaking Yiddish in public because it was associ-
ated with Germany. Japanese immigrants were accused of treason and fifth
column activities and were expelled from their houses in some São Paulo
neighborhoods and sent to the countryside.6
São Paulo’s Jewish community followed the progress of the war with
special interest because of their concern for the fate of refugees and rela-
tives. Yet the situation in Europe, and the new challenges created by the
Estado Novo, did not really change how Jewish identity was negotiated in
the city. Jewish communal life flourished, and individual Jews ascended
socially. Put differently, the challenges of social and economic integration
and the task of creating a Jewish community that existed prior to the war
continued during and immediately after the war.
Anti-Semitic Discourse and Community Development

Anti-Semitism was present in important government circles and state cor-
respondence (particularly in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs—Itamaraty),
in some publications, and in the discourses and books edited by Ação
Integralista Brasileira, a Fascist movement, beginning in the 1930s. While
many anti-Semites were linked to right-wing ideologies, to define Brazil’s
government categorically as Fascist or Nazi is impossible.7 The New State
was not a totalitarian regime, and its Fascist features do not explain social
91
history and daily life. The regime was made up of conflicting cliques that
ranged from Fascism to a liberalism that focused on state social assistance,
health care, and public education.8 The challenge then is to conceptualize
the Vargas regime’s stated ideology within the actual social and political life
taking place in Brazil at the time.9
The most serious and tragic consequences of the anti-Semitic ideology
were in the secret circulars (policy memos that were not made public) that
restricted Jewish immigration into Brazil from 1937 onward. Thus, there
was undoubtedly a “Jewish question” among Brazil’s elites.10 Anti-Semitic
attitudes in Brazil were responsible, for example, for the denial of visas
to three thousand “non-Arian” refugees in Europe (who were considered
Jews by the Nazis and thus were going to be murdered in extermination
camps) in spite of the Vatican’s request that they be allowed to enter Brazil.11
There are also hundreds of tragic stories of refugees during the war and
the Holocaust who could not enter Brazil due to legal restrictions.
The mechanism that allowed Brazil to discursively restrict the entry of
new immigrants did not interfere with the lives of Jews already settled in
the country. In other words, the “threat” that led to a ban on Jewish entry
did not affect members of the minority already residing in Brazil. From the
perspective of anti-Semitic policy makers, Jews abroad were regarded as
Semites, and thus non-European and undesirable, but those in Brazil were
regarded as white (or at least not black) and therefore acceptable. This is
the key to understanding how an anti-Semitic policy existed even without
institutionalized prejudice against Jews. It also explains why restrictions
against entry during the Estado Novo were far from absolute, and thus the
number of Jewish immigrants entering the country grew in 1939 when the
secret circulars were in effect.
A similar contradiction can be seen when examining the discourses
and actions of the Ação Integralista Brasileira (AIB), a Fascist party that
held legal status in Brazil between 1933 and 1937. Its second-most impor-
tant leader, Gustavo Barroso, translated The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,
which claimed an international Jewish conspiracy existed, into Portuguese
and wrote several virulently anti-Semitic books. The AIB’s newspapers had
a section called “International Judaism,” and Barroso was the most active
anti-Semitic ideologue in Brazilian contemporary history. The AIB did not,
however, persecute Jews as a matter of policy. It did not vandalize Jewish
institutions and the AIB’s leader, Plínio Salgado, even publicly censured
the aforementioned Gustavo Barroso for being overly aggressive in his anti-
Jewish diatribes.
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Roney Cytrynowicz
Given the divergence between the virulence of discursive anti-Semitism
and the lack of anti-Semitic attacks, one should not be surprised that between
1937 and 1945 the Jewish minority in São Paulo experienced a vibrant public,
institutional, social, cultural, and economic life that would not be expected
if one only looks at state memos or the publications of a small circle of anti-
Semitic elites or the reports of the political police during those years. In fact,
1937 to 1945 were years of intense institutional life that allowed a boom in
activities and organizations during and after the war. These were times of
institutional settlement and of defining a “Jewish-Brazilian” identity.
The São Paulo Jewish community, with approximately fifty-six thousand
members in 1940, aided refugees during the war; adjusted to restrictions on
“foreign” speeches, teaching, and publishing; and also Brazilianized Jewish
institutions. As a group, Jews living in Brazil suffered no specific persecu-
tions, and they were subject to the same constraints, political intimidation,
and prohibitions as most other Brazilian minorities. In the specific case of
German and Austrian Jews (like the citizens of other Axis countries), the
question was more complex since they were defined as “resident enemy
aliens” after Brazil joined the Allies in 1942. That is, they were categorized
like all German and Austrian immigrants and residents. Yet the understand-
able fear among the German-Jewish immigrants did not mean the lack of
a normal daily life during those years. Japanese immigrants, on the other
hand, suffered a more focused and intense repression that lead to the expul-
sion of hundreds of people from São Paulo and other cities. Non-Jewish-
Germans in Brazil’s southernmost states also suffered more intimidation
and violence.
Jewish Institutional Life between 1937 and 1945

A critical piece of evidence for understanding the gap between anti-Semitic
discourse and action can be seen in the rapid pace by which new Jewish
institutions were formed in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro during the Estado
Novo. New synagogues and community centers sprung up in many neigh-
borhoods, and committees openly raised money for and helped to settle
World War II refugees. One way that Jewish organizations negotiated the
maintenance of culture was by insisting on a discourse that was pro-Ally
and in favor of Brazil’s entry into World War II. Jewish organizations, by
using this “pro–Estado Novo” discourse, thus carried out their activities
quite freely, even before 1942 when the government was negotiating with
both the Allies and Axis.
93
In spite of the anti-Semitic discourses mentioned above, an examination
of the journals and minutes of the Jewish organizations shows that Brazilian
anti-Semitism was not a central concern among Jewish leaders and commu-
nities. During the war years, Jewish organizations functioned normally, and
there is no evidence that the dictatorship affected the daily activities of organi-
zations, including German-Jewish ones. There are no documentary records of
any Jewish organizations in São Paulo that were subject to state intervention
(this was not the case with Japanese-Brazilian and German-Brazilian institu-
tions). Indeed, on December 22, 1942, Getúlio Vargas welcomed a “Jewish
delegation” to the president’s palace and condemned anti-Semitism.12
A number of examples make the point. In 1941 the Sociedade Sinagoga
Israelita da Lapa (Jewish Synagogue Society of Lapa, a São Paulo neigh-
borhood) was founded to “construct, maintain and take care of a temple
for Hebraic cult” and “promote and aid the teaching of the Hebrew reli-
gion to children.”13 The laws against the teaching of languages other than
Portuguese seem not to have been an impediment to these institutions, even
in its office statutes. The founders of the synagogue created terms acceptable
for the Estado Novo by accepting “only members who can read and write
Portuguese” for the directors, even as those directors acted in languages
other than Portuguese.
Another organization formed in the same year was the Sociedade Religiosa
Israelita Asilo dos Velhos (Jewish Old Age Home) in São Paulo. A 1942 report
from the organization explicitly, albeit subtly, declared that one of the services
offered to the sixty refugees housed there was “conducting religious rites,
according to the cultural habits and religious traditions of the elders [and],
also making available a library, journals and sacred books.”14 The Chevra
Kadisha (Burial Society) kept its activities going during the war years and car-
ried out burials with Hebrew inscriptions on the graves, as it always had.15
Not only did Jewish charitable organizations flourish. At a time when
radio was carefully controlled by the Vargas government there were at least
three Jewish radio programs in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In São Paulo,
Siegfried Gothilf’s Jewish Hour began in 1940, and by 1943 the twice weekly
Jewish Program and the daily Jewish-Brazilian Hour were on air. Contents
included musical “Jewish folklore” that was not sung in Portuguese but
rather in languages officially regarded as foreign and legally banned.
In 1941 two Yiddish papers were banned (Di idishe fokstsaitung, founded
1927; Di idishe presse, founded 1930), along with all other newspapers that
were not published in Portuguese. But in the same period in São Paulo books
were edited with openly Jewish subjects and Yiddish titles, like Oisses dertzlein
94
Roney Cytrynowicz
(What Letters Tell), bearing the subtitle Reality and Legend in the History of
the Hebrew Alphabet, by Elias Lipiner. Hebrew classes were advertised in
the Jewish press, and the Sociedade Beneficente dos Israelitas Poloneses
(Beneficent Association of Polish Jews) in São Paulo kept their minutes in
Yiddish and received several permits to hold public performances in that
language.16 These examples are not exceptional; during the Estado Novo
a wide range of institutional and everyday social, cultural, and religious
Jewish activities took place freely.
The Estado Novo was also a time of great opportunity for immigrants in
Brazil. Urban jobs, liberal professions, and specialized occupations allowed
a process of social and economic integration, especially in urban centers.
The restriction of imports imposed by the war accelerated industrialization
and urbanization where new professional and commercial opportunities
emerged. Peddling and money lending became a means of social progress
for immigrants, supported by the Peddler’s Union and the Popular Credit
Cooperative, both founded in São Paulo in 1929.
Such social progress was closely related to the urban profile of immi-
grants, their previous schooling and professional instruction. The fact that
Jews concentrated in centers of urban and industrial development meant
that community organizations favored and stimulated the development of
these activities. As a result, a stereotype developed which held that Jews
had unique aptitudes that contributed to the economic development of the
country.17 Such ideas helped Jews in creating ethnically based organizations
even though state discourses opposed such entities. For example, the São
Paulo Association of Traders and Manufacturers of Fabrics and Artifacts was
founded in 1944 with a directorate and board made up of Jews. These busi-
nesspeople had no fear of founding an exclusively ethnic association although
the association’s objectives do not refer to any ethnic cultural activity. Italian
Jews who immigrated to Brazil after anti-Semitic laws were passed in Italy
in 1938, notes Angelo Trento, were “welcomed with open arms. . . . Not by
chance, the Matarazzo family [owners of the most important industrial com-
plex in São Paulo] . . . employed several Jewish émigrés.” Technicians and
merchants settled into Brazilian society with little or no difficulty and profes-
sors “had no difficulty in the local universities or in research institutes.”18
Jewish Schools and the State Education Project

One of the Vargas administration’s major ideological concerns was the state
education system designed by the education and health minister Gustavo
95
Capanema. In this area the generically xenophobic and anti-immigrant state
discourse always came into contact with the growing influence of minori-
ties on culture and the economy. This was especially the case in São Paulo
with its millions of immigrants and their descendants. From the cultural,
ideological, and political point of view, the state’s xenophobic discourse
hardly exerted any influence on the city’s population.
Between 1937 and 1945, two Jewish schools were opened in São Paulo:
the aforementioned Escola Israelita Brasileira Luiz Fleitlich in 1937 and the
Ginásio Israelita-Brasileiro Chaim Nachman Bialik in 1944. While the term
“Jewish-Brazilian” (Israelita-Brasileira) was used to emphasize the “natio-
nal” nature of the schools, the names Fleitlich and Bialik left no doubt
about the character of those schools. These schools, along with two others
(Renascença, founded in 1922, and Centro Israel Talmud Thora Bet Jacob,
founded in 1935), all operated normally throughout the Vargas period.
One reason that the schools were able to maintain their programs
was their strategy of publicly changing their names to deflect the not-so-
prying eyes of the state. For example, in 1940 the Centro Israel Talmud
Thora Bet Jacob changed its name to Sociedade Brasileira de Instrução
Religiosa Israelita (Brazilian Society for Jewish Religious Instruction)
in order to “nationalize itself, due to the new federal laws, manifestly
giving up all the foreign postulates that guided it.” The official charter
of the school, however, never changed, remaining to “teach the Mosaic
religion to the children of its associates, side by side with subjects of
General Culture, indispensable for the intellectual culture of the young.”
One school statute noted that it would build “a temple for the cult of
Mosaic religion,” while another stated that in order to be admitted as a
member, “it is necessary to practice the Jewish religion” and “be proposed
by two other associates.” In 1942 the newly nationalized school hired a
Polish passport holder to teach Hebrew, with the formal approval of the
Brazilian educational authorities.19
The examination of notes taken by Brazilian state school inspectors
at the Escola Israelita Brasileira Luiz Fleitlich between 1938 and 1945
clarifies the difference between official discourse and day-to-day policy
enforcement. While the inspector continuously found problems with the
school’s operation vis-à-vis Brazilian policy, they were never acted upon,
and the inspector, in each subsequent visit, never insisted that his previ-
ous complaints be resolved. For example on March 11, 1938, the inspector
commented on irregularities including “teachers giving foreign language
lessons in the first year and nonregistered teachers giving classes.” As
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Roney Cytrynowicz
a result the inspector demanded that the school (a) not allow the teach-
ing of foreign languages or religion to children under ten years of age or
to illiterates of any age; (b) register teachers with the state within eight
days; (c) reorganize the school schedule so that the teaching of foreign lan-
guages did not exceed a fourth of a day’s school schedule; and (d) inform
the State Educational Service about any changes in the school schedule or
staff and not appoint new teachers without authorization. In the same entry
the inspector noted that “students who attend school classes only to learn a
foreign language will have to submit a certificate signed by the director or
teacher, stating the following data: name, age, day, month and year of birth
and class attended. The certificate will have to bear a legally acknowledged
signature.” On his return visit, four months later, school records show none
of the above issues had changed. Yet the same inspector makes no mention
of them, instead focusing on a new, and small, problem, the “irregulari-
ties” of a foreign woman working as a kindergarten assistant and “a first
year class headed by a foreign teacher.” In 1942, after many visits and no
apparent changes, the inspector noted that from mid-1938 onward there
had been “no indications of major problems in the school.”20
These documents suggest how nationalist and xenophobic discourses
did not lead to policy enforcement. They are documentary evidence of
the complex and ambivalent nature of the relationship between ideologi-
cal semi-Fascism, official prejudice, state control, and implementation of
the ideology and rules. Despite the Estado Novo’s policies, Jewish schools
operated regularly between 1937 and 1945, teaching religion, Judaism, and
Hebrew to their students, with foreign teachers, many of whom were cer-
tainly refugees in Brazil with expired tourist visas. The inspector’s admoni-
tions never led to sanctions, and the schools regularly contracted immigrant
teachers and registered them with the state.
The 1938 Decree and the Prohibition of Zionism

In 1938 the Brazilian government promulgated Decree-law 383, which pro-
hibited “foreigners” from practicing activities of a political nature and from
organizing societies, foundations, companies, clubs of a political nature,
or parties “from the country of origin.” The official legislation was not spe-
cifically anti-Jewish but rather was a nationalistic decree aimed at banning
“international subversive movements.” It was aimed at leftist movements,
especially the Communist Party, which had been responsible for a coup
d’état attempt in 1935.21
97
While some scholars have interpreted this broad law as a formal prohi-
bition of Zionist activities in Brazil, and thus as evidence of anti-Semitism,
an examination of Jewish community activities suggests that Zionist activ-
ity continued within the community and without being explicitly political.
As Samuel Malamud, a Zionist leader who would be appointed the first
consul of Israel in Rio de Janeiro, notes in his autobiography, “In spite of
the fact that it was declared illegal by the Estado Novo in 1937, the Zionist
movement in Brazil and its leaders went on holding meetings to exchange
ideas and continue publicizing and recruiting activities. Meetings did not
go unnoticed by the police force and were actually tolerated.”22 According
to Malamud, despite the 1938 decree, the Brazilian Zionist movement con-
tinued to develop its activities all over the country and, at the same time,
struggled against the anti-Semitism. Put differently, Zionist movements not
only promoted their ideology openly, they confronted prejudice publicly.
Zionist organizations affiliated with Brazilian nongovernmental organi-
zations legitimize themselves exactly in the period when the historiography
has argued that Zionism was banned. Fiszel Czeresnia was an important
Zionist activist in São Paulo who recalls that the 1938 decree led to the
founding of the Centro Hebreu-Brasileiro (Hebrew-Brazilian Center), “an
apparently charitable organization—so much so that in its register it was
stated ‘organization associated and registered at the Brazilian Red Cross’—
but behind the scenes, its activities were political. On the one hand, it raised
funds to help the survivors of the Holocaust; on the other hand it worked for
the Zionist movement.”23 Many Jewish community leaders realized that if
they practiced their politics only within the community, the government was
uninterested in enforcing Decree 383. In 1943 Rio de Janeiro’s Biblioteca
Israelita Haim Nachman Bialik commemorated the twentieth anniversary
of Zionist leader Max Nordau’s death by publicly reading a speech he had
given at the Eighth Zionist Congress. In that same year the Ginásio Hebreu-
Brasileiro, one of the main Jewish schools in Rio de Janeiro, celebrated
Passover by singing both the Brazilian national anthem and the “Hatikva,”
the song that would become the Israeli national anthem, both with govern-
ment permission.
In April of 1944 the Jewish magazine Aonde vamos? published the
image of a Jewish pioneer in Palestine on the front cover with the title
“Consequence of Victory,” expressing openly its support for the Zionist
cause. In June a representative of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem vis-
ited Rio de Janeiro where he was received openly by community leaders. A
donation to the Hebrew University was made through the Banco do Brasil.
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Roney Cytrynowicz
Such official tolerance surely explains the presence of high government
officers, such as Minister Gustavo Capanema, in a March 1945 banquet in
homage to the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann.
Semantic Strategies: Noun or Adjective?

During the Estado Novo, Jewish organizations suffered the same restrictions
as other organizations and were forced to “nationalize” their official names
by taking out “foreign” references and to appoint Brazilian-born directors.24
This nationalization process has not been well studied and little is known
about its concrete historical effects. In the case of Jewish organizations in
São Paulo, this process had little consequence other than a change in the
name, the directors, or the statutes. The organizations adjusted to this pro-
cess with no fear and created strategies without yielding to intimidation.
Some strategies were active and ingenious, particularly because they were
simple and efficient. Yet again we see how Jews, like many other minority
groups, were able to use what appeared to be restrictive laws to strengthen
their ethnic communities and their places within Brazil.
In one case the São Paulo city government refused to grant a real-estate
tax exemption to a Jewish children’s home, saying that the organization
would only look after Jewish children. By simply changing its name from Lar
de Crianças Israelitas (Home for Jewish Children) to Lar Israelita de Crianças
(Jewish Home for Children), the group was able to successfully convince the
city government that the institution was supported by the Jewish minority
but took care of children in general.25 Simply altering the grammatical and
semantic structure resolved a situation that might put the existence of the
organization at risk.
A similar case took place in May 1940 when the Sociedade Beneficente
Linath Hatzedek Policlínica (founded in 1929 as a medical clinic for Jewish
immigrants) changed its name to Sociedade Linath Hatzedek—Auxílio
Santo (Sacred Aid). In fact “Auxílio Santo” was simply a translation into
Portuguese of the Yiddish words “Linath Hatzedek.” A few months later
more legal restrictions demanded that organizational names have “national
resonance.” In February 1941 the group changed its name again, to Policlínica
Auxílio Santo Mantida pela Sociedade Beneficente “Linath Hatzedek”
(Sacred Aid Policlinic Supported by the Charitable Association “Linath
Hatzedek”). A year later Sao Paulo’s director of Social Medical Services
demanded the name change to only Policlínica Auxílio Santo (Sacred Aid
Policlinic), as a condition of tax and fee exemptions. This was done, but
99
the materials printed to promote the organization show the words “Linath
Hatzedek” (now not officially part of the organization’s name) in a bigger
size than “Auxílio Santo,” keeping the original clearly identifiable name.
Jewish institutions did more than play games with their names; they
also changed the language in their statutes so that they could continue along
their traditional paths. For example, in May 1940 the policlinic altered its
membership rules from “consists of an unlimited number of associates,
exclusively Jews” to “consists of associates of any nationality, who profess the
Jewish Religion.” To be a member was changed from “[it is] necessary to be a
Jew, older than 18 years of age” to “older than 18 years of age, of any national-
ity or gender and profess the Jewish Religion.” The changes formally met the
“nationality” requirement but preserved Jewish specificity. A subtle alteration
adjusted to authority without yielding to pressure.26
A different set of strategies was used by the Congregação Israelita
Paulista (CIP), a synagogue founded in 1936 by German-Jewish immi-
grants fleeing Nazism who were later joined by Italian Jews. Refugees were
certainly most vulnerable to the actions of the Estado Novo, and we might
expect to see refugee organizations facing great threats by the state. Indeed,
in 1938 CIP’s eight hundred members were alarmed at new Brazilian laws
aimed at foreign citizens (of which German- and Italian-Jewish refugees in
Brazil with expired tourist visas were a part). While CIP members remem-
ber having to ask the police for authorization to hold meetings, as well as
the presence of authorities at others, there still appears to have been great
confidence that discursive acceptance of Brazil’s nationalist legislation was
all that was necessary to allow the organization to pursue its own ethnic
agenda. For example, in August 1939, three new directors were elected fol-
lowing a state demand for “Brazilian-born” leaders. A letter specified which
three directors would resign and which three members would occupy the
three openings. On the same day, another letter, signed by the president
of the directorate, summoned the board of directors to meet in order to
“co-opt three members with no right to vote.” In other words, the very
same former three directors who had resigned in a previous letter were in
fact now voting through an open façade of Brazilian-born directors. With
the second letter they were formally reintegrated but would not vote (at
least officially) in order to meet the new legislation. In 1942, when further
pressure was brought on the CIP to Brazilianize, the institution created
an entire set of administrative commissions to run the organization on a
day-to-day basis, even while electing “Brazilian-born” directors to comply
publicly with legal obligations.
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Roney Cytrynowicz
Although there are stories of constraints and restrictions, there are no
records of the main German-Jewish organizations interrupting their activi-
ties. The CIP conducted its activities normally during the war years and did
not lose its German-Jewish identity. In March 1945, an editorial in the Aonde
vamos? showed the bold posture of the Jewish community, demanding open
immigration of displaced Jews on the part of the federal government. The
editorial used a clear knowledge of broad Brazilian national identity tropes
in arguing that Brazil had the “most advanced racial democracy on earth, the
only civilized country in the world where blood or color prejudice does not
exist and where a perfect fusion of three races took place and is still taking
place . . . in no country do Jews live in better communion with the natives
than here. There is no trace of anti-Semitism.” Even so, the complaint was
made clearly and openly: “This spiritual disposition of the people is not
reflected by the authorities. Brazil is the only country in the world where
German Jews are equally regarded as any other subject of the Reich.”27
Conclusion
The above examples of how Jewish institutional activities flourished during
a period of discursive xenophobia (which included anti-Semitism) are not
exceptional. They provide evidence that during the Estado Novo and World
War II a varied range of organizations functioned independently and freely
in Brazil. Contrary to a historiography that depicts the Jewish commu-
nity in Brazil exclusively as passive victims, Jews applied several success-
ful strategies to confront the intimidating nationalistic and xenophobic
atmosphere during the Vargas regime. They did so courageously and with
institutional, social, economic, and cultural ebullience and a strong sense
of community.
The history of Jews in Brazil from 1937 to 1945 has been predominantly
interpreted with a bias toward state discourses, which included anti-Semitic
laws and ideology. Historians who focus on anti-Semitism have reinforced
interpretations of victimization because they consider the Estado Novo as
having an ideology close to Fascism and even Nazism. For many in the
Jewish-Brazilian community, memorializing a supposed anti-Semitic past
reinforces an identity that emphasizes victimization rather than “positive”
values. This historical perspective stimulates an identity that focuses on
internal strength against the “danger” of anti-Semitism and assimilation.
Future research needs to examine still further why the community and
some historians continue to obscure the successful story of social, economic,
101
political, and social insertion in favor of a vision of the 1930s and 1940s that
the evidence does not seem to support.
The Estado Novo years were ones of change and identity consolida-
tion as the Jewish communities of Brazil stopped regarding themselves as
immigrant and “foreign” and began to see themselves as Jewish-Brazilian.
The “invention” of a Brazilian-Jewish identity, with a hyphen and the Jewish
element slightly in secondary position, has been constant in the settlement
process of the “Jewish minority.” Such an identity served the project of
insertion and nationalization and was a response to a broad Brazilian soci-
ety intensely discussing its national character within the broad nationalis-
tic and xenophobic framework so common throughout the Americas. As
such, it is a phenomenon that can be observed in numerous other Brazilian
ethnic groups.
Quotidian history cannot be deleted vis-à-vis the obscurantist history
of anti-Semitism found in the Brazilian immigration policies and within
important circles of the ruling elites. This article has demonstrated how
misleading a unilateral view can be. In spite of the xenophobic and national-
ist measures of the 1937–1945 period, diverse groups’ patterns of integration
show a broad process of social, economic, and cultural integration, a pattern
that inserted Jews in general patterns of immigration to Brazil in the nine-
teenth and twentieth centuries.
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Roney Cytrynowicz
Notes
1. Livro de Visitas da Escola Israelita Brasileira Luiz Fleitlich, de 27-7-1937 a
6-10-1969, Fundo Centro Israelita do Cambuci and Escola Religiosa Israelita-
Brasileira do Cambuci, Arquivo Histórico Judaico Brasileiro.
2. The most significant book in this regard is Maria Luiza Tucci Carneiro,
O anti-semitismo na era Vargas: Fantasmas de uma geração (São Paulo:
Brasiliense, 1988). The first author to deal with anti-Semitism during the
Vargas regime is Robert Levine, in the article “Brazil’s Jews during the
Vargas Era and After,” Luso-Brasilian Review 5, no. 1 (June 1968): 45–58.
3. On the contemporary history of Jews in Brazil, especially immigration and
anti-Semitism in the 1930s and 1940s, is Jeffrey Lesser’s Welcoming the
Undesirables: Brazil and the Jewish Question (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1994), published in Brazil as O Brasil e a questão judaica (Rio de
Janeiro: Imago, 1995). Another fundamental work is Jeffrey Lesser, “Pawns
of the Powerful. Jewish Immigration to Brazil, 1904–1945” (PhD diss.,
Department of History, New York University, 1989). A bibliographical synthe-
sis of anti-Semitism in Brazil is Carlos Eduardo Calaça e Marcos Chor Maio,
“Cristãos novos e Judeus: Um balanço da bibliografia sobre o anti-semitismo
no Brasil,” BIB 49, no. 1 (semestre de 2000): 15–50. For a historiographical
discussion see Marcos Chor Maio, “Qual anti-semitismo? Relativizando a
questão judaica no Brasil dos anos 30,” in Repensando o estado novo, organized
by Dulce Pandolfi (Rio de Janeiro: FGV, 1999), 239. A well-supported syn-
thesis of the relations between Jews and the Itamaraty is Avraham Milgram,
“The Jews of Europe from the Perspective of the Brazilian Foreign Service,
1933–1941,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 9, no. 1 (spring 1995): 94–120. On
the church and anti-Semitism, see Graciela Ben-Dror, “The Catholic Elites in
Brazil and Their Attitude toward the Jews, 1933–1939,” Yad Vashem 30 (2002):
229–70.
4. This article owes much to the approach to ethnicity and identity in Manuela
Carneiro da Cunha, Antropologia do Brasil (São Paulo: Brasiliense/Edusp,
1986). Regarding Jewish identity, see Robert Alter, Anjos necessários. Tradição
e modernidade em Kafka, Benjamin e Scholem (Rio de Janeiro: Imago, 1993).
5. Jeffrey Lesser, Negotiating National Identity: Immigrants and the Struggle for
Ethnicity in Brazil (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998).
6. Roney Cytrynowicz, Guerra sem guerra. A mobilização e o cotidiano em São
Paulo durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial (São Paulo: Edusp/Geração Editorial,
2000).
7. About the ideology of the Estado Novo: Alcir Lenharo, Sacralização da política
(Campinas: Papirus, 1986), and Simon Schwartzman, organizer, Estado novo,
um auto-retrato (Arquivo Gustavo Capanema) (Brasília: Editora UnB, 1982).
The most thorough book on Integralismo is Hélgio Trindade, Integralismo,
o fascismo brasileiro na década de 30 (Sãn Paulo: Difel, 1974). On Gustavo
Barroso and Integralist anti-Semitism, see Marcos Chor Maio, Nem Rotschild
nem Trotsky: O pensamento anti-semita de Gustavo Barroso (Rio de Janeiro:
Imago, 1992), Antonio Rago Filho, “A crítica romântica à miséria brasile-
ira: O Integralismo de Gustavo Barroso” (MA thesis, PUC-SP, 1989), and
Roney Cytrynowicz, “Integralismo e anti-semitismo nos textos de Gustavo
103
Barroso na década de 30” (MA thesis, FFLCH-USP, 1992). On Integralism
see Stanley E. Hilton, “Ação integralista brasileira: O fascismo no Brasil,
1932–1938,” in O Brasil e a crise internacional 1930/1945, ed. Stanley Hilton
(Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1977), and Sandra McGee Deutsch,
Las Derechas. The Extreme Right in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, 1890–1939
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999).
8. Ângela Castro Gomes, organizer, Capanema: O ministro e seu ministério
(Rio de Janeiro: Editora FGV, 2000), op. cit., and Dulce Pandolfi, organizer,
Repensando o estado-novo (Rio de Janeiro: Editora FGV, 1999).
9. Simon Schwartzman, organizer, Estado novo: Um auto-retrato (Arquivo
Gustavo Capanema) (Brasília: CPDOC-FGV/Editora de UnB, 1982).
10. Lesser, Welcoming the Undesirables.
11. This episode is analyzed in Avraham Milgram, Os judeus do Vaticano.
A tentativa de salvação de católicos—não-arianos—da Alemanha ao Brasil
através do Vaticano, 1939–1942 (São Paulo: Imago, 1994).
12. Aonde vamos? 4, October 28, 1943, 3.
13. Fundo Sinagoga Israelita da Lapa, Acervo AHJB.
14. Information on the school in Cambuci, the synagogue in Lapa, and the Old
Age Home can be found in the Arquivo Histórico Judaico Brasileiro (AHJB):
Fundo Centro Israelita do Cambuci and Escola Religiosa Israelita-Brasileira
do Cambuci; Fundo Sinagoga Israelita da Lapa; “Relatório e resumo histórico
apresentado e lido no primeiro aniversário do funcionamento do Asilo dos
Velhos em 1 de agosto de 1942.” Archives of the Sociedade Religiosa Israelita
Asilo dos Velhos, Fundo Alfred Hirschberg, Caixa 6. AHJB. On the his-
tory of charitable associations see Roney Cytrynowicz, Unibes 85 anos. Uma
história do trabalho assistencial na comunidade judaica em São Paulo (São Paulo:
Narrativa Um, 2000).
15. Sociedade Cemitério Israelita de São Paulo (SCISP) documents include the
board of directors minutes. See minutes of meeting on 2-1-1945 and 4-2-1945.
Files SCISP and Minutes of the Extraordinary General Assembly dated
1-18-1931. SCISP. The institution stopped elaborating official minutes between
the twentieth of April 1934 and the fourth of September 1940, except for the
twentieth of August 1936. See also Egon and Frieda Wolff, Breve histórico da
sociedade cemitério israelita de São Paulo—65 anos (Rio de Janeiro: Sociedade
Cemitério Israelita de São Paulo, 1989), 26.
16. Aonde vamos? March 11, 1943, 9 and 16; March 25, 1943, 7 and 13; May 6, 1943,
7; March 30, 1944, 9; and December 21, 1944. See also Elias Lipner, Breve
história dos judeus no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Biblos, 1962). On the Associação
dos Israelitas Poloneses, see Fundo Associação dos Israelitas Poloneses de
São Paulo. AHJB.
17. Jeffrey Lesser, “From Antisemitism to Philosemitism: The Manipulation of
Stereotypes in Brazil, 1935–1945,” Patterns of Prejudice 30, no. 4 (1996): 43–45.
18. Angelo Trento, Do outro lado do Atlântico. Um século de imigração italiano no
Brasil (São Paulo: Nobel/Istituto Italiano di Cultura di San Paolo/Institute
Cultural Ítalo-Brasileiro, 1989), 384–85.
19. Documentation on the Colégio Talmud Torá at Documento da Diretoria Geral
do Ensino. Delegacia Geral do Ensino Privado, 12-4-1935; Documento da
104
Roney Cytrynowicz
Directoria do Ensino da Secretaria dos Negócios da Educação e Saúde Pública,
6-5-1936; Licença para Funcionamento. Departamento Estadual de Imprensa
e Propaganda (DEIP) de São Paulo, 12-11-1941; Estatutos da Sociedade
Brasileira de Instrução Religiosa Israelita; Documento do Departamento de
Educação de São Paulo. Registro de Professor Particular de Szejna Liwszyc,
13-4-1942. Archive of the Colégio Talmud Torá/AHJB.
20. Documents on the Escola Luiz Fleitlich: Livro de Visitas da Escola Israelita
Brasileira Luiz Fleitlich, de 27-7-1937 a 6-10-1969. Fundo Escola Luiz Fleitlich/
AHJB.
21. Pedro Vicente Bobbio, ed., Lex. coletânea de legislação. Legislação federal. 1938
(São Paulo: Lex, 1938, Ano II), 119–20.
22. Samuel Malmud, Do arquivo e da memória. Fatos, personagens e reflexões sobre
o sionismo brasileiro e mundial (Rio de Janeiro: Bloch, 1983), 36–37.
23. Fiszel Czeresnia, Uma história para meus netos (São Paulo: Perspectiva, 1998),
81.
24. Regarding Germans in Rio Grande do Sul, see René Gertz, O fascismo no Sul
do Brasil (Porto Alegre: Mercado Aberto, 1987), and Gertz, O perigo alemão
(Porto Alegre: Mercado Aberto, 1991).
25. Minutes of the meetings (Atas de diretoria) held by diretoria Organização
Feminina Israelita de Assistência Social (Ofidas), 12-1-1944/6-12-1944 e
27-2-1945/Archive of the União Brasileiro-Israelita do Bem-Estar Social.
26. Minutes of the meeting (of the diretoria da Sociedade Beneficente Israelita
Linath Hatzedek (Policlínica), 5-1-1943. AHJB.
27. Aonde vamos? April 22, 1943, 17; April 29, 1943, 17; June 15, 1944, 11; and
March 8, 1945, 2.
105
chapter six
The Scene of the Transaction

“Jewishness,” Money, and Prostitution in the Brazilian Imaginary
erin graff zivin
W hile issues of ethnic, economic, and sexual difference have become

central to debates on Latin American culture, within both the social sci-
ences and humanities, little has been written about representations of
“Jewishness” in the Latin American literary and cultural imaginary. Despite
the fact that Jews inhabit every Latin American country—from a small com-
munity in Nicaragua to a significant population in Argentina—they are not
generally considered to make up a substantial presence in literature and
popular culture. Indeed, when I was first beginning my (then, dissertation)
research, interviews with numerous Latin American literary scholars yielded
such answers as, “Are there any Jewish figures in Latin American texts?” or
“Do you mean Jewish writers?” or “That’s not my area of specialization—
why don’t you talk to someone in Jewish studies?” And yet, Jewish charac-
ters and other representations of “Jewishness” can be found in works by
writers as widely read as Jorge Luis Borges, Rubén Darío, Gabriel García
Márquez, and Mario Vargas Llosa.1 Despite this substantial incidence of
Jewish figures in widely circulated cultural products, the phenomenon has
gone largely, curiously unnoticed.2 This paradox of simultaneous invisibil-
ity and prevalence merits further investigation: what is it about the notion
106
of “Jewishness” that lends itself to such diverse texts, written in dramatically
different historical, intellectual, and political moments, and why has such a
dynamic been overlooked?
The tendency among these prominent (and extremely well-read, I might
add) intellectuals to refer me “elsewhere” is fascinating because it reveals
the extent to which anything “Jewish” is thought to pertain to somewhere else:
another country, another neighborhood, another academic discipline. I think
that this has to do with the dynamic described by Jeffrey Lesser and Raanan
Rein in chapter 2 of this volume as the “closed community approach,” which
is based on the assumption that “Jews lived unconnected to general society.”
If Jews have nothing to do with mainstream culture in their respective coun-
tries, what would they possibly be doing in canonical works authored mainly
by non-Jews? Fortunately, several “Jewish studies” scholars to whom I was
referred—whose research, in fact, is not restricted to Jewish topics at all but
rather treats broader themes of race and ethnicity, slavery and citizenship,
political militancy, journalism, and censorship—were able to help.3
This study, then, joins the others in this collection in its attempt to move
beyond conventional approaches to “Jews” and “Jewishness” in Latin Amer
ican culture. By exploring the rhetorical linking of “Jewishness,” money,
and prostitution in early twentieth-century Brazilian culture, I propose an
analysis of the Jewish presence in Brazil that parts with past research in the
field of Latin American Jewish studies, which remains focused on isolat-
ing and clarifying Jewish-Latin American identity.4 To be sure, there are a
small number of literature studies that detail the ways in which the idea of
the “Jew” is imagined. Doris Sommer, for example, explores the way that
inassimilable “Jewishness” stands for racial ambivalence in postabolition
Colombia in Jorge Isaacs’s famous novel María, while Josefina Ludmer
undertakes a broader analysis of “Jews” in turn-of-the-century Argentine lit-
erature in a chapter of her recent book, The Corpus Delicti.5 Evelyn Fishburn
and Edna Aizenberg, moreover, have produced interesting work that consid-
ers representations of “Jews” and Jewish themes in Borges.6 In the field of
history, Jeffrey Lesser highlights the constructed nature of Jewish-Brazilian
ethnic identity, both by Jewish-Brazilians as well as their non-Jewish coun-
terparts.7 Yet, the majority of research in the area of Latin American Jewish
studies has as its goal the delineation of a Jewish-Latin American identity
that—even when it allows for the possibility of hybridity—tends to overlook
the invented or constructed nature of what we call “Jewishness.”
The “closed community approach” certainly accounts for part of the
problem, yet I would like to maintain that even those who take into account
107
the possibility of a “hybrid” identity can run the risk of essentializing “Jew
ishness.” Saúl Sosnowski, for example, opens a recent essay on Jewish iden-
tity in Argentina with the commonly overheard question from Jewish schools
in Argentina in the 1950s: “If there were a war between Argentina and Israel,
for which side would you fight?”8 Despite the fact that Sosnowski criticizes
this question for ignoring the possibility that Jewish-Argentines might have
double loyalties (he rightly argues for a defense of the “hyphen” in an earlier
essay),9 I find the retention of the military metaphor for identity highly sig-
nificant. It reveals not only a dependence on nationalistic definitions of iden-
tity even when we would like to subvert them, but also that the very attempt
to define a singular Jewish-Latin American identity is riddled with prob-
lems. Sosnowski continues his discussion by citing Alberto Gerchunoff’s
Jewish gaucho as an example of a hybrid identity that synthesizes Jewish
and Argentine qualities, without problematizing the equally essentialist idea
of hybridity, disregarding the fact that any Jewish figure in literature is just
that: a figurative “Jew.”
The common conflation of the categories of figurative and historical
“Jewishness”—the idea that written representations of “Jewishness” reflect
some kind of positive essence—is not only based on the assumption that
language is transparent, it relies on a fixed notion of Jewish identity and
experience, a problematic concept at best, even when designated as mul-
tiple or hybrid. I would therefore like to explore the phenomenon of “Jew”
as metaphor, carefully examining the ways in which ideas of “Jewishness”
are imagined and used rhetorically in order to address preoccupations with
issues such as nationality, modernity, capitalism, foreignness, and sexual-
ity: issues critical to the elaboration of urban and national identities in early
twentieth-century Brazilian society. I will focus on two cultural products that
reside at the limits of what we could call “literature”—“Quem dá mais?”10 a
1930 samba composed by Noel Rosa, and Madame Pommery,11 a 1920 chron-
icle written by Hilário Tácito—in order to explore the symbolic power of the
“Jew” within the Brazilian imaginary. Specifically, I will analyze the pres-
ence of “Jewishness” within what I term the scene of the transaction, an ideo-
logically charged, libidinally invested space in which everything—money,
sex, identity—is subject to financial or cultural negotiation. By engaging
with the rhetorical uses of “Jewishness” in Brazilian cultural production, I
hope to signal the powerful presence of a community that, while small in
number, nevertheless pervades the general cultural imaginary. The implica-
tions are thus dual: recognizing the figurative power of the “Jew” allows us
to analyze what “Jewishness” means for non-Jews in Latin America, and it
108
Erin Graff Zivin
gives us a broader understanding of the images “real” Jews face in construct-
ing their own identities.
Within the scene of the transaction, “Jewishness,” money, and prosti-
tution are discursively linked as part of projects of imagining the self, the
nation, and modernity. By considering the juxtaposition of three concepts
with such fertile symbolic presence—both in Europe and the Americas—I
attempt to address the following issues: What kinds of social anxieties are
addressed through metaphors of “Jewishness,” money, and prostitution?
What role do the concepts of value and promiscuity play within textual
attempts to fashion individual and national subjects? How are problems of
globalization, modernity, subjectivity, and difference played out through the
rhetorical linking of the “Jew,” money, and the prostitute? These questions
are vital to the elaboration of a contextualized Latin American Jewish stud-
ies, that is, an area of inquiry that sees Jewish identity as part of a broader,
multiethnic dynamic of imagining subjectivity and nationhood.
Of course, the intersection of these three overdetermined concepts does
not originate with Rosa’s samba nor with Tácito’s chronicle. In nineteenth-
century Europe and turn-of-the-century Latin America, cities in the process of
modernization and industrialization become influenced and populated by cap-
italism and prostitution on a social, economic, and rhetorical level. The “trans-
action” emerges as the preferred mode of social interaction, and the “Jew”
becomes a convenient figure through which these political, financial, and cul-
tural shifts can be debated. Yet the discursive linking of “Jewishness,” money,
and prostitution is not a new phenomenon. The relationship between these
three elements within the European cultural imaginary dates back to medieval
Christian society, and the philosophy of Italian philosopher and theologian
Saint Thomas Aquinas.12 The canonical prohibition of interest taking—which
limited the profession of money lending to Jews—was deduced from money’s
status as an object. Since money was not alive, reasoned Aquinas, it should
not be able to reproduce. Thus, the taking of interest by Jews was understood
by Christian society as the reproduction or sexualization of money:
Jews, in taking money, treated money as if it were alive, as if it were

a sexualized object. The Jew takes money as does the prostitute, as
a substitute for higher values, for love and beauty. . . . But the image
of the Jew as prostitute is not merely one that draws an economic
parallel between the sexuality of the Jew and that of the prostitute. It
also reveals the nature of the sexuality of both Jew and prostitute as
diseased, as polluting.13
109
The association between “Jews” and money is not a neutral judgment; rather,
the relationship is construed as a perverse one, in which money is distorted
from its true function. In the same way, the prostitute contaminates ideals
of spiritual love, femininity, the family, the nation. Thus, both “Jew” and
prostitute actively participate in the commodification of sex and the sexual-
ization of money.
The triad “Jewishness”-money-prostitution has also been linked to a dis-
course surrounding disease in the Western imaginary. Within the violently
anti-Semitic ideological apparatus of Nazi Germany, Jews, prostitutes, and
money were linked to the spread of syphilis in Germany: “Jews were the
arch-pimps; Jews ran the brothels; but Jews also infected their prostitutes
and caused the weakening of the German national fiber.”14 Yet while the
radical implications of such discursive associations can be located within
Nazi rhetoric, less Fascist versions of this phenomenon continuously resur-
face throughout the Western imaginary.
Narratives of “Jewishness” are narratives of difference, of immigration,
exile, travel, and, in many cases, of negotiation. Thus it is no coincidence that
many literary texts and other cultural products utilize figures of “Jewishness”
within scenes of transactions. These scenes, in which everything can be
negotiated—value, identity, alterity—establish an economy of difference.
Here, alterity is simultaneously invented and evaluated using metaphors
of exchange. The “Jewish transactions” that appear in these texts often go
beyond hackneyed stereotypes of Jews being “wealthy,” “cheap,” “bankers,”
or “moneylenders,” though they depend on these recycled ideas for verisi-
militude, strength, success. The scene of the transaction is “successful”—
convincing—on a rhetorical level because metaphors of “Jewishness,”
money, and prostitution function well together; a long historical trajectory of
associations between these symbolic elements compounds and is reaffirmed
with every new invention. They work well together because each motif—
“Jewishness,” money, and prostitution—represents that which travels from
country to country, body to body, contaminating all involved and threatening
to destroy that which would keep these systems discrete.
In addition to existing on the limits of body, family, and nation, “Jew
ishness,” money, and prostitution traditionally reside on the margins of the
law. Of course, prostitution has historically vacillated between the realms of
the legal and the illegal, and even during periods of legalized prostitution,
we find strict regulations governing the trade. Historian Donna Guy writes
that “like many other nineteenth-century cities in the throes of modern-
ization and industrialization, Buenos Aires legalized prostitution to isolate
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Erin Graff Zivin
and, it hoped, control the social and medical consequences of commercial
sex.”15 In Paris, an 1830 police edict prohibited prostitution in the arcades,
limiting it to licensed brothels.16 By controlling prostitution in this way,
the power to legitimize is reserved for the state, while the prostitutes and
their clients remain on the border between legality and illegality. Financial
transactions, too, offer an inherent possibility of transgression, and Jewish
transactions in particular bear traces of suspicion, originating perhaps in
the practice of usury condemned by the church and thus relegated to the
margins of morality.
What, then, does this margin between legal and illegal signify? Argentine
critic Josefina Ludmer details the importance of the “crime” in her book The
Corpus Delicti, in which she argues that the crime represents a powerful, oft-
used motif in literature due to its ability to distinguish “culture” from “non-
culture”: “From the very beginning of literature, crime appears as one of the
instruments most utilized to define and found a culture: to separate it from
nonculture and to mark what culture excludes.”17 The power of differentia-
tion referred to by Ludmer is relevant to our discussion of Rosa’s samba and
Tácito’s chronicle. Yet in some texts, “Jewishness,” prostitution, and money
are used not simply to separate culture and nonculture—same and other—
but to address the tension inherent in the space in between these spheres.
What is the site of the in-between? Where does the in-between take
place? In his writings on the Parisian arcades, Jewish-German philoso-
pher and literary and cultural critic Walter Benjamin proposes the passagen
(arcades) together with the bordello and casino as sites of transaction, sit-
uated “within as well as outside the marketplace, between the worlds of
money and magic.”18 Within these passagen, these spaces of passage from
one realm to the other, these thresholds, can be found the figures privi-
leged by Benjamin: the prostitute, the gambler, the flaneur,19 the collector.
In modern life, he argues, “we have grown very poor in threshold experi-
ences,” with the possible exceptions of falling asleep and waking up.20 The
threshold, a half-dreamlike state between two levels of consciousness, is
distinct from the concept of a border in that it designates a zone, rather than
a line. While he mourns the loss of such spaces within urban modernity, he
maintains that prostitutes (and, by extension, gamblers)21 “love the thresh-
olds of these gates of dream.”22
By establishing a correlation between financial and sexual impropriety
(though he does not link it to “Jews” or “Jewishness”), Benjamin outlines
the theoretical framework necessary to see thresholds within modernity.
Perhaps Benjamin has mourned too early, then, for it is precisely in these
111
liminal spaces that the “Jew” resides: if not in reality, then in its figurative
representation. While modern life may not be characterized by the thresh-
old experience that Benjamin describes, we nevertheless find echoes of the
threshold in the margins of modernity. The idea of the in-between gains
further significance when we are discussing cultural products from Latin
America, where the idea of modernity has been characterized as unequal,
incomplete, and even impossible.23 Within this context we can begin to
discuss the rhetorical use of “Jewishness,” prostitution, and money as part
of larger debates surrounding national identity and modernization in the
Brazilian cultural imaginary.
“Quem dá mais?” Brasilidade for Sale
À vendre ce que les Juifs n’ont pas vendu.

—Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell and Illuminations
If we are to follow Josefina Ludmer’s theory of “the ‘story’ of ‘the Jews’”

in Argentine narrative, we see that the association between money and
“Jewishness” does not only have to do with stereotypes about Jewish mon-
eylenders, but also with the symbolic function of both “Jews” and money.
By linking the idea of “the ‘story’ of ‘the Jews’” with the “economic story,”
Ludmer demonstrates the way in which the signifier “Jew” joins the signi-
fier “money” to create an exponential form of representation:
“The Jews” are always the representatives of money, and the narrative
that includes them is an economic narrative: banks, stock exchanges,
and gold. “The Jews” are the sign of the money sign: a sort of repre-
sentation squared. Or better yet, “the Jews” are the representatives
of money, which is itself an apparatus of representation. For money is
a symbolic substance, a pure abstraction that reduces everything to
a common denominator; it is at once material and immaterial, it is
mental but it is also a mental “thing,” it is a mediator of social rela-
tions, and it represents social interaction. Money creates “reality”
and reduces everything to merchandise; everything can be bought,
everything has its price, above all that which is priceless.24
While I would take issue with Ludmer’s insistence that “Jews” are always
representative of money, I believe it is worthwhile to consider her explanation
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Erin Graff Zivin
of the symbolic relationship between “Jews” and money. The “story”—which
Ludmer defines loosely as “a moment, a scene in a story or a novel, a quote,
a dialogue, but also a long ‘history’ encompassing many novels”—that
includes “Jews” is not always an economic tale, as Ludmer would have it.25
Yet, despite this generalization, I agree with the idea that “Jews” and money
both function as symbols, as representatives of broader ideas, as abstrac-
tions. While I would question the causality of this relationship—do “Jews”
represent money or does money represent “Jews”?—I would affirm that we
are dealing primarily with a question of representation and that both “Jews”
and money serve as mediating forces in social relations.
The linking of “Jews” and money in a complex web of signification can
be seen in “Quem dá mais?” a samba written in 1930 and recorded in 1932
by one of Brazil’s leading sambistas, Noel Rosa. By situating the “Jew” within
the scene of the auction, Rosa utilizes “Jewishness” as part of a broader
attempt to imagine a heterogenous Brazilian identity. “Quem dá mais?”—
as well as Rosa’s short-lived but prolific career as sambista—appears during
a moment in Brazilian history in which samba was, to use the words of
Brazilian anthropologist Hermano Vianna, “invented” and converted into
a symbol of Brazilian national identity. This is a curious point in time and
space, a moment of encounter—between “white” and “black,” elite and pop-
ular, center and margin—in which a musical tradition (already the result of a
series of encounters between different sectors of society) began to be widely
consumed by dominant classes. What is perhaps most fascinating about this
encounter—transculturative to be sure—is the way in which samba (now
considered the prototypical Brazilian musical genre) not only became widely
listened to, thanks in part to its diffusion by a rapidly exploding radio indus-
try, but the way that it came to signify Brazil’s national essence. Indeed, at
the same time that Brazilian sociologist and anthropologist Gilberto Freyre
was writing about race mixing (mestiçagem) as the defining characteristic of
Brazilian culture, Brazilianness (brasilidade) was being actively invented by
intellectuals, politicians, and artists.
What role would the notion of foreignness play in the constitution of
an authentic national subject? To what extent was the presence of the for-
eign necessary to realize this project? During a time in which the division
between “black” and “white” was being blurred in order to imagine a col-
lective autochthonous subjectivity, who would mark the limit between self
and other? By analyzing “Quem dá mais?” in which typically Brazilian arti-
facts—a mulata,26 a guitar, and a samba—are sold to foreign buyers at an
auction, I hope to begin to address these questions. While my argument
113
will draw upon historian Bryan McCann’s contention that for Rosa, for-
eigners pose a threat to the culturally rich world of samba by selling out the
Brazilian soul, I will suggest that a more ambivalent, paradoxical relation-
ship between foreignness and Brazilianness is imagined through the figure
of the “Jew.”
“Quem dá mais?” portrays “Jewishness” as that which threatens to destroy
the nation through suspect financial dealings. Composed not long after nation-
alist Getúlio Vargas’s rise to power as a result of the revolution of 1930, Rosa’s
samba emerges as nationalism is on the rise and as an increasing number
of Jewish immigrants arrives in Brazil.27 While the fictional horizon of the
lyrics is not unrelated to the presence of “real” Jews in the country, I would
like to focus on how the idea of “Jewishness” serves a rhetorical function
in the invention of brasilidade. Rosa’s samba, as I have mentioned, depicts
a fictional auction, in which Brazilian cultural artifacts are sold off one by
one to willing buyers. The scene of the auction is unique in that value is not
predetermined by the seller, but rather is negotiated between the auctioneer
and potential buyers. Likewise, the notion of Brazilianness is undetermined,
open, ready for definition by both native and foreign actors. As each article is
called out by the auctioneer, as each potential buyer is addressed, brasilidade
is offered as a sacrifice and, paradoxically, constituted through the very threat
of its loss.
The first item for sale is a mulata, a stereotypical figure at once con
noting Brazilian sensuality and racial hybridity. In Brazil, the rise in popu-
larity of the samba in the 1930s coincides with a growing acceptance—and
romanticization—of Afro-Brazilian culture by the whiter elites. As Vianna
demonstrates, samba serves as one of the key tools in the “invention of
Brazil’s national essence” as specifically Afro-Brazilian.28 That she is a
mulata, in particular, represents an erotic yet safe solution to the problem
of race: her whiteness promises assimilation into the dominant classes, her
blackness stimulates in the whiter consumer the desire for that which is
other, while her gender assures a lack of political agency. North American
and Caribbean literary scholar Vera Kutzinski, whose work traces the power
dynamics at play within discourse on race mixing in Cuba, explains that
the mulata “is a symbolic container for all the tricky questions about how
race, gender, and sexuality inflect the power relations . . . in colonial and
postcolonial Cuba.”29 That the mulata should appear at the auction, a site
of economic and cultural negotiation, is therefore unsurprising. In Rosa’s
lyrics, she is described by the auctioneer as a “beautiful lady, flirtatious,
vain, and very false,”30 at once inspiring attraction and suspicion. She is
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Erin Graff Zivin
finally sold to Vasco da Gama, a popular Brazilian football club named after
the Portuguese explorer that was “founded by and strongly associated with
Portuguese immigrants.”31 The club purchases her as a gift for their star
player, Russinho (literally, “the little Russian”),32 in place of a car: “Vasco
pays the lot . . . / and instead of a car / offers Russinho a mulata.”33 From
the outset, there is a complex dynamic at play between the national and the
foreign. On the one hand, the song implies that brasilidade—through the
figure of the mulata—is sold, or sold out, to Vasco to be given to Russinho,
both of whose names connote foreignness. Yet each agent in the transaction
participates in a complicit relationship, and in the end any attempt on the
part of the lyrical subject to rhetorically separate self and other is thwarted,
because the mulata remains within the space of the national: soccer, after
all, rivals samba as the ultimate emblem of Brazilianness.
The second item up for auction is a guitar, a symbol of Brazil’s rich musi-
cal tradition. Like Brazil itself, this instrument possesses colonial roots: “It
belonged to Dom Pedro, it lived in the palace / It was put in a pawnshop by
José Bonifácio.”34 That the guitar was placed in a pawnshop by Bonifácio—an
intellectual who as the counselor for Dom Pedro I (the first emperor of Brazil)
participated in the fight for Brazil’s independence—establishes an inextri-
cable link with Brazil’s status as an autonomous nation. Yet by recalling
Bonifácio’s act, the samba seems to suggest a betrayal at the heart of Brazil’s
existence; even the moment of independence is marked by the selling or sell-
ing out of a precious national commodity. The guitar, which is characterized
as an incomplete object—“it’s missing an arm, base, and stand”35—signifies
an inherent imperfection, or lack, at the center of brasilidade. This authentic
yet flawed artifact is bought by a Jew, who threatens Brazilian authenticity
not only through his foreignness, but also because he complicates the very
idea of national identity by not belonging to any nation.
The final item for sale is a samba: a metalyrical reference that reveals
one of the song’s principal objectives: to announce its own centrality within
the landscape of Brazilian culture. By juxtaposing the samba with the
mulata and guitar, Rosa performatively establishes its status as an emblem
of brasilidade. Like the two other items for sale, the samba is a vulnerable,
incomplete object: it has only a refrain and is missing the introduction and
second part. Yet while the mulata and guitar are both purchased, there is no
reply to the auctioneer’s offer of the samba, which could be interpreted in a
number of ways. It is not that there is no buyer, but rather that the lyrics trail
off before the sale can be completed, designating the samba as an open text
whose meaning is only fully determined through its reception. Moreover, it
115
is as if the listener of Rosa’s song were to function as a potential buyer, who
does not answer, but is nevertheless implicated in the selling out of Brazil
simply by consuming one of its products. An alternative reading might
be that Rosa proposes the samba as that which cannot be sold, an object
that refuses to be converted into a commodity, that transcends the market
and the value assigned to items within the scene of the transaction. While
“Quem dá mais?” ends before the price of the samba can be determined,
the lyrical subject’s objective has been fulfilled: he has warned the Brazilian
public about the threat to their national patrimony.
The auction thus stands for that which disrupts a stable—albeit hybrid—
national subject. One by one, various figures of Brazilianness—a mulata,
a guitar, and a samba—are put on the auction block, awaiting the high-
est bidder. Yet I would like to propose, perhaps counterintuitively, that the
announcement of the loss of Brazilianness actually serves to reify the very
possibility of its existence. The mulata, the guitar, and the samba are ste-
reotypes that, one could argue, surface especially during times of crisis.
That is, the overdetermined items on the auction block are infused with
the responsibility to represent the nation precisely at the moment that it is
endangered; the condition of possibility of brasilidade is the very threat of
its destruction.
The figure of the “Jew” is important, because while he is not the only
one to purchase a relic of Brazil’s uniqueness, he is the one who, according
to the lyrical subject, will probably resell his lot to a museum for a profit:
“The one who picks up the lot is a Jew / . . . who’ll sell it for double to a
museum.”36 Not only is the Jewish figure depicted as the most cunning,
indeed the most entrepreneurial of the buyers, through this hypothetical
transaction with the museum, he extracts a supplementary value from the
national artifact. In a sense, he profits from this deal in a manner analogous
to the auctioneer; by becoming the salesman, he participates in the sell-
ing (or the selling out) of Brazil. At the same time, one could argue that by
returning the guitar to a museum, the Jewish buyer is restoring this symbol
of Brazilianness to its rightful owner: the Brazilian people. In this sense,
Rosa constructs the “Jew” in a more ambivalent manner than is understood
by McCann; in a perverse way, Rosa’s “Jew” could be understood as a pro-
ductive figure for the nation.
Thus the “Jew” possesses contrasting qualities, fulfilling multiple func-
tions at once. As both buyer and seller, he is not only a flexible figure; he
becomes, more specifically, a middleman, which recalls Benjamin’s idea of
the threshold. The middleman possesses an intermediate status that, while
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Erin Graff Zivin
destroying the possibility of Brazilianness (both by selling it out and because
the very idea of a middleman interrupts the categories it straddles), could
on another level offer a distinct mode of defining national identity. The fact
that the auctioneer, the one who has sold Brazil to foreigners, is himself
Brazilian—“How much will the auctioneer earn / He’s also Brazilian / and
in three lots he sells all of Brazil”37—suggests that what is really being talked
about here is the question of Brazilian subjectivity itself. The middleman
signals a struggle in Brazilian culture to articulate a concept of identity that
incorporates heterogeneity, a notion that Gilberto Freyre termed hybrid-
ity in the 1930s, and which Brazilian novelist and cultural critic Silviano
Santiago would call “the space in-between” decades later.38
Or maybe the subject in question is the sambista himself, who, as Vianna
tells us, acts as a mediating force between different sectors of society: “the
samba composers of the 1920s and 1930s . . . connect the elite and middle
class to the world of popular street festivals like carnival.”39 Noel Rosa, as
one of the first white samba composers, takes his role as middleman to
a new level. He embarks upon ethnographic-like research visits to fave-
las in order to learn as much as possible about the popular classes whose
music he appropriates and sells to middle- and upper-class Brazilians. His
task, to a certain degree, resembles that of the auctioneer’s: selling “authen-
tic” (read: popular, mixed-race) cultural artifacts to willing buyers. At the
same time the sambista aids in the construction of an autochthonous cul-
tural product, paralleling the Jewish buyer’s conservation of the Brazilian
guitar in a museum. Both “Jew” and sambista, indirectly work to preserve
Brazilian music for the nation.
In this way, then, I both agree and disagree with McCann’s argument
that Rosa “perceived Brazilianness as an endangered quality, threatened
by the encroachments of foreigners and squandered by bad Brazilians.” 40
I see in Rosa’s samba a slightly more nuanced vision of national identity
politics, an aporia of sorts in which brasilidade is simultaneously threat-
ened and made possible through perverse transactions between foreign-
ers and natives. While Rosa unquestionably blames both the “Jew” and the
Brazilian auctioneer for the buying and selling of the nation, the hidden
actor within this scene is the sambista himself, a transcultural subject who,
through his lyrics and musical production, asserts his own role at the same
time that he announces the loss of brasilidade. By simultaneously appropri-
ating and popularizing samba, Rosa himself participates in the buying and
selling of Brazil, establishing a locus of enunciation for the lyrical subject of
samba, while revealing a double bind at the heart of the Brazilian subject.
117
Signifying Promiscuity in Madame Pommery
Promiscuous: adj.
1. consisting of different elements mixed together or mingled without
discrimination
2. characterized by a lack of discrimination; specif., engaging in sexual
intercourse indiscriminately or with many persons
—Webster’s Dictionary
Jews trafficked in their own daughters until Moses prohibited this

custom.
—Cesare Lombroso,
Criminal Woman, the Prostitute, and the Normal Woman
Unlike the invention of money, and the ambivalent value constructed in

relation to it, prostitution almost always represents a marginal aspect of
society, an activity confined to subaltern spaces, which, even when ram-
pant, is often hidden, denied, or repressed. Although both reside on the
border of legality and illegality, morality and immorality—as I have sug-
gested—prostitution remains the more charged of the two categories.
While prostitution and prostitutes are less often imbued with positive value
by mainstream society, they are nevertheless inscribed with the ideolog
ical, sexual, and moral preoccupations of this society. For this reason, the
literary representation of prostitution engages a sphere whose meaning is
already overdetermined, casting a positive, negative, or ambivalent light on
the commodification of sex.
While my reading of Madame Pommery will address the intersection
of “Jewishness” with prostitution, it will also treat the broader issue of
“promiscuity”—a notion that, while generally used in reference to loose
women, alludes to an entire field of behavior that falls outside of the realm
of morality (while, of course, sustaining the very morality it is thought to
destroy). Yet, as the first epigraph to this section indicates, promiscuity
is not simply a slackening of sexual mores, but rather a broader corrup-
tion of borders, of the very limits that are established as part of attempts
to construct the nation. There is a problematic of “visibility” at work here,
an exhibition and an exhibitionism of alterity. If, as literary scholar Sylvia
Molloy suggests in her essay on the politics of posing, “countries are read
like bodies” and “bodies, in turn, are read (and are offered up for reading) as
cultural statements,” then the literary representation of a promiscuous body
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Erin Graff Zivin
would seem to denote a corruption of the distinction between the public
and the private, between the same and the other.41
Taken in this broader context, promiscuity would serve as a character-
istic associated with prostitutes—unsurprisingly—but also, perhaps less
predictably, with “Jewishness.” Like promiscuity, “Jewishness” as a con-
structed concept represents that which does not remain restricted to desig-
nated categories. Both ideas allude to a sort of transgression of boundaries,
whether literal or figurative, whether sexual, religious, cultural, or national.
Promiscuous “Jewishness” would be that element of difference that, instead
of remaining relegated to its own discrete/discreet realm, bleeds into the
public space, the site of the collective or the national.
In his work on the turn-of-the-century Spanish-American modernista
chronicle, literary and cultural critic Julio Ramos remarks upon the treatment
of the prostitute, which he describes as embodying the dangerousness of the
modern city within the broader cultural imaginary. Early twentieth-century
chroniclers, among them Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío and Guatemalan
novelist Enrique Gómez Carillo, go out to the street in order to register this
newfound urban promiscuity. Ramos affirms a connection between the
chronicler and the prostitute, both representative of a mercantilization of
the private, the interior, the sexual, the aesthetic. In the chronicle, he sug-
gests, there is a constant slippage between the idea of prostitution and the
mercantilization of art, which “forces us to at once suspect the chronicler’s
introjection of the prostitute’s condition into his own practice. For is not the
chronicle precisely an incorporation of art into the market, into the emer-
gent culture industry? And was not mercantilization, following the idealism
professed by many modernists, a form of prostitution?”42 But if Ramos’s
analysis focuses on the dangerousness of the prostitute—and, by extension,
of the modern city—it is because he wishes to emphasize the socioeconomic
character of both, that is, their working-class status. What happens, then,
when that which is represented in the chronicle is so-called luxury prostitu-
tion, when the action is situated within the bordello and not on the streets,
when the prostitute is Jewish, and when the very genre of the chronicle
appears unstable?43 In Madame Pommery, a satirical chronicle-novel from
1919, we see a dynamic similar to the one that Ramos details, but in an
altered context.
Written on the eve of São Paulo’s Semana de Arte Moderna and the inau-
guration of Brazilian modernism (avant-garde) in 1922, Madame Pommery
marks the limits of Brazilian premodernism, the parallel of Spanish-
American modernism.44 The author, José Maria Toledo Malta, publishes the
119
text in the intellectual periodical Revista do Brasil in 1920 under the pseud-
onym Hilário Tácito. This fictitious name reveals a simultaneous attempt to
parody (the hilarious) and to document (after the Latin historian Tacitus).45
(Of course, the notion of the “tacit” also alludes to that which does not require
verbal communication, that which is beyond or before language.) The text,
which bears characteristics of the novel and, at the same time, is defined
as a “very truthful chronicle”46 by the author himself, plays on the border
between poetic and scientific discourses, fiction and biography, premodern-
ism and modernism, realism and parody, public and private, in addition
to complicating notions of class, nation, and modernity. I propose that the
figure of the Jewish prostitute is what allows for the creation of a flexible
space within which it is possible to negotiate the fixity of these concepts.
In the preface to the fifth edition of the text, published in 1997 by the
Brazilian cultural institution Fundação Casa de Rui Barbosa,47 Francisco
Foot Hardman, a historian who studies ideas of progress in Brazil, describes
the story of Madame Pommery as “a history of the progress of São Paulo.”48
The first decades of the twentieth century represent a moment of transition
for São Paulo, which was experiencing a rapid urbanization and industrial-
ization at the time. The prostitute in general played a central role within the
city in the process of modernization, on both empirical and symbolic levels.
Historically, prostitution grew in popularity as the white slave trade brought
poor European women—many of them Jewish—to Latin America (specifi-
cally to Buenos Aires and the Brazilian cities of Rio de Janeiro and Porto
Alegre) under the pretense that they would marry men who later turned out
to work for the mafias (such as the infamous criminal gang Zwi Migdal).49
While Madame Pommery’s history follows a different trajectory, in which a
prostitute comes to America alone and becomes her own boss, the connec-
tion between prostitution and “Jewishness” was already well established in
the urban Latin American imaginary at the time of the chronicle’s publica-
tion. Further, these elements were linked to money, because both the “Jew”
and the prostitute were perceived as elements of a foreign, capitalist moder-
nity. Josefina Ludmer illustrates the paranoia that surfaced in response to
the presence of these elements in turn of the century Argentina: “‘Jews’
as usurers, simulators, madmen, effeminate men, who sexualize money
and power (and who are linked to prostitution) hide in the shadows, in the
caves, and from there they carry out a clandestine invasion of society, a con-
spiracy against ‘the nation.’”50 As I have suggested, the connection between
“Jewishness” and promiscuity works on a rhetorical level because of the
flexibility of both concepts—both destabilize boundaries between bodies,
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Erin Graff Zivin
nations, subjects, and families, threatening the existence of these systems.
We should ask, then, how this relationship is appropriated in Tácito’s text
and to what rhetorical ends.
The narrator—also named Hilário Tácito—admits that Madame Pom
mery possesses a metaphorical weight, while simultaneously defending the
text as “truthful.” He addresses the issue of the protagonist’s historicity,
anticipating possible criticism by the reader:
Does Madame Pommery exist, in flesh and blood? Behold the insidi-
ous question that, if I don’t take care to answer preemptively, would
be capable of turning posterity into a crass and fundamental error.
Madame Pommery would risk being reduced to a mere symbol, and
my true story to a simple fiction; and possibly less. . . . Madame
Pommery is a symbol, if you wish; I can’t hide that. But, for the
love of truth, eternal and intangible, let this point be heard:—that
Madame Pommery lives and breathes, as alive and real as I, who
writes, and the reader, who reads me, but with a great deal more
appetite and stamina.51
Although he insists on the protagonist’s historicity, the narrator cannot deny

the rhetorical value of Madame Pommery. His exaggerated defense of the
“eternal and intangible” truth exposes a tension in the text between real-
ity and fiction, whether in reference to the literary genre or to the protago-
nist herself. He exploits this tension in order to create a new authority that
challenges premodernist discourse and anticipates the literary heterogene-
ity of the modernists.52 Yet, what meaning can we extract from the fact that
Madame Pommery is Jewish? Does “Jewishness” merely represent one more
characteristic on a list of marginal qualities, or does it function as a discur-
sive force that interrupts a premodernist homogeneity?
Far from being a one-dimensional caricature of marginality, Madame
Pommery incorporates elements of contradiction and ambivalence. The
daughter of Ivã Pomerikowsky, a Polish-Jew, and Consuelo Sánchez, a
Spanish nun who fled the convent to be with her Jewish lover, Ida Pomer
ikowsky embodies an ironic hybridity.53 The narrator tells us that Consuelo
left Ivã and their three-year-old daughter in order to run away with a new
lover, a bullfighter from Barcelona, and that for this reason, Ida inherited
few characteristics from the ex-nun. From her father, on the other hand,
she inherited a crooked nose and a taste for finance, both stereotypically
Jewish traits. Her financial talent helps her as a prostitute, the narrator tells
121
us: she demonstrates the ability to “negotiate kisses.”54 While wandering
through European cities as an itinerant prostitute, she changes her last name
to Pommery, the reason for which is unknown, according to the narrator,
though he suggests that the French brand of champagne has something to
do with it: “It was natural that she would adopt it, considering the advan-
tages of brevity and of allusion.”55 Her nontraditional genealogy, together
with her peregrinations and her self-invention as a Frenchified lady, consti-
tute Madame Pommery as a malleable, translatable figure. By codifying her
in this way, Tácito privileges the act of assimilation, which is realized in the
text on the level of form as well as content.
At the age of thirty-five, after a period in Marseilles, Madame Pommery
travels to Brazil on the Bonne Chance with the desire to “do” America.56
After a difficult start in São Paulo, the wandering Jew-turned-prostitute
opens a bordello (under the guise of a boarding house) called the Paradis
Retrouvé, establishing herself as a property owner and, in this way, enter-
ing the São Paulo bourgeoisie.57 The existence of the bordello differentiates
this text from the chronicles cited by Ramos, in which we witness a public
promiscuity, a promiscuity of the streets. Here, in contrast, we find a site
that is private, closed, controlled. The bordello, then, represents a privileged
space: Madame Pommery specializes in “high prostitution” and attracts an
upper-class clientele. Among the residents of the Paradis Retrouvé are Leda
Roskoff, a blonde Slav, the Italian Coralina, and Isolda Bogary, a French
woman whose name combines with the protagonist’s to remind the reader
of Madame Bovary.58 The international character of the bordello—headed
by Pommery, a Frenchified Spanish-Polish-Jew—juxtaposes the idea of cul-
tural hybridity with promiscuity. Both concepts represent a transgression
of limits, whether national, religious, familial, or sexual. The image of a
confused mixture of ethnicities is used to describe São Paulo itself: “The city
of São Paulo is a cosmopolitan capital, where the ancient national element,
still a majority, appears mixed, in an undigested confusion of races and civi-
lizations, with peoples from all across the globe, from Greece to Japan.”59
Madame Pommery, as a promiscuous mixture of different cultures, signals
the possibility of bettering oneself in São Paulo and, at the same time, sug-
gests a modernizing potential of the city itself. In this way, the ambivalent
attitude toward prostitution, money, and foreignness acquires an affirma-
tive tone in this text. Just as Madame Pommery appropriates a French name
in order to climb the paulistana60 social hierarchy, the text seems to suggest
that the city possesses a similar ability to reinvent itself as modern. The
manipulation of “Jewishness,” then, serves as a model for modernization in
122
Erin Graff Zivin
São Paulo and, by extension, in Brazil. Yet, what kind of perverse modernity
does the text postulate?
In addition to offering sexual pleasure, the marginal space of the bor-
dello is populated with alcohol, especially Pommery champagne. The nar-
rator relates to the reader the notion, popular in psychiatric thought at the
time, that alcohol is the force that allows prostitution to exist. The protag-
onist’s name, a synecdoche for the evils of society, doubly signifies these
vices; further, it points to the causal relationship between the two phenomena.
The narrator continues his argument by pointing out that poets, too, support
this theory:
The poets . . . have said more or less the same thing . . . but with
much more grace and truth. Thus I conclude that poetry knows
more, or better, than science; but that’s not where I was heading.
What I wanted was to demonstrate my admiration for the intuition
of Mme. Pommery, who, on matters of drinking and drunks, knew
as much as the scientists and the poets.61
Of course, by pretending to state his intentions, the narrator is actually

revealing a different motive: that of placing poetic discourse on par with sci-
entific discourse, and ultimately of privileging the former. By linking alcohol
with prostitution, the text simultaneously problematizes scientific authority
and postulates a new category of knowledge, possessed by the heroine.
The deconstruction of scientific discourse is developed further through
the character of Doctor Felipe Mangancha. One of the bourgeois clients of
the bordello, the doctor represents the paulistana elite and scientific author-
ity, though it is through him that both are parodied. On the one hand, he is a
famous surgeon; on the other, he is writing a book entitled, “Of Alcoholism.
Adaptation and Selection in the Human Species,” a ridiculous manuscript
that appropriates Darwinist discourse in order to postulate alcohol as an
agent in the perfection of the human race. Drunk from two bottles of
Pommery champagne, Doctor Mangancha defends the civilizing effects of
alcohol, citing Noah as the first alcoholic.62 He compares alcohol with the
sun, which has also been accused of having a degenerative effect on tropical
races, though in reality it sustains life:
It’s true that a Swede, a Scot, a German withers in this torrid cli-
mate. It’s true that if they bring their families, their offspring
degenerates generation after generation. . . . However, after a long
123
series of descendants, a new type emerges, resistant to the burning
sun, full of vigor and endowed with admirable qualities, unknown in
his ancestors.63
In this excerpt, the narrator inverts the pseudo-scientific theory in which

African and indigenous “races” must mix with European blood in order to
dilute the degenerative effect. Here, in contrast, the European race becomes
strengthened through contact with a tropical influence. This inversion sug-
gests a new reading of the dedication of the book to the Eugenic Society, the
early twentieth-century Brazilian organization whose mission was the “moral
and physical strengthening of the Brazilian people.”64 The ironic allusion to
the society simultaneously appropriates the authority of Eugenic discourse
and questions its methods in order to propose an alternative Darwinism.65
Doctor Mangancha’s thesis also appropriates the notion of the pathological
genius, so in vogue among Symbolists, Parnasianists, and Spanish-American
modernists.66 He admits to the existence of degeneration due to alcoholism
but insists that alcoholic geniuses compensate for the degenerates:
Goethe, for example, drank until he stumbled, and until his death,
at eighty-three years, he never lost the habit of having a drink for his
health. Beethoven was a maniac, son of a drunk; and these two should
suffice, because only a Larousse could contain all those I haven’t
cited. . . . Long live alcohol, gentlemen, the benefactor of humanity!67
In this quote, we see the humoristic reclamation of the category of the drunk
in order to advocate a perverse modernization. Alcohol—represented by
Madame Pommery, synecdoche of champagne—here becomes the protago-
nist of modern paulistana society. Although Mangancha’s theories are not
meant to be taken seriously—it is possible that the text parodies the doctor
himself more than the positivist theories that he attempts to dismantle—
there is no doubt that the theories of eugenics so popular in Brazilian culture
are called into question. I would like to suggest that only in the bordello,
the space constructed by Madame Pommery, can such irreverence occur;
the fatal combination of “Jewishness” and prostitution creates the necessary
conditions for an alternative discourse.
As Ludmer has argued, the idea of the nation in early twentieth-century
Latin American culture is reinforced by the notion of the sexualization of
money by the “Jew.” In Tácito’s text, the “Jew” exercises this destructive
power from the bordello, and it is recodified as positive. Questioning the
124
Erin Graff Zivin
limits of genre, sexuality, and nation, Tácito appropriates positivist dis-
course in order to privilege the marginal; in this way, “Jewishness,” prosti-
tution, alcohol, and dangerous urban heterogeneity become the heroes of
progress. The implications of this decentering move, which is realized on
multiple levels, have to do with an affirmation of poetic discourse, in addi-
tion to the postulation of São Paulo as a protagonist of modernity. While
the appropriation of scientific discourse situates Madame Pommery in an
intertextual relationship with other works from the pre-avant-garde genera-
tion in Spanish-American letters (such as Rubén Darío’s Los raros and José
Asunción Silva’s De sobremesa), it also anticipates the linguistic and cultural
heterogeneity and satire of the Brazilian modernistas. In this way, the text
performs assimilation and offers itself as a cosmopolitan model of the tran-
sition to modernity.
!
Analyzing Tácito’s “hilarious” chronicle alongside Rosa’s allegorical samba,
it becomes possible to theorize the rhetorical use of the “Jew” within two
distinct scenes of transaction, that of the auction and of “luxury prostitu-
tion.” Within these spaces of cultural, financial, and sexual negotiation, the
idea of “Jewishness” is manipulated in order to postulate original national
subjectivities. What is interesting about both works is the way in which
this signifying operation is realized performatively; that is, the transactions
occur on the level of both form and content. Rosa imagines a figurative
space of exchange in order to negotiate brasilidade through samba, while
Tácito thinks about the problem of cultural “looseness” through the inven-
tion of a promiscuous genre, the novel-chronicle. Finally, each artist creates
a locus of enunciation for himself as a cultural authority by appropriating
the position of the rhetorical “Jew”: the idea of the “Jew” as middleman
allows Rosa to imagine a central role for the sambista in the Brazilian cul-
tural scene, while the figure of the Jewish prostitute creates what is both
a privileged and marginal discursive space for the chronicler Tácito. Both
Rosa and Tácito find a rhetorical productivity in the flexible signifier “Jew”
and utilize the idea of intermediate “Jewishness” within a threshold-like
space in order to articulate a hybrid notion of Brazilianness during the first
part of the twentieth century.
Of course, the presence of “rhetorical Jewishness” in twentieth-century
Brazilian culture does not end in the Vargas era, despite the fact that the
1930s represent a period of increased Jewish immigration to Brazil and
125
ambivalent attitudes toward these newcomers. Curiously, the figure of the
“Jew” returns several decades later in two well-known works of fiction pub-
lished during the military dictatorship of the late 1960s and 1970s. Alfredo
Dias Gomes’s play O Santo Inquérito (The Holy Inquisition) and Heitor
Carlos Cony’s novel Pessach: A travessia (Passover: The Crossing) both utilize
the idea of “Jewishness” to articulate subjects of resistance to the repressive
military regime.68 Gomes, who allegorizes the dictatorship by situating the
play within the context of the Inquisition, casts a converted Jew (cristã nova,
or “New Christian”) as the heroine who remains loyal to her principles and
dies at the hands of her inquisitors. Cony, casting an assimilated Jew as his
newly militant hero, employs the trope of the Jewish exodus from Egypt as a
way to imagine the transformative potential of political engagement.
The scene of the transaction—which we have explored in detail in this
essay—is therefore not the only context within which we witness the idea
of “Jewishness” manipulated to fit the rhetorical needs of the text: in Dias
Gomes and Cony, the Jewish other is literally converted in order to artic-
ulate the politicization of the Brazilian subject. The fact that the idea of
“Jewishness” travels not only between texts and scenes but also between his-
torical periods and political contexts reveals the radical malleability of the
signifier “Jew.” As constructions of ethnicity shift and ideological struggles
evolve, ideas of “Jewishness” are continuously redefined as a way to con-
front issues of identity and difference.
126
Erin Graff Zivin
Notes
1. I am thinking of “Emma Zunz” and “Deutsches Requiem” in El Aleph [The
Aleph] (Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg y Círculo de Lectores, 1999); Los raros
[The Rare Ones] (Ciudad Universitaria Rodrigo Facio, Costa Rica: Editorial
Universitaria Centroamericana, 1972); Del amor y otros demonios [Of Love and
Other Demons] (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1994); and El hablador
[The Storyteller] (Barcelona: Editorial Seix Barral, 1987). Of course, these are
only a few examples.
2. Representations of Jewishness are not limited to literary texts, but can be
found in film, visual arts, and popular music as well.
3. I am very grateful to Keila Grinberg, who introduced me to Noel Rosa’s
“Quem dá mais?” and Beatriz Kushnir, who referred me to Hilário Tácito’s
Madame Pommery.
4. Robert DiAntonio and Nora Glickman, eds., Tradition and Innovation: Reflections
on Latin American Jewish Writing (Albany: State University of New York Press,
1993); Florinda F. Goldberg, “Literatura judía latinoamericana: Modelos
para armar,” Revista Iberoamericana 191 (April–June 2000): 309–24; Regina
Igel, Imigrantes judeus/Escritores brasileiros: O componente judaico na literatura
brasileira (São Paulo: Perspectiva, Associação Universitária de Cultura Judaica,
Banco Safra, 1997); Leonardo Senkman, “La nación imaginaria de los escritores
judíos latinoamericanos,” Revista Iberoamericana 191 (2000): 279–98; Bernardo
Sorj, “Sociabilidade brasileira e identidade judaica,” in Identidades judaicas no
Brasil contemporâneo, ed. Bila Sorj (Rio de Janeiro: Imago Editora, 1997), 9–31;
Bila Sorj, ed., Identidades judaicas no Brasil contemporâneo (Rio de Janeiro:
Imago Editora, 1997); Saúl Sosnowski, “Fronteras en las letras judías-latino-
americanas,” Revista Iberoamericana 191 (2000): 263–78; Saúl Sosnowski,
“Latin American–Jewish Writers: Protecting the Hyphen,” in The Jewish
Presence in Latin America. Thematic Studies in Latin America, ed. Judith Laikin
Elkin and Gilbert W. Merkx (Winchester, MA: Allen & Unwin, 1987), 297–307;
Ilan Stavans, ed., Tropical Synagogues: Short Stories by Jewish Latin American
Writers (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1994); and Ilan Stavans, The Inveterate
Dreamer: Essays and Conversations on Jewish Culture (Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 2001).
5. Doris Sommer, “María’s Disease: A National Romance (Con)founded,” in
Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America (Berkeley and
Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991); and Josefina Ludmer, The
Corpus Delicti: A Manual of Argentine Fictions, trans. Glen S. Close (Pittsburgh,
PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004).
6. Evelyn Fishburn, “Reflections on the Jewish Imaginary in the Fictions
of Borges,” Variaciones Borges: Journal of the Jorge Luis Borges Center for
Studies and Documentation 5 (1998): 145–56; Edna Aizenberg, The Aleph
Weaver: Biblical, Kabbalistic and Judaic Elements in Borges (Potomac: Scripta
Humanistica, 1984).
7. Jeffrey Lesser, “Jewish Brazilians or Brazilian Jews? A Reflection on Brazilian
Ethnicity,” Shofar 19, no. 3 (Spring 2001): 65–72; Jeffrey Lesser, Negotiating
National Identity: Immigrants, Minorities, and the Struggle for Ethnicity in Brazil
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999); Jeffrey Lesser, Welcoming the
127
Undesirables: Brazil and the Jewish Question (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1994).
8. Sosnowski, “Fronteras,” 263.
9. Sosnowski “Latin American–Jewish Writers,” 297.
10. Noel Rosa, “Quem dá mais?” Quem dá mais (1932). Quém Dá Mais. Samba-
humorístico. 1930. Ed Magione. “Quem dá mais?” roughly translates into
English as “Who’ll give more?” or “Who’ll pay more?” although, of course, in
the context of an auction (which is the setting of Rosa’s samba) one would say,
“Do I hear (five hundred)?” I have decided to keep the Portuguese title of the
samba in the text of this essay in order to maintain its colloquial tone.
11. Hilário Tácito (José Maria de Toledo Malta), Madame Pommery, 5th ed. (Rio de
Janeiro: Fundação Casa de Rui Barbosa, 1997).
12. Sander Gilman, The Jew’s Body (New York and London: Routledge, 1991), 124.
13. Ibid., 124.
14. Ibid., 97.
15. Donna Guy, Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family and Nation in
Argentina (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991), 47.
16. Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin
McLaughlin (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1999), 499.
17. Ludmer, The Corpus Delicti, 4.
18. Eiland and McLaughlin, “Translators’ Foreword,” in Benjamin, The Arcades
Project, xii.
19. First identified by French poet Charles Baudelaire, a flaneur is a gentleman
who wanders the streets of a city, observing urban public life, watching with-
out engaging.
20. Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 494.
21. Like prostitution, gambling resides on the margins of the law; further, gam-
blers resemble investors within the context of capitalism. Benjamin high-
lights the link between gambling and capitalism by quoting Paul Lafargue,
who points out that investment in the stock exchange is often described as
“playing the market.” Ibid., 497.
22. Ibid., 494.
23. John Beverley and José Oviedo, “Introduction,” in The Postmodernism Debate
in Latin America, ed. John Beverley, José Oviedo, and Michael Aronna
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995), 1–17; José Joaquín Brunner,
América latina: Cultura y modernidad (México: Editorial Grijalbo, 1992); Julio
Ramos, Divergent Modernities: Culture and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Latin
America, trans. John D. Blanco (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001).
25. Her argument refers specifically to Argentine literature at the turn of the
nineteenth century, in which metaphors of Jewishness and money are often
juxtaposed. Ludmer, The Corpus Delicti, 6.
26. A female of mixed-race descent.
27. Lesser, Welcoming the Undesirables, 28.
128
Erin Graff Zivin
28. Hermano Vianna, The Mystery of Samba: Popular Music and National Identity
in Brazil, ed. and trans. John Charles Chasteen (Chapel Hill and London:
University of North Carolina Press, 1999), xvii.
29. Vera Kutzinski, Sugar’s Secrets: Race and the Erotics of Cuban Nationalism
(Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993), 7.
30. “Moça formosa / fiteira, vaidosa e muito mentirosa.”
31. Bryan McCann, “Noel Rosa’s Nationalist Logic,” Luso-Brazilian Review 38
(2001): 7.
32. The nickname “Russinho” (literally, “little Russian”) is a term of affection
for children of mixed-race descent who have light hair; it is interesting that
the idea of the foreign is used to differentiate racially fair children from their
more “Brazilian” relatives or friends, regardless of the fact that their national-
ity is identical.
33. “O Vasco paga o lote na batata / E em vez de barata / Oferece ao Russinho
uma mulata.”
34. “Pertenceu a Dom Pedro, morou no palácio / Foi posto no prego por José
Bonifácio.”
35. “Só não tem braço, fundo e cavalete.”
36. “Quem arremata o lote é um judeu / . . . Para vendê-lo pelo dobro no museu.”
37. “Quanto é que vai ganhar o leiloeiro / Que é também brasileiro / E em três
lotes vendem o Brasil inteiro.”
38. Gilberto Freyre, Casa grande e senzala: Formação da familia brasileira sob o
regime de economia patriarcal (Rio de Janeiro: J. Olympio, 1943); and Silviano
Santiago, The Space In-Between: Essays on Latin American Culture, ed. Ana
Lúcia Gazzola, trans. Tom Burns, Ana Lúcia Gazzola, and Gareth Williams
39. Vianna, The Mystery of Samba, 84.
40. McCann, “Noel Rosa’s Nationalist Logic,” 3.
41. Sylvia Molloy, “The Politics of Posing,” in Hispanisms and Homosexualities,
ed. Sylvia Molloy and Robert McKee Irwin (Durham, NC: Duke University
Press, 1998), 142.
42. Ramos, Divergent Modernities, 139.
43. For a discussion of the phenomenon of “luxury prostitution” in turn of the
century São Paulo, see chapter 1 of Margareth Rago’s Os prazeres da noite:
Prostituição e códigos da sexualiade feminina em São Paulo 1890–1930 (São Paulo:
Paz e Terra, 1991). Rago maintains that while prostitution certainly represented
a marginal (and more public) form of femininity, so-called luxury prostitutes
(prostitutas de luxo) were seen as offering a more French (or more broadly
European), “superior” cultural experience. In particular, foreign prostitutes
were emblems not only of an exotic sexuality, but also of modernity itself.
44. Pré-modernismo (the Brazilian counterpart of Spanish-American modernismo)
is a literary generation that roughly spanned the last two decades of the nine-
teenth and the first two decades of the twentieth century. Not to be confused
with Spanish-American modernism, Brazilian modernismo (initiated in the
1920s) would be the rough equivalent of the Spanish-American vanguardia.
While the former was heavily influenced by the Parnassian, Symbolist, and
Decadent movements of the time, the latter sought to create more “local”
129
cultural products (though they, too, were impacted by European avant-garde
movements such as Expressionism, Futurism, and Cubism).
45. The choice of pseudonym by José Maria Toledo Malta has been treated
in Beth Brait, Ironia em perspectiva polifônica (Campinas, SP: Editora da
UNICAMP, 1996), 136–37; and Sandra Aparecida Ferreira, “Entre a biblioteca
e o bordel: A sátira narrativa em Madame Pommery, de Hilário Tácito” (MA
thesis, Universidade de São Paulo, 1998), 27.
46. “Crônica muito verídica.”
47. This edition was published as part of a larger study project on the topic of
Brazilian premodernism, which included a seminar, an exposition, the pub-
lication of a volume of scholarly essays on the literary period, as well as new
editions of premodernist texts like Madame Pommery.
48. “Uma historia do progresso da cidade de São Paulo,” Francisco Foot
Hardman, “São Paulo de Pommery,” in Madame Pommery, by Hilário Tácito
(Rio de Janeiro: Fundação Casa de Rui Barbosa, 1997), 9.
49. Rago points out that the Zwi Migdal exercised considerably more influence in
Buenos Aires than in Brazil. Rago, Os prazeres da noite, 286.
51. “Mme. Pommery existe, de verdade, em carne e osso? Eis a pergunta insidi-
osa, que, se eu ñao tomo o cuidado de contestar peremptoriamente, era capaz
de induzir a posteridade em erro crasso e fundamental. Mme. Pommery
arriscava-se a decrescer às proporções de um mero símbolo, e a minha história
verdadeira ao simples título de romance; e talvez menos. . . . Seja, pois, Mme.
Pommery um símbolo, se o quiserem; que o não posso vedar. Mas, por amor
da verdade, eterna e intangível, fica estabelecido este ponto:—que Mme.
Pommery vive e respira, tão real e efetivamente como eu, que escrevo, e o
leitor, que me lê, apenas com muito mais apetite e fôlego.” Tácito, Madame
Pommery, 49.
52. Two examples of the parodic, cannibalizing trend of this avant-garde artis-
tic movement are Oswald de Andrade’s “Manifesto antropofágico,” in Obras
completas (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1970); and Mário de Andrade’s
Macunaíma, trans. E. A. Goodland (New York: Random House, 1984).
53. Of course, Orthodox Jewish law would not consider Ida to be Jewish, since
her mother was not.
54. “Ida . . . [p]eregrinou por cidades e nações de toda a Europa, a negociar os
beijos e os sorrisos, como a mesma finura e com o mesmo talento que
revelara de princípio.” Tácito, Madame Pommery, 54.
55. “Era natural que o adotasse, consideradas as vantagens da brevidade e da
alusão.” Ibid., 54.
56. “Encasquetou-se-lhe a idéia de ‘fazer América.’ Só pensava na América.”
Ibid., 55.
57. Madame Pommery has a rough beginning in Brazil: she participates in
spectacles of Roman fights with other women, in which she turns into a
celebrity by being named “heavyweight” champion. Later, she opens the
“Paradis Retrouvé,” a house in decay with pretensions of a “school of refine-
ment and society.” Ironically, this refinement is realized through prostitution;
130
Erin Graff Zivin
paradoxically, society is constituted through vulgarity. Ferreira, Entre a
biblioteca e o bordel, 43.
58. For an analysis of Tácito’s allusions to Madame Bovary, see Brait, Ironia em
perspectiva polifônica, 132–33.
59. “A cidade de São Paulo é uma capital cosmopolita, onde ao antigo elemento
nacional, ainda em maioria, se vieram misturar, numa indigesta confusão de
raças e de civilizações, outras gentes escumadas de todas as terras do mundo,
desde a Grécia até o Japão.” Tácito, Madame Pommery, 138.
60. Of or describing the city of São Paulo.
61. “Os poetas . . . têm dito mais ou menos a mesma coisa . . . mas com muito
mais graça e mais verdade. Donde concluo que a poesia sabe mais, ou
melhor, que a ciência; mas não era aí que eu pretendia chegar. O que eu
queria era mostrar-me admirado da intuição de Mme. Pommery, que, neste
assunto de álcool e de alcouces, sabia tanto como os sábios e os poetas.”
Tácito, Madame Pommery, 101, italics my own.
62. “Humanity is improving thanks to Noah, Dionysus and Bacchus, instead of
degenerating” (“a humanidade vai melhorando graças a Noé, Dionísio e Baco,
em vez de degenerar”). Ibid., 112.
63. “É certo que um sueco, um escocês, um alemão, definham nesses climas
tórridos. É certo que, se trouxerem família, a prole irá degenerando
de geração em geração. . . . Entretanto, depois de uma longa série de
descendências, surge um tipo novo, fixo, resistente à combustão da soalheira,
cheio de vigor e dotado de qualidades admiráveis, desconhecidas dos seus
antepassados.” Ibid., 107.
64. “A Sociedade Eugênica de São Paulo teve sua sessão inaugural em 15 de
janeiro de 1918. Nos Annaes de Eugenia, encontram-se os discursos inaugu-
rais e os estatutos da sociedade; nestes últimos se coloca como um de seus
objetivos ‘o estudo da regulamentação do meretrício.’ Ao longo dos anais
lêem-se trechos como ‘eugenizar quer dizer selecionar a espécie humana’
(220) ou ‘a plausibilidade da instituição de um centro científico, donde
dimanarão estudos, conselhos, regras, para o fortalecimento moral e físico
dos brasileiros’ (4).” Ibid., 165n1.
65. For a more thorough discussion of the theories of eugenics and social engi-
neering that became fashionable during this period, see Nancy Stepan’s
“The Hour of Eugenics”: Race, Gender and Nation in Latin America (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1991).
66. Here I am thinking of Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, Rubén Darío, José
Asunción Silva, among others.
67. “Goethe, por exemplo, bebia de cair, e até morrer, aos oitenta e três anos,
não perdeu o costume de tomar pileques, por higiene. Beethoven era um
maníaco, filho de um bêbedo; e bastam estes dois, porque so um Larousse
pode conter os que não cito. . . . Viva o álcool, senhores, o benfeitor da
humanidade!” Tácito, Madame Pommery, 113.
68. Alfredo Dias Gomes, O Santo Inquérito (Rio de Janeiro: Editôra Civilização
Brasileira, 1966); Heitor Carlos Cony, Pessach: A travessia (Rio de Janeiro:
Editôra Civilização, 1967).
131
chapter seven
Protest from Afar

The Jewish and Republican Presence in Victoria Ocampo’s
Revista SUR in the 1930s and 1940s
rosalie sitman
S ince the late nineteenth century, literary reviews have played an impor-
tant role in the production and transmission of culture, often acting as
barometers through which one can measure the atmosphere of the times.
Victoria Ocampo’s SUR, in Argentina, is a case in point. As much a product
of the personal tastes and whims of its founder as of the shared aesthetic,
ethical, and political preferences of the group of intellectuals that comprised
the “grupo SUR,” Ocampo’s review was also both a product and reflection
of the historical circumstances that helped define its course throughout the
journal’s protracted existence. Thus, particularly when viewed in the context
of its relationship with other contemporary publications, SUR provides elo-
quent testimony of the issues and quandaries with which Argentine intel-
lectuals wrestled in the politically charged climate of the 1930s and 1940s.
Earlier and modified versions of this study are “Victoria Ocampo and SUR’s Attitude
toward the Jews during World War II,” in The Jewish Diaspora in Latin America and the
Caribbean: Fragments of Memory, ed. Kristin Ruggiero (Brighton and Portland, OR: Sussex
Academic Press, 2005), 18–33; and “¿Una estrategia de protesta antifascista? En torno a
la presencia de exiliados republicanos españoles y judíos en SUR, 1936–1947,” Judaica
Latinoamericana 5 (2005): 287–309.
132
The rise of Fascism and National Socialism in Europe, the Spanish
Civil War, and the Second World War all had a profound impact on Argen
tina, as on other Latin American nations, evoking strong emotions and
antagonistic attitudes. In the wake of the rupture of 1930 and the ever-
growing Hispanophile and anti-Semitic discourse of right-wing Catholic
Nationalists on the domestic front, the polarization between democracy
and Fascism on a global level forced Argentine intellectuals to take a stand
on the side of one of the two opposing forces. As international and national
problems intertwined, the pages of their publications recorded the ten-
sions and confrontations that racked the Argentinean intelligentsia during
this period of political and ideological ferment.
One of the leading exponents of culture in Argentina during those
critical years of Spain’s internecine war and the European debacle was
the literary review SUR, which, quite atypically, boasted a woman at the
helm—its founder Victoria Ocampo, scion of an established oligarchic
family, who would continue to finance and direct the magazine and name-
sake publishing house during almost four decades of regular publica-
tion.1 Determined to fulfill what they perceived as the “civilizing” mission
of their enterprise by “publishing the very best” and setting the standard
for literary decorum—a task that they deemed incompatible with any
form of political or partisan commitment—Ocampo and the grupo SUR
focused at first on aesthetic considerations and strove to remain outside
the political fray, in consonance with their own particular conception
of human existence: the essence of man being freedom and creativity.2
However, this was to prove impossible in the politically charged climate
of the thirties and forties. Before long, the clash with Criterio—avowedly
the voice of Argentinean right-wing Catholicism—over SUR’s endorse-
ment of French Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain’s integral human-
ism, against the background of the Spanish Civil War, would force SUR
to make a clear political stand on the side of the Republic. A commitment
that, as we shall see, went hand in hand with the group’s concern for the
fate of European Jewry, and which sprang, in both instances, again from
the group’s understanding of the human condition in the face of the new
circumstances. Gradually, as one armed conflict succeeded the other and
the Argentinean government closed the gates of the country to “undesir-
able” immigration, all the while allegedly maintaining a policy of neutral-
ity, Spanish Republican exiles and the plight of the Jewish refugees were
afforded a warm welcome and given ample space in the offices and pages
of Ocampo’s magazine.3
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Since these two cases of forced immigration are obviously very dissimi-
lar, what does their convergence in a literary review of the nature of SUR
at this particular historical juncture tell us about contemporary Argentine
society and culture? This study will reflect upon the implications of the con-
tinued Jewish and Republican presence in a purportedly apolitical journal
such as SUR and venture some suggestions toward possible readings of
the journal’s manifest pro-Republican and philo-Semitic sympathies in the
context of the political and ideological debates that raged within Argentina’s
intellectual field as the European liberal model collapsed and the Old World
succumbed to war.
More specifically, I would argue that, although genuinely concerned for
the fate of these oppressed groups, SUR’s attitude toward both Jews and
Spanish Republican exiles should be viewed less as a humanitarian response
to the reality of their tragedy, inspired by inherent philo-Semitic and pro-
Republican sentiments, than as rhetorical leitmotivs within a broader dis-
cursive strategy. A strategy that, on the one hand, allowed Ocampo and the
grupo SUR to express their staunch anti-Fascism on a global level, and at the
same time enabled them, on the domestic front, to articulate a counterdis-
course that conveyed simultaneously their opposition to three pillars of the
Argentinean establishment: namely, the government, the Catholic Church,
and the right-wing Nationalists, at the extreme end of the cultural spectrum.
In this way, by expressing their support for the Republic and denouncing
the plight of the Spanish exiles and European Jews, the intellectuals of SUR
were in fact expressing their identification with other liberal, anti-Fascist,
pro-Allied intellectual circles in Argentina, as well as highlighting and set-
ting apart their own position within Argentina’s intellectual field. In other
words, if SUR’s pro-Republicanism and philo-Semitism helped define who
they were, by the same token these attributes also defined who they were
not—xenophobic, Hispanophile, pro-Francoist, philo-Fascist—that is, the
“other,” in this case, right-wing Catholic Nationalists, determined to stay the
onset of the “Red” menace and keep “undesirable,” non-Catholic minorities
and “inferior” ethnic groups at bay outside of Argentina’s borders.
In SUR, then, as the pages below will show, the Republican and Jewish
presence in the pages of the magazine during the Spanish and world wars
functioned as a cultural code that allowed the intellectuals of Ocampo’s
magazine to define themselves politically and ideologically within Argentine
society and culture, in response to momentous historical junctures both at
home and in the international arena.4 No less important, this framework also
enabled SUR to shed at will its oft-reiterated apolitical mantle and intervene,
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Rosalie Sitman
if somewhat obliquely, in discussions in the public sphere on some of the
burning issues of the day: immigration to the country and immigration con-
trols; the mission of intellectuals; liberalism versus state intervention and
the restriction of civil liberties; the nature of the Spanish Civil War; democ-
racy versus totalitarianism; intervention or neutrality . . . What is impor-
tant here, more than the Jewish or Republican issues in themselves, is what
their inclusion in SUR might tell us about the collective identity and collec-
tive action of the grupo SUR, about the individual identity and action of its
leading members, about patterns of national identity, about the nature of
contemporary public debates, and about the schisms and coalitions within
Argentina’s intellectual field at a time when liberalism was on the defensive
in the face of the overwhelming advances made by authoritarian, nationalist,
and totalitarian regimes.5
SUR Makes a Stand: The War in Spain

SUR was born in January 1931, less than a year after the coup of General José
Félix Uriburu rocked the foundations of Argentine society, inaugurating an
“infamous decade” characterized by the curtailment of political freedom,
economic difficulties in the wake of the Great Depression, growing con-
servatism, state intervention, and electoral fraud. During this period, the
Catholic Church gained strength and influence in Argentina, as did the mil-
itant and xenophobic Nacionalista groups, whose pro-Fascist sympathies
and blatant anti-Semitism—largely inspired by the church—did not augur
well for the Jews within Argentina nor for those fleeing Europe and seek-
ing to enter the Latin American republic.6 Greatly influenced by Ramiro de
Maeztu’s ideas about Spanish identity, these groups blamed the great waves
of immigrants for Argentina’s ills and sought to turn the clock back to the
pre-immigration days of Argentina’s glorious Hispanic past. Naturally, they
supported Franco’s military insurgence and new regime, which they felt
acted to safeguard the religious, cultural, and moral values that were being
undermined both in the Iberian Peninsula and in Argentina. At the same
time, they applauded the open persecution of Jews in Europe and readily
accepted Nazi propaganda at face value.7
The close alliance between church circles and the Nationalists mani-
fested itself most clearly in the right-wing Catholic press—Criterio, Bandera
Argentina, El Pampero, Crisol, Pueblo, La Fronda, Sol y Luna—which denounced
“Red” excesses against the clergy and religious institutions in Spain and
gave ample space to the anti-Semitic diatribes of activist Argentine clerics
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Protest from Afar
Gustavo Franceschi, Julio Meinvielle, and Virgilio Filippo.8 Zealous to ward
off what they perceived as an impending “Semitic invasion of the coun-
try,” they, of course, welcomed all governmental measures that restricted
immigration and kept dubious types and subversive elements, such as
“Bolsheviks,” Republicans, and Jews, out of Argentina.
By contrast, SUR, originally conceived as a cultural bridge between the
Americas and Europe, was cosmopolitan and firmly positioned within the lib-
eral democratic tradition that the Nationalists rejected. Certainly in the early
years, SUR clearly strove to maintain the liberal consensus that had charac-
terized Argentina until the late 1920s. Different ideologies could be seen to
coexist, as right-wing Nationalists such as Ramón Doll, Julio Irazusta, and
Ernesto Palacio published various contributions in the magazine. Irazusta’s
reminiscences of this early collaboration are indicative of the ecumenical
spirit that prevailed in SUR at the time: “Eduardo Mallea, Henríquez Ureña,
María de Maeztu, Carmen Gándara, Carlos Alberto Erro . . . and countless
others I cannot recall mingled with us in an atmosphere of civilized convivi-
ality that might have been equaled, but certainly not surpassed, in another
literary salon.”9 However, this conviviality would soon come to an end with
the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and the buildup to the Second World
War, as hostility mounted and the ideological differences between SUR and
the Nationalist groups became irreconcilable. SUR abhorred Fascism, which
it identified as a manifestation of “las fuerzas de la barbarie” that threatened
intellectual freedom and the higher ideals of the human spirit that SUR was
committed to defend and perpetuate.10 The clash, therefore, was inevitable.
For a start, it cannot have escaped the Nationalists’ notice that there was
always a Jewish presence in SUR, beginning with the foundational letter
addressed to Waldo Frank, an American Jewish intellectual of leftist lean-
ings who is often credited, in SUR’s lore, with the idea of its inception.11
Frank, whom the Nationalist mouthpiece El Pampero pejoratively dubbed
“Yankee-Jew,” not only became a regular contributor to SUR in the 1930s
and 1940s, but worse, he proudly made frequent reference to his Semitic
origins in his writings.12 SUR’s publication in 1934 of Frank’s essay, sug-
gestively entitled “¿Por qué ha de sobrevivir el judío?” (Why Should the
Jew Survive?), acquires added poignancy when viewed in the context of
the intensely anti-Semitic climate—no doubt fueled by the aggressive anti-
Jewish and anti-Communist campaign waged by the Nationalist press in
the early thirties—that engendered such widely acclaimed works as Hugo
Wast’s rabidly anti-Semitic Kahal-oro (1935).13 Evidently, SUR was position-
ing itself very clearly within the Argentinean intellectual field.14
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Rosalie Sitman
No less eloquent are the other essays, subsequently published by SUR,
in which Frank denounced Fascism or extolled the Jews’ contribution to
America.15 The latter in particular can be read as an attempt by SUR to
foil the argument, commonly brandished by those opposed to a relaxation
of the immigration laws, that refugees brought no good to the countries
that were willing to host them. In addition, the inclusion of several favor-
able reviews and articles about the Jewish-American intellectual, penned by
non-Jewish members of the group, point to a wider effort by SUR to forge
closer ties with their North American peers and build bridges between the
two Americas, in consonance with their growing perception of a continen-
tal dimension to their American identity.16 At the same time, equally aware
of their debt to Europe, the magazine also gave ample space during this
period to the Romanian-born French-Jewish philosopher and filmmaker
Benjamin Fondane, a disciple of Russian philosopher Leon Chestov.17 In
1936 Ocampo even invited him to visit Buenos Aires, where he spent several
months making a film.18
Unlike Europe and North America, where the Spanish conflict was per-
ceived as a confrontation between democracy and Fascism, in the Latin
American nations reactions to the war were determined to a large degree
by the particular circumstances of their own internal reality rather than
mere ideological differences. Thus, most of the Latin American govern-
ments and ruling military and oligarchic elites, fearing that the processes
of political democratization and social radicalization might threaten their
own privileged positions, were sympathetic to the Spanish rebels, while
the majority of public opinion endorsed the legitimate authority of the
Republic. This was the case in Argentina, where the civilian coalition
government headed by President Agustín P. Justo supported the military
uprising in Spain and—officially, at least—adopted a position of neutral-
ity toward the Spanish conflict, the same policy that would punctuate the
performance of successive governments during the impending European
war. By contrast, most of the opposition—the Radical Civic Union, the
Argentine Socialist and Communist parties—as well as large sectors of
public opinion stood behind the Spanish Republic and even organized
activities on its behalf.19
The Argentine Catholic Church, for its part, like the Catholic press, sup-
ported Franco’s rebellion and mobilized on behalf of the insurgents, cam-
paigning incessantly against the “Reds” and making every effort to prevent
the Republican exiles from being allowed entry to the country. Monsignor
Gustavo Franceschi, editor of Criterio from 1932 and author of its leading
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Protest from Afar
articles and editorials, was one of the most ardent and vocal supporters of
Franco’s cause and of the Spanish church in Argentina. Incensed, therefore,
by SUR’s publication of Maritain’s “Sobre la guerra santa” (About the Holy
War), which derogated Spain’s fratricidal war as a horrible sacrilege and
totally debunked the Iberian church’s justification of the atrocities under the
guise of a holy crusade, Franceschi launched a virulent attack on Ocampo’s
review, accusing it of being a leftist and antireligious publication.20
While SUR normally preferred to let texts speak for themselves and, by
extension, for the magazine, without need for manifestos or lengthy editori-
als, this time it chose to break its silence and, in August 1937, published its
“Posición de SUR” (Position of SUR) in response to Criterio.21 In a deliber-
ate effort to combat the Nationalists with their own arms, SUR borrowed
heavily from the unorthodox personalist Christian discourse of Maritain,
Nicholas Berdiaeff, and Emmanuel Mounier. With its rejection of the “dic-
tatorial violence of the right” (Fascism) and of the “dictatorial violence of the
left” (Communism), and its emphasis on an alternative third party to both the
Popular Front and the National Front, this synthesis of Christian social and
religious thought and democracy fit in well with the orientation of Ocampo’s
magazine and was accorded ample space in its pages during this period.22
Taken together, Maritain’s texts and the numerous personalist contributions
formed a corpus that would provide a coherent ideological backbone for
SUR’s “political” participation in the contemporary debate over the role of
intellectuals vis-à-vis the European conflicts.
“All sectarian persecutions—whether racial or political, or unjust perse-
cutions couched in legal or codified forms—are equally odious and equally
monstrous in our eyes,” read SUR’s position.23 Obviously, SUR’s protest
here is directed not just against the excesses of the Francoist Falange, but
alludes equally to the Nazi persecutions and the Stalinist purges, as well as
to the abuses of President Justo’s Concordancia government (1932–1938)
in Argentina, and certainly the relentless persecution of the Jews in the
organs of the Nationalist press.24 A few lines further, a scarcely veiled refer-
ence to Franceschi’s own activities on behalf of Nationalist Spain conveyed
SUR’s piercing indictment of Argentina’s church hierarchy: “We want a
better clergy, a clergy who will be more concerned with spiritual matters
of eternal salvation than with the transitory wheeling and dealing of poli-
tics.”25 From this point on, SUR’s political commitment would only grow
stronger, culminating with the magazine’s eventual alignment with the
Allies, in blatant defiance of the policy of neutrality doggedly espoused by
the Argentinean government.26
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Rosalie Sitman
SUR’s opposition to all forms of oppression and dictatorial or totalitarian
regimes would remain a dominant theme throughout the review’s existence
and would also manifest itself outside the confines of the magazine, in the
conduct and personal example set by Ocampo herself and other prominent
members of the group. Thus we find the names of some of SUR’s most
representative figures swelling the ranks of the assorted organizations that
were springing up as part of a wider, heterogeneous anti-Fascist effort that
ran the gamut of the democratic and Socialist opposition to the conservative
government, in what Socialist leader Nicolás Repetto described ideally as “a
movement of parties, groups and factions that would come to represent vir-
tually the ‘only party of Argentinean democracy.’”27 For instance, Jorge Luis
Borges, in all likelihood the most outstanding member of SUR during this
period, was among the signatories of the First Declaration of the Committee
against Racism and Anti-Semitism, which was created in 1937 with the aim
of rebutting Nazi racial propaganda and reaffirming the status of the Jewish
community as an integral, and worthy, part of the Argentine nation.28 Other
signatures included those of prominent representatives of the diverse ele-
ments comprising the anti-Fascist bloc: Progressive Democrats (Lisandro de
la Torre), Socialists (Américo Ghioldi, Carlos Sánchez Viamonte), Radicals
(future presidents Arturo Frondizi and Arturo Illia), university professors
(Ernesto Laclau), Communist sympathizers (Álvaro Yunque), and writers
(César Tiempo).29
Borges was also on the organizing committee of the First Congress
against Racism and Anti-Semitism, held in Buenos Aires on August 2, 1938,
which demanded that the gates of the country be opened to Jews fleeing per-
secution. The congress naturally aroused the ire of Monsignor Franceschi,
who denounced the “violent Semitism of the Jews,” comparing them
with the Nazis, and blasted the organizers as “judaizantes” (Jew lovers).30
Evidently, the immigration question had become a cornerstone of the politi-
cal and ideological battles that divided Argentine intellectuals with regard to
the country’s internal and external political scene, in the global confronta-
tion between democracy and Fascism.
With the civil war raging in Spain and Europe headed for another all-
encompassing war, SUR escalated its criticism of Nazism and Fascism and
its condemnation of the nacionalismo cruzado (crusader nationalism) of
the Spanish church and its supporters in Argentina—that is, the church
and the pro-Francoist Nacionalistas.31 El Pastor Hall, a play by the German-
Jewish writer Ernst Toller published in three consecutive installments in
1939, was a scathing condemnation of Nazi policies and practices in the
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Protest from Afar
Third Reich.32 Below the title, in small print, was written that the author
dedicated the drama to the day when it could be performed in Germany.
At the bottom of the same page, also in small print, a grim announcement
informed SUR’s readers that after the issue had gone to press, word had
arrived of Toller’s suicide in New York’s Mayflower Hotel, “by cruel coinci-
dence, named after the ship that had brought to those same shores the first
group of Pilgrims fleeing from the intolerance that reigned in their native
land.”33 The allusion is unmistakable, and a much more effective conduit
for expressing disapproval and condemnation than an impassioned declara-
tion. This would become one of the group’s preferred methods of protest,
and it would prove particularly handy during the difficult years (for SUR) of
the Peronist regime.
Issue after issue, in “Calendario,” the section devoted to current events
that had been inaugurated in June 1937, SUR denounced the crimes and
atrocities that were being perpetrated in Europe against both the Spanish
Republicans and the Jews: the bombing of Durango and near destruction
of Guernica went hand in hand with countless reports informing of the dis-
crimination against and persecution of the Jews by the German Nazis and
Italian Fascists.34 Over the years, SUR made skillful use of “Calendario” to
buttress its position on burning issues with carefully selected items extracted
from speeches and magazines, laced with apparently innocent disclaimers
and tangential remarks—“We reproduce these sensible and lucid words”
(of Léon-Paul Fargue on anti-Semitism); “Unless one has substituted faith
for bad faith, that is: unless one is a Catholic-Nationalist.”35 These “innocu-
ous” comments left little doubt as to SUR’s stance on anti-Semitism or their
opinion of the Nacionalistas’ (mis)interpretation of Catholic teachings.
The carefully manipulated juxtaposition of Catholic/Nationalist and
Jewish was a clever ploy that allowed SUR to convey its sympathies and
antipathies in a subtle yet unequivocal way. A case in point is the “Calen
dario” for the month of August 1938, where declarations made by Pope
Pius XI condemning both racism and nationalism (evidently aimed at the
Nacionalistas)—“Catholic means universal. Therefore: neither racist, nor
nationalist, nor separatist, but Catholic”—stand in sharp contrast to the frag-
ment of a speech made by the interior minister of the Burgos government
of Nationalist Spain: “Jacques Maritain’s wisdom has nuances which recall
the lips of Israel, and he has the false mannerisms of a Jewish democrat.”36
No comment is necessary. Again, in October 1938, Pius XI’s words in the
Belgian L’avant garde, “We call Abraham our Patriarch, our forebear. . . .
Anti-Semitism is inadmissible. . . . We, Catholics, are spiritually Semitic,”
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Rosalie Sitman
are deliberately contrasted with Arriba España’s: “Because the Spanish Civil
War is also a battle against international Judaism. The Jews have always
been the enemies of civilization.” SUR asks, “Are the Phalangist Catholics
in favor of Mussolini and against the Pope?”37 The irony is inescapable. Not
long afterward, SUR would underscore the contrast between this Pope’s
vocal commitment and the (now controversial) silence of his successor, Pius
XII: “The authority of the Head of the Church has decreased in this world
of infidels”;38 uncharacteristically, the item was signed with the initials J. B.,
belonging to José Bianco, SUR’s editor-in-chief.
Meanwhile, SUR’s sympathy for the Republican cause was becoming
more explicit in the main body of the magazine as well. In sharp contrast
to oblique references to the civil war dotted throughout earlier contribu-
tions, mostly by Ramón Gómez de la Serna and Guillermo de Torre, José
Bergamín’s “La máscara de sangre. Tiempo y drama” (January 1937) left
little to the imagination and constituted a rude awakening to the horrors of
Spanish reality.39 Various poems and texts by and about Lorca, or alluding to
his death, pointedly followed along the same line. Since for the Republicans
the Andalusian poet had become an accusatory symbol against Franco, the
appearance of these texts in SUR could only be interpreted as an expression
of support for the Republic.40
In May 1939, SUR announced the formation of the Comisión Argentina
de Ayuda a los Intelectuales Españoles (Argentine Commission of Aid to
Spanish Intellectuals), whose purpose was to raise funds to free Spanish
refugees in the Pyrenees, aid those in France, and help them find safe pas-
sage to countries where they might rebuild their lives.41 The list of signa-
tories boasted many names closely affiliated with SUR: Francisco Romero,
María Rosa Oliver, Eduardo Mallea, Jorge Luis Borges, Adolfo Bioy Casares,
Silvina Ocampo, Guillermo de Torre, and Alfonso Reyes. The latter was
ambassador of Mexico in Buenos Aires at the time. And Cárdenas’s regime
in Mexico was the only Latin American government that lent more than
just diplomatic support to the Spanish Republic. Thus, many exiles found
refuge there.42 The item was very likely intended to convey SUR’s pro-
test against the government’s imposition of stricter immigration controls
(which excluded Jews) and the Argentine church’s vehement opposition
to the admission of Republican exiles into the country. Hardly by coinci-
dence, SUR had published one month earlier an impassioned vindication of
the potential benefits that European refugees—Jews in particular—might
bring to the country that gave them asylum, penned by the Jewish-Italian
writer Gina Lombroso.43 Then in July 1939, this time in “Calendario,” SUR
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Protest from Afar
deplored President Roberto Ortiz’s rejection of entreaties by leading French
men of letters to allow Spanish intellectuals into Argentina, for fear that
“underneath that mask, the journalist, the ideologue and the failed politi-
cian are hiding.”44 Clearly, Argentina’s purported neutrality with regard to
the Spanish conflict was a sham.45
By December of that same year, the names of Juan Ramón Jiménez,
Benjamín Jarnés, Maruja Mallo, José Moreno Villa, Pedro Salinas, Américo
Castro, Manuel Altolaguirre, Francisco Ayala, Rosa Chacel, and María
Zambrano, among many others, swelled the ranks of Spanish contributors
to SUR, alongside old regulars like Guillermo de Torre, Ramón Gómez de
la Serna, Salvador de Madariaga, and Amado Alonso. Later additions would
include Rafael Alberti, Ricardo Baeza, Jorge Guillén, Arturo Serrano Plaja,
and José Ferrater Mora. Writing about Spanish and American topics, these
authors would keep the specter of the war and the agony of Europe alive
in the pages of SUR.46 Nevertheless, I would like to reiterate that it is their
presence in the pages of a journal of the nature of SUR, in Argentina at that
particular time, that is significant and relevant here, more so than what
they actually wrote. The important fact is that, with one hapless exception,
Ocampo’s literary review would remain out of bounds to any Nationalist
sympathizer or, for that matter, to anyone still living in the peninsula.47
The exclusions, then, were as eloquent as the inclusions.
SUR’s continued endorsement of Christian humanists like the Belgian
Georges Bernanos, whose pronouncements were anathema to the Argentine
Catholic Church, traditionally of Spanish orientation, ensured that relations
between the intellectuals of Ocampo’s magazine and Nationalist circles
remained strained.48 The “established” Catholic press certainly cannot have
regarded with benevolence SUR’s willingness to lend its pages to Christian
democrats such as Rafael Pividal and Augusto Durelli, who were also associ-
ated with Orden Cristiano, the progressive Catholic publication that was even-
tually disavowed by the Argentine church hierarchy.49 “We do not believe
that nationalism and Catholicism are synonymous or that the civil war is
a holy war,” wrote Durelli in a letter published in SUR in July 1938.50 Not
satisfied, he proceeded to berate the disinformation campaign orchestrated
by the Argentinean church, which had chosen to keep from public knowl-
edge the speeches made by Cardinal Verdier or by the patriarch of Lisbon
“that show us the naked truth of the horrendous ‘nationalist’ conception of
Catholicism.” The words speak for themselves, and clearly also for SUR.
In another contribution early in 1939 about “three martyred peoples,”
Durelli typically evoked the atrocities perpetrated by the Spanish Nationalists
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Rosalie Sitman
against the Basques and in the next breath, in plain and simple terms, drove
home to SUR’s readers the desperate situation of European Jewry: “The
Jew is a pariah. The Jew cannot write, speak, marry, or pray freely. The Jew
cannot buy, nor sell, nor travel. The Jew cannot sit on park benches nor
attend the cinema or the theater. Hundreds of them have been murdered in
concentration camps. Thousands are roaming the world, without a home-
land and lawless, persecuted and hated.”51 After which, he went on to mock
Nationalist—“the new crusader of religion”—protestations that they did not
hate Jews but drove them to desperation and suicide for their own good. As
was often the case in SUR, the plight of the Spanish Republicans was juxta-
posed with that of the Jews. And, once again, SUR resorted to tools provided
by contemporary Christian discourse (as opposed to traditional Catholic) in
order to intervene in the broader debates over the quandaries posed by the
convulsions and repercussions of the European conflicts.
SUR Makes a Second Stand: The War in Europe

The outbreak of the European war forced Ocampo’s magazine to make a
second public stand. In “Nuestra actitud” (Our Attitude), SUR declared its
alignment with the democracies and exhorted the Argentine government
to renounce the country’s neutrality: “In such circumstances, nobody can
remain morally neutral. We are not neutral.”52 Yet these words should be
understood more as a show of solidarity and an expression of moral sup-
port for Great Britain and France than a call to belligerence.53 Not until the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the European war home to the
shores of America did SUR’s tone change dramatically, demanding inter-
vention on behalf of the cause “that we would like to defend and for which
others are spilling their blood.”54 In December 1941 SUR published a special
issue devoted to the war (“The War in America”), in which it reiterated its
adherence to the Allied cause and enthusiastically extolled the notion of “an
indivisible America [stretching] from the Behring Strait to Cape Horn.”55
However, regardless of SUR’s impassioned espousal of Pan-Americanism
and strong criticism of the government’s refusal to abandon its policy of
neutrality, President Ramón Castillo was unmoved, and his stubbornness
would cost his country dearly.56
At the same time, the journal stepped up its unrelenting and stark
reporting in “Calendario” of the urgent plight of the Republican refugees, as
they poured into France, “struck dumb by horror, by suffering, by hunger,”
and of European Jewry’s systematic extermination:
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Protest from Afar
The Committee of Interallied Information details the persecutions
that the Semites have suffered in this war: in Yugoslavia, 99 per-
cent have been killed; in Poland, chosen as the “central slaughter-
house” of the Jews, 2.000.000 have died and 5.000.000 are in the
same danger; of the 52.000 Jews who lived in Belgium, half have
been deported and the rest confined in concentration camps; in
Czechoslovakia, 72.000 have been sent to Poland. . . . It is said that
in Poland, since August 17, 10.000 Jews are taken daily from the
ghettoes to their ultimate death.57
By highlighting these atrocities, SUR was not only sounding the alarm
against the perils of Fascism and raising consciousness regarding the fact
that the Jewish problem was in fact of concern for all humanity, but was also
pressing the Argentine government to change its insensitive immigration
policy and not turn the victims of Francoist and Nazi persecution away. In a
sense, too, this practice can be construed as an attempt on the part of SUR
to counteract the inroads being made by Nazi propaganda in Argentina,
with the willing connivance of local Nacionalistas.
By then, the breach between the members of SUR and the Nationalists
had become irreparable. The former, now openly committed to the Allied
cause, regarded the latter as Nazi agents who were de facto pulling the strings
of the government behind the scenes. This explains the virulence of the
resounding “Voice of Alert” that SUR issued in 1940, in which it denounced
Catholic nationalism for its support of totalitarian regimes, branding it as
indecent, gangsterlike, anti-Argentina, and anti-Christian.58
In harmony with the attitudes expressed in her magazine, Victoria
Ocampo felt compelled, on a personal level, to join several protest groups
in the face of the intense pro-Fascist activity and Nazi propaganda in the
country. In June 1940, she became one of the founding members of Acción
Argentina (Argentine Action), a militant pro-Allied organization aimed at
combating Nazi infiltration and Fascism in the country, which strove to
mobilize public opinion in order to force the government to change its inter-
national policy. Its roster boasted such names as finance minister Federico
Pinedo, historian Emilio Ravignani, former president Marcelo T. de Alvear,
and the ubiquitous Nicolás Repetto, illustrating, once again, the wide
scope of the liberal democratic/Socialist, anti-Fascist political spectrum.59
Later, upon learning of the invasion of Russia in 1941, Ocampo rejoined
her close friend María Rosa Oliver, also a member of the group although
a Communist sympathizer, at Junta de la Victoria (Victory Association).
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Rosalie Sitman
Junta was an anti-Fascist organization that included women from all walks
of life and diverse political leanings, many of them former volunteers in
the relief operation for Republican Spain (Ayuda a la España Republicana)
who now gathered to work on behalf of the Allied cause.60 Jewish women,
many also affiliated with the Communist Party, were actively involved in
Junta. Probably there Ocampo also came into contact with Mika Feldman
Etchebéhère. An Argentine Jew who had taken command of her husband’s
POUM (Worker Party of Marxist Unification) regiment after his death in
Spain, Etchebéhère spent the years of the world war back in the country of
her birth. Upon her return to Europe, SUR published several installments
of her impressions of life in postwar France.61
Ocampo’s efforts to provide her Spanish and Jewish friends and acquain-
tances with safe passage to Argentina should also be seen as part of her
broader anti-Fascist sentiments and activities, again in consonance with the
conduct of the magazine with which her name had become synonymous.
The daughter of former Spanish ambassador to Chile Ricardo Baeza empha-
sizes, in an interview cited by Dora Schwarztein, the crucial role played by
Ocampo in arranging her family’s departure from Europe and securing the
residence permit that enabled them to stay in Argentina. Ocampo was even
waiting for them at the port on the day of their arrival.62 An avid reader and
expert translator, Baeza’s friendship with Ocampo had consolidated during
his visit to Buenos Aires in 1922. His most important contribution would be
the compilation of a special issue of SUR devoted to Cervantes in 1947.
Also through Ocampo’s offices was María de Maeztu able to leave Europe,
armed with an invitation from SUR to give a series of lectures in Argentina
on women’s education and women’s rights. The two women had first met
during Maeztu’s visit to Amigos del Arte (Friends of the Arts) in Buenos Aires
in 1926.63 Maeztu’s case is particularly noteworthy for, despite the circum-
stances of her brother Ramiro’s death, the former director of the Residencia
de Señoritas continued to maintain a prolonged and close association with
such liberal, pro-Republican circles as Ocampo and her group, a fact that
must have irked the Argentine right-wing Nationalists who had espoused
her martyred brother’s ideas.64 Needless to say, their hispanofilia was a far cry
from that being practiced by SUR.
The poet Rafael Alberti and his wife, writer María Teresa León, whose
close affiliation with the far left was no secret, were also harbored by Ocampo
in a flat she owned on Tucumán Street at the start of their protracted exile on
Argentine soil. Not much time would pass before Alberti, too, was contribut-
ing regularly to SUR. Also, SUR had close ties with several of the Spanish
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émigré publishers that had succeeded in moving their center of operations
to Argentina or founded new houses, turning Buenos Aires into the publish-
ing capital of the Spanish-speaking world. Losada in particular, an offshoot
of Espasa Calpe headed by Gonzalo Losada, became the hub of Spanish
Republican thought in Argentina, publishing the works of García Lorca,
Alberti, Pedro Salinas, and León Felipe, among others. SUR’s Guillermo de
Torre collaborated closely with Losada, while Ocampo herself was on the board
of Sudamericana. Thus, the network of solidarity cast by Ocampo through her
enterprise not only eased the Spanish refugees’ road into “a gentle and benign
exile”—to quote Francisco Ayala—but played a role in their integration into the
new society and their insertion in the new labor market.65
Sadly, Ocampo failed in her attempt to save Benjamin Fondane. Although
she had secured a visa for him to leave Europe, she was unable to locate
him. Turned in to the Gestapo by his concierge, Fondane and his sister were
held for a while in the detention center at Drancy before being deported
to Auschwitz, where he died in October 1944. Afterward, Ocampo wrote
that Fondane
was punished for several crimes: for having been born a Jew, for being
an intellectual, for owning nothing more precious than a handful of
[existentialist Russian philosopher Leon] Chestov’s letters and a pair
of green woolen gloves . . . for being intelligent, laughing and know-
ing how to make others laugh. He was punished in the Nazi way, in
the totalitarian way.66
Fortunately, SUR’s director fared better in her efforts on behalf of German-

Jewish photographer Gisèle Freund. Ocampo had met Freund on a visit to
Europe before the war, at the home of French bookseller Adrienne Monnier,
and invited her to visit Buenos Aires. While hiding from the Gestapo in
France, Freund remembered Ocampo’s invitation and cabled her for help.
Ocampo immediately set about making the necessary financial arrange-
ments and obtaining an Argentine visa for Freund. All told, it took about a
year, but she finally succeeded in bringing Freund over to Buenos Aires in
1941, where Ocampo then harbored her in her own home until the photog-
rapher was in a position to make her own living.67 At Freund’s instigation,
Ocampo established the Committee of Solidarity with French Writers and
launched “Operación Encomiendas” (Operation Parcels), using Monnier’s
bookshop on the Left Bank of Paris to distribute relief packages to needy
French intellectuals.68
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Rosalie Sitman
Loyalty, evidently, was an outstanding feature of Victoria Ocampo’s per-
sonality, together with the ability to rise above ideological differences, as
attested by the reception she extended Alberti, even though SUR regarded
Communism with suspicion. This also accounts, in part, for Ocampo’s
supportive behavior toward her old friend José Ortega y Gasset during his
unhappy third stay in Argentina (1939–1942), in spite of the Spanish phi-
losopher’s withdrawal from SUR after the magazine had mordantly ridi-
culed Franco and the “hispanidad retinta” (pitch-black hispanidad) of the
pro-Francoist, Catholic Sol y Luna in an item in “Calendario.”69 And it
very likely explains her refusal to renounce her friendship with the French
writer Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, despite the latter’s full-blown commitment
to Fascism during the war, which she concurred with Jean-Paul Sartre was
attributable to some kind of death wish.70 She did, however, have his name
removed from the International Editorial Board of SUR. One of the few let-
ters that La Rochelle left on his desk upon his suicide in 1945 was addressed
to Ocampo, and in that letter he wrote that he had never actually hated the
Jews. That he had felt the need to tell her precisely this just as he was about
to take his own life is interesting. Ocampo was equally careful to single out
this fact in an exculpatory essay she published, in which she attempted to
fathom the ghosts that had driven her erstwhile lover and friend of seven-
teen years to suicide.71
Returning to the magazine, again mostly in “Calendario,” SUR consis-
tently ridiculed the excesses of Nazi propaganda and the Nazi press and
denounced the activities of Nazi infiltrators, Nazi spies, and Nazi sympathiz-
ers in Argentina, who operated with the tacit approval of the government.72
Hence SUR followed very closely the incident involving Waldo Frank’s attack
during his third visit to Buenos Aires, on a conference tour under the aus-
pices of the American government in 1942.73 Shortly before leaving for Chile,
Frank published in an evening paper his “Farewell to Argentina,” which was
ill received in certain political circles. El Pampero, a major organ of Nazi
propaganda reputedly financed by the German embassy, retaliated the fol-
lowing day with “Farewell, Miserable Waldo Frank.” But things did not stop
there. “Calendario” for August 1942 informed its readers that the Germans
had arrested eighteen thousand Jews in Paris, who were to be sterilized,
and announced that Frank had been declared persona non grata and sub-
sequently been attacked by six armed thugs in Buenos Aires. In September,
SUR reported that Frank had declared in Rio de Janeiro that he was con-
vinced that the German embassy was behind the attack, and he did not think
that the perpetrators would be arrested. Finally, in November, an item in the
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Protest from Afar
“Noticiario” coolly announced that a certain Jorge Fernández Murray, one of
Frank’s attackers, had been brought before a judge but immediately been set
free, for there was no reason to hold him. SUR’s readers were left to draw
their own conclusions.
In the main section of the magazine, Borges’s contributions during this
period are paradigmatic of SUR’s anti-Fascist (and, by extension, philo-
Semitic) discourse. In “Una pedagogía del odio” (A Pedagogy of Hatred,
1937), he vehemently condemned the demonization of Jews in the Third
Reich as manifested in the virulently anti-Semitic Nazi literature to which
schoolchildren were being exposed in Germany. Four years later came his
venomous attack on Nationalist Nazi sympathizers in Argentina, “1941,”
in which he masterfully turned their own rhetoric against them: “Hitler’s
mercy is ecumenical; shortly (if undisturbed by traitors and Jews) we shall
all enjoy the benefits of torture, sodomy, rape and mass executions.”74
Likewise, many of Borges’s famous short stories, which he first published in
SUR during these years, were openly pro-Jewish or infused with explicit—
and sometimes veiled—Jewish references. Clearly, as Edna Aizenberg has
pointed out, when viewed as a coherent corpus in the context of SUR’s
overall anti-Fascist line, the philo-Semitism of Borges’s stories assumes an
added intensity.75 Thus, in “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbius, Tertius” (1940), “El mila-
gro secreto” (The Secret Miracle, 1943), and “Deutsches requiem” (1946),
for example, totalitarianism, Nazism, and anti-Semitism are depicted as
detestable abominations.76
Toward the end of the war and in the years immediately after, instead of
waning, the Jewish presence in SUR was augmented with the publication
of several important contributions on explicitly Jewish issues, including a
scathing indictment of National Socialism and its persecution and extermi-
nation of six million Jews, written by Máximo José Kahn.77 These texts acted
as constant reminders of the evil that man was capable of when blinded by
pernicious ideologies such as anti-Semitism.
However, SUR’s publication of Kahn is significant from another per-
spective as well. A German-born Jew who had lived for many years in Spain
and Greece before finally settling in Argentina, Kahn epitomized the wan-
dering Jew that was anathema to the Nacionalistas and anti-Semitic officials
in Juan Domingo Perón’s government, like immigration director Santiago
Peralta, who were bent on preventing the entrance of such “undesirable”
elements to the country.78 By giving Kahn ample space in the journal,
the group was ratifying what they perceived as the positive contribution of
Jews to Western civilization and to Argentine culture in particular, while
148
Rosalie Sitman
reiterating their dissatisfaction with the government’s immigration poli-
cies. Typically, upon Kahn’s death in 1953, SUR published a moving eulogy
by Rosa Chacel, herself a Spanish exile who had found refuge in Argentina,
and in SUR.79
Once the magnitude of the Holocaust was known, SUR brought the
overwhelming reality of it home to its readers by publishing various tes-
timonies, among them the wrenching “Memories of Auschwitz” of the
Jewish-Italian writer Giuliana Tedeschi, which tells of her despair at the
indignities and tortures that her body and spirit endured in the subhuman
conditions of the camp, and of the examples of supreme heroism and tri-
umph of the human spirit in the face of adversity that she also witnessed
there. No less chilling was the account of the tragic fate suffered by Kafka’s
sisters in the Nazi crematoria.80
Equal space was given to testimonies of non-Jews, which also told of
the fate suffered by Jews that they had witnessed. Thus, French Resistance
fighter Jean Bloch-Michel spares no stomach-churning detail in his account
of the tortures to which he and the Jews confined with him were subjected
at the hands of the Gestapo.81 In her memoirs of the years she spent in
occupied France, previewed by SUR, Victoria Kent, formerly a Republican
deputy in the Spanish Cortes (Parliament), paints a dismal portrait of the
routine of daily life for Jews at Drancy, the French detention center where
Fondane and his sister had been interned. She writes for herself, she says,
lest she forget, determined to record every minute detail of that grim exis-
tence, not least the eighteen-month-old baby registered as a “terrorist,” so
that one day others might judge.82
Yet Kent’s “Four Years in Paris” acquires added meaning when viewed
in the context of SUR’s running polemic against Fascist manifestations
within Argentina, and without. Perchance—or not—the chosen extract
included Kent’s jubilant outburst upon seeing Republican tanks from the
campaign in North Africa among the liberators of Paris: “Paris applauds
the Spaniards, hardened after nine years of struggle, who today smile at
the liberated people. Paris applauds the heroic Spain of yesterday, [and] the
free, democratic and strong Spain of tomorrow.”83 The anti-Francoist allu-
sion is unmistakable, as are the anti-Fascist overtones. But more important,
bearing in mind that this was published in 1947, was the implicit criticism
directed by SUR against Franco’s new ally, Argentinean president Juan
Domingo Perón.84
Although the war was over, SUR’s refusal to let go of the Jewish question
attests to the group’s determination to ensure that such appalling crimes
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Protest from Afar
against humanity not be repeated—and not be forgotten. SUR’s publica-
tion of Sartre’s “Portrait of an Anti-Semite” (1946), together with Editorial
SUR’s translation of his Reflexiones sobre la cuestión judía (1948), fit in nicely
within this concerted effort. As does Victoria Ocampo’s moving and insight-
ful account of her impressions of the Nuremberg trials, which she had
attended at the invitation of the British government. For anti-Semitism was
still rife, and the dangers very real; there was no doubt about it. In a survey
carried out by Lettres françaises and reported in “Calendario” in January
1949 under the heading “Malos y buenos Judíos” (Good and Bad Jews),
548 anti-Semites were asked if some of their best friends were Jewish;
all 548 answered affirmatively and immediately added, “You know . . . , he
[she] isn’t like the other Jews.”85
Conclusion
The European ideological and armed conflicts of the 1930s and 1940s
crossed the ocean and sharpened the ideological, political, and cultural de
bates within Argentina, forcing intellectuals to ponder their role with regard
to these phenomena, and to take sides. In a context marked by the polariza-
tion between democracy and Fascism in the international arena, and by the
polemic over the policy of neutrality that characterized Argentine foreign
policy, the schism within Argentina’s intellectual field deepened, as liberal
democratic elements such as Victoria Ocampo and SUR aligned themselves
first with the Spanish Republic and then on the side of the Allies, while
those representing the various strains of right-wing Catholic nationalism
identified with Fascism, Francoism, and neutralism.
SUR’s conduct in the face of the upheavals unleashed by the European
conflagrations was coherent with its liberal ideology and its particular con-
ception of human existence. For them, as self-appointed standard-bearers
of civilization, committed to safeguarding man’s natural liberties and the
lofty ideals of the human spirit, Francoism and Fascism constituted the
negation of everything that they stood for—of the person—and therefore
could not be tolerated. One simply could not remain impassive before the
onslaught of these “barbarous” forces. Thus, yielding to the sheer urgency
of the historical moment, SUR takes up the gauntlet thrown by Criterio and,
shedding its apolitical mantle once and for all, rises in “true” Sarmientian
tradition to the defense of “civilization” and of democracy by declaring its
support for the Spanish Republic and the Allied cause, and opening its
pages to voices that were being extinguished elsewhere.
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Rosalie Sitman
There can be no doubt that SUR’s steadfast pro-Republican stance and
manifest philo-Semitism, evidenced by the continuous Republican and Jewish
presence in its pages, were much more than a humanitarian response to the
horrific crimes being perpetrated in Europe. Beyond that, the Republican-
Jewish interplay during this period clearly formed part of a wider discursive
strategy that allowed Victoria Ocampo and the grupo SUR to define them-
selves as a group as well as their position within the Argentinean intellec-
tual field and to counteract the anti-Semitic, xenophobic rhetoric of their
Hispanophile, pro-Fascist, right-wing Catholic Nationalist interlocutors. At
the same time, this ploy provided SUR with tools to intervene politically and
convey its opposition to the Argentine political, religious, and cultural estab-
lishment. In so doing, Ocampo and her magazine were able to rise “a la altura
de los tiempos” (to the height of the times) and craft a niche for themselves in
the pantheon of Argentine letters.
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Notes
1. In the first decades of the twentieth century, the world of letters was still
predominantly a male enclave. At most, the ladies of Ocampo’s class were
expected to host events at established cultural institutions such as Amigos
del Arte. One rare precedent was Clorinda Matto de Turner, who published
El búcaro americano between 1896 and 1908. Of the various biographies of
Victoria Ocampo, see Doris Meyer, Victoria Ocampo: Against the Wind and
the Tide (1979; repr., Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990); Laura Ayerza
de Castilho and Odile Felgine, Victoria Ocampo (Barcelona: Circe, 1993);
María Esther Vázquez, Victoria Ocampo. El mundo como destino (Buenos Aires:
Seix Barral, 2002). As for SUR, one of the most comprehensive studies to this
day remains John King’s seminal Sur: A Study of the Argentine Literary Journal
and Its Role in the Development of a Culture, 1931–1970 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1986). See also Rosalie Sitman, Victoria Ocampo y SUR:
Entre Europa y América (Buenos Aires: Lumiere, 2003); Nora Pasternac,
SUR, una revista en la tormenta: Los años de formación, 1931–1944 (Buenos
Aires: Paradiso, 2002); Oscar Hermes Villordo, El grupo SUR. Una biografía
colectiva (Buenos Aires: Planeta, 1993).
2. Influenced, no doubt, by the ideas about the role and responsibility of the
intellectual and elite minorities, and the separation between politics and
intellectual activity, propounded by Julien Benda in La trahison des clercs (1927)
and by José Ortega y Gasset in La rebelión de las masas (1930). See also Julien
Benda, “La cuestión de la ‘élite,’” SUR 27 (December 1936): 117–20.
3. Leonardo Senkman has written extensively about Jewish and Spanish immi-
gration to Argentina: “Ethnicity and Immigration Policy in the Holocaust
Period,” in Society and Identity in Argentina: The European Context [Hebrew],
ed. Tzvi Medin and Raanan Rein (Tel Aviv: University Publishing Projects,
1997), 199–230; “La argentina neutral de 1940 ante los refugiados espa-
ñoles y judíos,” Ciclos 5, no. 9 (1995); “Etnicidad e inmigración durante
el primer peronismo,” Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el
Caribe 3, no. 2 (July–December 1992): 5–38; Argentina, la Segunda Guerra
Mundial y los refugiados indeseables, 1933–1945 (Buenos Aires: Grupo Editor
Latinoamericano, 1991); “Las relaciones EE.UU.-Argentina y la cuestión de
los refugiados de la posguerra,” Judaica Latinoamericana 1 (1988): 90–114.
See also, Avraham Milgram, Entre la aceptación y el rechazo: América latina
y los refugiados judíos del Nazismo (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2003); Elvira
Rissech, “Inmigración judía a la Argentina, 1938–1942: Entre la aceptación y
el rechazo,” Rumbos 15 (1986): 91–113. For Spanish immigration to Argentina,
José Moya’s Cousins and Strangers: Spanish Immigrants in Buenos Aires,
1850–1939 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), is indispensable.
4. Shulamit Volkov, “Antisemitism as a Cultural Code,” Leo Baeck Institute
Yearbook 23 (1978): 25–46. This also helps to explain why philo-Semitic and
anti-Fascist liberal sectors did not necessarily mobilize on behalf of Jewish
refugees.
5. John C. Turner, “Henri Tajfel: An Introduction,” in Social Groups and
Identities: Developing the Legacy of Henri Tajfel, ed. W. P. Robinson (Oxford
and Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1996), 1–23.
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Rosalie Sitman
6. On the Argentine Catholic Church during this period, Loris Zanatta’s books
are compulsory reading: Del estado liberal a la nación católica: Iglesia y ejército
en los orígenes del peronismo, 1930–1943 (Buenos Aires: Universidad Nacional
de Quilmes, 1996); and Perón y el mito de la nación católica: Iglesia y ejército en
los orígenes del peronismo (1943–1946) (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana,
1999). See also, Lila Caimari, Perón y la Iglesia Católica: Religión, estado y
sociedad en la Argentina, 1943–1955 (Buenos Aires: Ariel Historia, 1995).
7. Naturally, they did not constitute a monolithic bloc but comprised various
strains, with room for a range of different attitudes. Manuel Gálvez, for
example, did not share either the Judeo-phobia or rabid anti-Semitism of
notable right-wing Catholic Nationalists such as Enrique Osés: Leonardo
Senkman, “La representación ficcional del fascismo católico en Manuel
Gálvez,” in Sobre Nazis y Nazismo en la cultura argentina, ed. Ignacio Klich
(College Park, MD: Hispamerica, 2002), 37–50. In the preface and intro-
duction to his Fascismo, liturgia e imaginario: El mito del general Uriburu y la
Argentina nacionalista (Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2002),
9–40, Federico Finchelstein thoroughly reviews the extensive historiography
of right-wing Catholic nationalism in Argentina.
8. Graciela Ben-Dror has researched in depth the attitude of these priests and
of the Argentine Catholic Church toward Jews: Católicos, Nazis y Judíos.
La iglesia argentina en los tiempos del Tercer Reich (Buenos Aires: Ediciones
Lumiere, 2003); The Catholic Church and the Jews: Argentina, 1933–1945
[Hebrew] (Jerusalem: SICSA Publications, Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
2000); “Three Anti-Semitic Priests in the Catholic Church: Deviation or
Norm?” [Hebrew], in Society and Identity in Argentina: The European Context,
ed. Tzvi Medin and Raanan Rein (Tel Aviv: University Publishing Projects,
1997); “La revolución militar, la Argentina católica y los Judíos (1943–1945),”
Judaica Latinoamericana 3 (1997): 227–44; “Posturas del Catolicismo argen-
tino durante los primeros años de la Segunda Guerra Mundial,” Estudios
Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe 7, no. 2 (1996): 101–32; “La
conferencia de Evián: El periodismo católico argentino y la conformación
de la opinión pública,” Judaica Latinoamericana 2 (1993): 87–97.
9. Julio Irazusta, “Historia de una revista,” La Opinión Cultural, March 4, 1979.
10. The antithetical “civilización y barbarie,” immortalized by the liberal
nineteenth-century statesman Domingo Faustino Sarmiento in his Vida de
Juan Facundo Quiroga: Civilización y barbarie (1845), constitute a key concept
in Argentine history. In the original context of liberal demographic poli-
cies, the terms referred to the need to populate (and thus vanquish) the vast
expanses of sparsely inhabited “badlands” with desirable white immigrants,
preferably from northern Europe. The people of SUR saw themselves as heirs
of the Sarmientian tradition and therefore defenders of the lofty values of civi-
lization, which were being threatened by the “barbarous” forces of Fascism
and totalitarianism.
11. Victoria Ocampo, “Carta a Waldo Frank,” SUR 1 (Summer 1931): 7–18.
12. Sandra McGee Deutsch and Ronald H. Dolkart, eds., The Argentine Right:
Its Historical and Intellectual Origins, 1910 to the Present (Wilmington, DE:
SR Books, 1993), 91.
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13. SUR 9 (July 1934): 152–70. Hugo Wast was the pseudonym of Gabriel
Martínez Zuviría, an extreme right-wing Nationalist. He was director of the
National Library and later became minister of education and justice during
the military regime that came to power after the coup of 1943. In this capacity,
he was responsible for implementing the law of compulsory Catholic instruc-
tion in all state schools that the ultranationalists had demanded previously.
In this novel, Martínez Zuviría expounded the idea of a universal Jewish
conspiracy.
14. As illustrated by the Italian Futurist writer Marinetti’s attack on Ocampo at
the PEN Congress celebrated in Buenos Aires in 1936. The participants (as
well as the “absentees”), and the speeches on this occasion, dispelled any pos-
sible doubt about the polarization of the international intellectual community.
15. Waldo Frank, “Nuestra culpa en el fascismo,” SUR 69 (June 1940): 7–26, and
“El Judío en el futuro de América,” SUR 77 (February 1941): 12–20.
16. One such example is Carlos Alberto Erro, “Un filósofo americano: Waldo
Frank (Con motivo de ‘América Hispana’),” SUR 7 (April 1933): 45–95.
Patricio Canto, in his review of “Chart for Rough Water,” singled out
Frank’s typically Jewish joie de vivre, as well as a certain quality reminis-
cent of a biblical prophet: “Waldo Frank: ‘Chart for Rough Water,’” SUR 73
(October 1940): 75–81.
17. Benjamin Fondane, “El cinema en el atolladero,” SUR 1 (Summer 1931):
158–65, “Prefacio para el presente,” SUR 21 (June 1936): 72–86, “Nietzsche
y los problemas ‘repugnantes,’” SUR 42 (March 1938): 53–60, “Lévy-Brühl
o el metafísico a pesar suyo,” SUR 57 (June 1939): 65–75.
18. The Bulletins and the Cahiers Benjamin Fondane, edited by Monique Jutrin
(Tel Aviv University) are an invaluable source of information on the philoso-
pher. Of particular interest here is Cahiers 1 (1997), devoted in its entirety
to “Fondane et l’Argentine,” and featuring an article by Gloria Alcorta,
“Du nouveau sur Tararira,” about the film that Fondane made in Buenos
Aires. See also, Monique Jutrin, “Tararira, une mise au point,” Cahiers 5
(2001–2002), and David Vergara, “Tararira: Une nouvelle hypothèse,”
Cahiers 7 (2004); Ayerza de Castilho and Felgine, Victoria Ocampo, 170–71.
19. Much has been written about the impact of the Spanish Civil War on
Argentine intellectuals: Raanan Rein, “Between Republican and Nationalist
Spain: Argentina and the Spanish Civil War” [Hebrew], in They Shall Not Pass:
The Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939, ed. Raanan Rein (Tel Aviv: Zmora-Bitan,
2000), 252–71, and “Another Front Line: Francoists and Anti-Francoists in
Argentina, 1936–1949,” Patterns of Prejudice 31, no. 3 (1997): 17–33; V. Trifone
and G. Svarzman, La repercusión de la guerra civil española en la Argentina
(1936–1939) (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1993); Mónica
Quijada, Aires de república, aires de cruzada: La guerra civil española en
Argentina (Barcelona: Sendai Ediciones, 1991); Beatriz Sarlo, Una moder-
nidad periférica: Buenos Aires 1920 y 1930 (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Nueva
Visión, 1988); Ernesto Goldar, Los argentinos y la guerra civil española (Buenos
Aires: Editorial Contrapunto, 1986); Mark Falcoff and Frederick B. Pike, eds.,
The Spanish Civil War, 1936–39: American Hemispheric Perspectives (Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 1982).
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Rosalie Sitman
20. SUR 35 (August 1937): 98–117. With an emphasis very different from that of
traditional Catholic teachings, Maritain’s earlier contributions also cannot
have sat well with Franceschi: “Carta sobre la independencia,” SUR 22 (July
1936): 54–86, “Conferencia de Jacques Maritain a propósito de la ‘Carta sobre
la independencia,’” SUR 27 (December 1936): 7–41, “Con el pueblo. De un
nuevo humanismo,” SUR 31 (April 1937): 7–21. On the Criterio-Maritain con-
troversy, see Marcelo Monserrat, “La polémica doctrinaria: El caso Maritain,”
Usos de la memoria: Razón, ideología e imaginación históricas (Buenos
Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, Univesidad de San Andrés, 1996), 186–96;
Pasternac, SUR: Una revista en la tormenta, especially chapters 3 and 4; Mark
Falcoff, “Argentina,” in The Spanish Civil War, 1936–39: American Hemispheric
Perspectives, ed. Mark Falcoff and Frederick Pike (Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 1982); King, Sur, 86–89. In this context, it is interesting that
in 1938, as the situation for European Jews became more urgent, Editorial
SUR saw fit to publish Maritain’s The Jews among Nations.
21. SUR 35 (August 1937): 7–9.
22. Grouped around Esprit, founded by Emmanuel Mounnier, this movement’s
particular brand of Christian social thought provided a palatable alternative
(for SUR) to traditional Catholic attitudes toward the political and ideological
dilemmas of the day. For a definition of personalism, see Nicolás Berdiaeff,
“Personalismo y Marxismo,” SUR 13 (October 1935): 7–39; Emmanuel
Mounier, Manifeste au service du personalisme (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1936),
and “Inteligencia y personalismo,” SUR 46 (July 1938): 38–42.
23. “Posición de SUR,” SUR 35 (August 1937): 7–9. All translations are the
author’s.
24. As described in Ben-Dror, “Posturas del Catolicismo argentino” and “La
conferencia de Evián.”
25. “Posición de SUR,” 8.
26. The question of the reasons for Argentina’s neutrality during World War II
has sparked a heated debate. See, among others, Mario Rapoport, “Argentina y
la Segunda Guerra Mundial: Mitos y realidades,” Estudios Interdisciplinarios de
América Latina y el Caribe 6, no. 1 (January–June 1995): 5–22, and Gran Bretaña,
Estados Unidos y las clases dirigentes argentinas, 1940–1945 (Buenos Aires:
Editorial de Belgrano, 1981); Carlos Escudé, “Un enigma: La ‘irracionalidad’
argentina frente a la Segunda Guerra Mundial,” Estudios Interdisciplinarios
de América Latina y el Caribe 6, no. 2 (July–December 1995): 5–34, and Gran
Bretaña, Estados Unidos y la declinación argentina, 1942–1949 (Buenos Aires:
Editorial de Belgrano, 1983); Leonardo Senkman, “El nacionalismo y el campo
liberal argentinos ante el neutralismo: 1939–1943,” Estudios Interdisciplinarios de
América Latina y el Caribe 6, no. 1 (January–June 1995): 23–50.
27. La vanguardia, December 17, 1937, 3, quoted in Andrés Bisso, “La recep-
ción de la tradición liberal por parte del antifascismo argentino,” Estudios
Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe 12, no. 2 (July–December 2001):
86. Although united around a common objective, this was not, however, a
monolithic bloc. Leonardo Senkman has ably exposed the cracks in this liberal
democratic front: “El nacionalismo.” See also, Bisso, “La división de la comuni-
dad antifascista argentina (1939–1941),” Reflejos 9 (2000–2001): 88–99.
155
Protest from Afar
28. This was almost to be expected. Already in 1934, Borges’s perceived philo-
Semitism had caused the Nationalist organ Crisol to accuse him of being
secretly Jewish. Borges retorted by publishing in Megáfono his “Yo, Judío,”
a masterpiece of irony, in which he wrote that it would not displease him to
be Jewish and that his surname “Borges-Acevedo” was of Jewish-Portuguese
origin. In later years, he would often reiterate that he would consider it an
honor to belong to one of the most civilized races in the world. See María
Esther Vázquez, Borges: Esplendor y derrota (Barcelona: Tusquets Editores,
1996), 66; Gustavo Daniel Perednik, “La Judeidad entre las ideas de la na
rrativa de Borges,” Reflejos 2 (August 1993): 37–42; Evelyn Fishburn, “Borges,
Cabbala and ‘Creative Misreading,’” J. L. Borges Center for Studies and
Documentation, www.hum.au.dk/romansk/borges/bsol/evi1.htm.
29. Pseudonym of the Jewish writer Israel Zeitlin, whose magazine Columna
and various ancillary publications also evidenced a manifest preoccupation
with the fate of European Jews and concern over the phenomenon of growing
anti-Semitism worldwide; Naomi Lindstrom, “The Role of Jewish Editors in
Argentine Publishing, 1920–1940,” Judaica Latinoamericana 3 (1997): 371–83.
30. Ben-Dror, “La conferencia de Evián,” 92–93.
31. The enormous support in the Argentine church for the Spanish church’s
legitimization of Franco’s “crusade” owed much to the contacts forged by the
Archbishop of Toledo, Isidro Gomá y Tomás, an ally of Franco, during his
visit to Buenos Aires for the Eucharistic Congress in 1934.
32. SUR 56 (May 1939): 39–69; Ibid., 57 (June 1939): 43–64; Ibid., 58 (July 1939):
21–34.
33. Signed with the initials “M. R. O.” (María Rosa Oliver), SUR 56 (May 1939): 40.
34. Nidia Burgos, “La repercusión de la guerra civil española en la sección
‘Calendario’ de la revista SUR,” Cuadernos Americanos 74 (March–April
1999): 72–84.
35. “Calendario,” SUR 53 (February 1939): 81–82; Ibid., 68 (May 1940): 78.
36. SUR 47 (August 1938): 91 and 88.
37. Ibid., 49 (October 1938): 90.
38. “Calendario,” SUR 68 (May 1940): 79.
39. SUR 28 (January 1937): 31–46.
40. Federico García Lorca, “Poemas póstumos,” SUR 34 (July 1937): 29–32;
José Bianco, “García Lorca en el Odeón,” SUR 32 (May 1937): 75–80;
Victoria Ocampo, “Carta a Federico García Lorca,” SUR 33 (June 1937): 81–83.
41. “Comisión Argentina de ayuda a los intelectuales españoles,” SUR 56 (May
1939): 103.
42. “The Argentinean authorities, in contrast with those of Mexico and Santo
Domingo or Chile, did not seem well disposed to welcome the Republicans
fleeing from Franco. Then president Ortiz, whose family boasted of being of
Basque origin, was finally moved to issue a decree, of an exceptional nature,
allowing entry to Basques; but other Spaniards like us to whom this privilege
was not granted, we had to manage as best we could,” remembers Francisco
Ayala in his memoirs: “Mi Buenos Aires querido,” Recuerdos y olvidos 1.
Del paraíso al destierro 2. El exilio 3. Retornos (Madrid: Alianza, 1988), 260.
Regarding the Spanish exile in Mexico, see Gonzalo Santonja, Los signos de la
156
Rosalie Sitman
noche: De la guerra al exilio: Historia peregrina del libro republicano entre España
y México (Madrid: Editorial Castalia, 2003).
43. Gina Lombroso, “El problema de los refugiados,” SUR 55 (April 1939): 60–69.
44. “Calendario,” SUR 57 (June 1939): 110. Ortiz’s declarations had been prompted
by a petition he had received signed by leading French intellectuals, among
them André Gide, Nobel Prize winner Fréderic Joliot, Jacques Maritain,
François Mauriac from the French Academy, and Jean Perrin, another Nobel
Prize recipient.
45. In her memoirs, María Rosa Oliver exposes her government’s repeated
attempts to hinder activities on behalf of the Spanish Republicans: “Although
the Argentinean government maintained diplomatic relations with the govern-
ment of Spain, it succeeded in hindering or preventing aid to the Republicans.
Pressure to deny permission for the use of facilities to hold acts of solidarity,
hanky-panky in issuing police permits for these events, impediments to the
shipment of food and medicine, all seemed geared to forcing us to go under-
ground,” Mi fe es el hombre (Buenos Aires: Ediciones C. Lohlé, 1981), 11.
46. Emilia de Zuleta, “Las letras españolas en la revista ‘SUR,’” Revista de Archivos,
Bibliotecas y Museos 80, no. 1 (1977): 113–45, and Españoles en la Argentina: El
exilio literario de 1936 (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Atril, 1999). Also by the same
author, Relaciones literarias entre España y la Argentina (Madrid: Ediciones
Cultura Hispánica del Instituto de Cooperación Iberoamericana, 1983).
47. Gregorio de Marañón, “Soledad y libertad,” SUR 31 (April 1937): 60–91.
This prompted an irate exchange of letters between José Bergamín, editor
of the Republican organ Cruz y raya, and Ocampo: “Cartas abiertas: De José
Bergamín a Victoria Ocampo—De Victoria Ocampo a José Bergamín,” SUR 32
(May 1937): 67–69.
48. For example, Georges Bernanos, “Georges Bernanos escribe para ‘SUR,’”
SUR 48 (September 1938): 7–19; and Robert Weibel-Richard, “El testimonio de
Bernanos y las responsabilidad del Cristianismo,” SUR 47 (August 1938): 64–69.
49. As illustration, see Rafael Pividal, “Católicos fascistas y Católicos personalis-
tas,” SUR 35 (August 1937): 87–97, and “Un ministro nacionalista insulta a
Maritain,” SUR 47 (August 1938): 70–72; Augusto J. Durelli, “La unidad entre
los Católicos,” SUR 47 (August 1938): 72–80, and “Los Cristianos y el reposo,”
SUR 60 (September 1939): 74–80.
50. SUR 47 (July 1938): 72–73.
51. “Tres pueblos mártires,” SUR 52 (January 1939): 64–65.
52. SUR 60 (September 1939): 8.
53. In fact, during this time SUR published several contributions that appeared
to endorse the policy of neutrality that Argentina still shared with the United
States and the other Latin American nations, in accordance with the agreements
reached at the meeting of foreign ministers that President Franklin D. Roosevelt
had convened in Panama shortly after the outbreak of the war in 1939. See, for
example, Carlos Alberto Erro, “La Argentina frente a la nueva guerra,” SUR
60 (September 1939): 13–15; Eduardo González Lanuza, “Posición del escritor
frente a la actual guerra europea,” SUR 61 (October 1939): 30–35; and Enrique
Anderson Imbert, “Hitler corre el amok,” SUR 61 (October 1939): 41–45.
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Protest from Afar
54. “Voz de alerta,” signed May 15, 1940, SUR 67 (April 1940), n.p. Clearly, at
this juncture, SUR’s position appears to be closer to that of the United States
than that of its own government. This would continue to be the case until
Argentina finally broke off relations with the Axis in January 1944 and ulti-
mately declared war in March 1945.
55. Victoria Ocampo, “América indivisible,” SUR 87 (December 1941): 7–9.
56. Secretary of State Cordell Hull would exact his revenge by imposing an
embargo on Argentina and withholding all economic and military aid, all
the while bolstering her neighbor, Brazil. On U.S.-Argentine relations, see
Joseph S. Tulchin, Argentina and the United States: A Conflicted Relationship
(Boston: Twayne, 1990). On Pan-Americanism from Argentina’s perspective,
see the issue of Todo es historia devoted to “Cien años de Panamericanismo,”
no. 270 (1989).
57. SUR 99 (December 1942): 104.
58. “Voz de alerta,” signed May 15, 1940; SUR 67 (April 1940), n.p.
59. Hebe Carmen Pelossi, Vichy no fue Francia: Las relaciones franco-argentinas
(1939–1946) (Buenos Aires: Nuevohacer Grupo Editor Latinoamericano,
2003).
60. See Sandra McGee Deutsch, “Changing the Landscape: The Study of
Argentine Jewish Women and New Historical Vistas,” Jewish History 18
(2004): 49–73.
61. Mika Etchebéhère, “Itinerario de posguerra,” SUR 139 (May 1946): 84–87;
SUR 140 (June 1946): 80–82; Ibid., 141 (July 1946): 84–88; Ibid., 142 (August
1946): 107–11; Ibid., 143 (September 1946): 92–97; Ibid., 144 (October 1946):
74–78; Ibid., 145 (November 1946): 93–97; Ibid., 146 (December 1946): 87–91;
Ibid., 150 (April 1947): 68–71; Ibid., 151 (May 1947). Communist sympathizer
Dalila Saslavsky was also actively involved in Junta. Her husband’s (Luis’s)
film commentaries appeared from time to time in SUR.
62. Dora Schwarzstein, Entre Franco y Perón: Memoria e identidad del exilio
republicano español en Argentina (Barcelona: Crítica, 2001).
63. Victoria Ocampo, “María de Maeztu,” in Soledad sonora (Buenos Aires:
Editorial Sudamericana, 1950), 270–76. Also, Emilia de Zuleta, Españoles
en la Argentina, chapter 4.
64. The conservative Catholic intellectual Ramiro de Maeztu had amassed a
large following among Argentine nationalists during his stint as Primo de
Rivera’s ambassador to Buenos Aires from 1927 to 1930. He was executed by
a Republican firing squad in October 1936. Raanan Rein, The Franco-Perón
Alliance: Relations between Spain and Argentina, 1946–1955 (Pittsburgh, PA:
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993), and “Another Front Line: Francoists
and Anti-Francoists in Argentina, 1936–1949,” Patterns of Prejudice 31, no. 3
(1997): 17–33; Beatriz J. Figallo, “Ramiro de Maeztu y la Argentina,” Res Gesta
24 (1988): 78–92.
65. Francisco Ayala, Recuerdos y olvidos.
66. Cited in Ayerza de Castilho and Felgine, Victoria Ocampo, 283.
67. Gisèle Freund, “Reina Victoria,” La Prensa, June 10, 1979. See also, Ayerza de
Castilho and Felgine, Victoria Ocampo, 188–90.
158
Rosalie Sitman
68. Ayerza de Castilho and Felgine, Victoria Ocampo, 221–25. Both André Gide
and Paul Valéry wrote letters expressing their gratitude to Ocampo for her
efforts on their behalf during the war: “Correspondencia,” SUR 347 (July–
December 1980): 37, and “Lettres de Paul Valéry à Victoria Ocampo,” SUR
132 (October 1945): 80–104.
69. Following the publication of “Capricho español” in SUR 58 (July 1939), Ortega
y Gasset, who had christened the magazine during a transatlantic telephone
conversation with his friend Victoria Ocampo, asked to have his name
removed from the review’s International Board. This did not deter Ocampo
from helping him throughout his third stay in Argentina. See Tzvi Medin,
Ortega y Gasset en la cultura hispanoamericana (México: Fondo de Cultura
Económica, 1994).
70. Victoria Ocampo, “El caso de Drieu La Rochelle,” in Soledad sonora, 13–40
(Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1950), 30.
71. Ibid. In her biography of Borges, María Esther Vázquez is similarly perplexed
by the fact that Borges, as much an anti-Fascist as Ocampo, likewise would
never condemn La Rochelle, whom he had admired since the early days of
their friendship, forged during the Frenchman’s visit to Buenos Aires in May
1933, invited by SUR (that is, by Ocampo); Vázquez, Borges, 136–38.
72. As an example, in December 1939, SUR published a separata with the transla-
tion of a Nazi propaganda text about the Russian-Finnish conflict, which had
appeared in the Deutsche La Plata Zeitung on the first of that month.
73. While Argentina suffered the embargo imposed by the United States because
of the government’s stubborn neutrality, SUR reaped many benefits from its
privileged relationship with Nelson Rockefeller’s Office for Inter-American
Affairs, through the presence in Washington of María Rosa Oliver. Frank’s
visit on this occasion was an example of these cultural exchanges.
74. SUR 32 (May 1937): 80–81; Ibid., 87 (December 1941): 22.
75. Given Borges’s amply demonstrated Jewish sympathies, it is fitting to find the
names of two Jews—the Argentinian playwright Samuel Eichelbaum and the
Venezuelan philologist Ángel Rosenblat—in the roster of leading intellectu-
als who contributed to the special issue of SUR designed to indemnify Borges
for having been denied the national prize for literature in 1942; “Desagravio a
Borges,” SUR 94 (July 1942).
76. Antonio Gómez López-Quiñones, Borges y el Nazismo: Sur, 1937–1946
(Granada: Universidad de Granada, 2004); Ilan Stavans, “A Comment on
Borges’s Response to Hitler,” Modern Judaism 23 (2003): 1–11; Saúl Sosnowski,
“Letras e imágenes de guerra,” in Sobre Nazis y Nazismo en la cultura argen-
tina, ed. Ignacio Klich (College Park, MD: Hispamérica, 2002), 15–26, esp.
16–20; Edna Aizenberg, Borges, el tejedor del Aleph y otros ensayos (Madrid:
Iberoamericana, 1997); Perednik, “La Judeidad,” 38–41; Naomi Lindstrom,
Jewish Issues in Argentine Literature: From Gerchunoff to Szichman (Columbia:
University of Missouri Press, 1989); Jaime Alazraki, Borges and the Kabbalah.
And Other Essays on his Fiction and Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1988). SUR 86 (May 1940): 30–46; Ibid., 101 (February 1943): 13–20;
Ibid., 136 (February 1946): 7–14.
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Protest from Afar
77. “‘Mit Brennender Sorge.’ La contra inquisición,” SUR 133 (November 1945):
44–61. Significantly, “Mit Brennender Sorge” is an obvious reference to Pope
Pius XI’s papal bull condemning the religious situation under the Third
Reich. Other texts were “La sinagoga,” SUR 117 (July 1944): 48–61; “Judaísmo,
sueño soñado por la deidad,” SUR 152 (June 1947): 59–75; and “Los antijudíos
filosemitas,” SUR 160 (February 1948): 48–57.
78. See the interesting study about Kahn’s life and work by Leonardo Senkman,
“Máximo José Kahn: De escritor sefardí del exilio a escritor del desastre
judío,” Zwischen Literatur und Philosophie. Suche nach dem Menschlichen
(Jerusalem: 2000): 221–39.
79. Rosa Chacel, “Una palabra de adiós; Máximo José Kahn, 1897–1953,” SUR 224
(September–October 1953): 124–29.
80. Published in two installments, in SUR 140 (June 1946): 44–60, and SUR
151 (May 1947): 69–90; H. Zylberger, “El trágico fin de las tres hermanas de
Kafka,” SUR 145 (November 1946): 73–76.
81. Jean Bloch-Michel, “La prisión,” SUR 145 (November 1946): 62–73.
82. Victoria Kent, “Cuatro años en París,” SUR 150 (April 1947): 32–37. Editorial
SUR published the entire text in 1947. Already in 1936, SUR had printed a
text by Chilean Nobel laureate Gabriela Mistral praising Kent’s illustrious
career: “Recado sobre Victoria Kent,” SUR 20 (May 1936): 7–19. An advocate
of prison reform, Kent was not exactly the kind of role model that would have
appealed to Argentina’s Catholic establishment, which tended to view askance
any female incursion into the public sphere.
83. Kent, “Cuatro años en París,” 55.
84. For Ocampo and the people of SUR, Peronism was tantamount to a vernacu-
lar version of Fascism, only more dangerous since it was right on their door-
step. For SUR’s trajectory during the years of the first Peronism, see Sitman,
Victoria Ocampo y SUR, especially chapter 6, and idem, “Resistencia cultural
a un régimen autoritario: El ‘sonoro’ silencio de SUR durante el primer pero
nismo,” in Temas de Historia Argentina y Americana 3 (2003): 173–98.
85. The magazine and collection of titles in French started by Roger Caillois,
under SUR’s aegis, during the French sociologist’s sojourn in Buenos Aires
as a protegé of Ocampo during the war years. SUR 171 (January 1949): 84.
160
Rosalie Sitman
chapter eight
Changing the Landscape

The Study of Argentine-Jewish Women and New Historical Vistas
sandra mcgee deutsch
I n September 1941 a diverse set of women in Argentina created the Junta

de la Victoria (Junta of Victory). In this organization, Jewish women figured
prominently. One of the largest and best publicized of the anti-Fascist orga-
nizations that arose in the 1930s and early 1940s, the Junta recruited an
estimated forty-five thousand women to support the Allied cause in World
War II. Yet we know little about it or its Jewish membership.
The case of the long-forgotten Junta de la Victoria calls attention to
broader gaps in the historiography on Argentina, on its Jews, and on its
women. Jewish women have played critical roles in Argentina and its siz-
able Jewish community, the largest in Latin America and the third larg-
est in the hemisphere. They helped create communal organizations, farm
settlements, labor unions, and human rights groups. However, Argentine-
Jewish women are virtually absent from the secondary historical sources.
Studying them is vital for its own sake, to recover the voices and tell the
untold stories of the unheard half of the Jewish population.1
Yet it is also crucial for another reason, as the example of the Junta dem-
onstrates. In the course of my research on the history of Argentine-Jewish
women from 1880 to 1955, I conducted interviews with Jewish women of
161
varied ethnic and class backgrounds. My informants discussed what was
important to them in their own lives, and they often raised issues that had
not occurred to me.2 One matter of importance to women of Eastern Euro
pean backgrounds was their participation in the Junta de la Victoria. Once
alerted, I began to find discussion of the Junta in written sources as well.
My interviewees belied the notion often conveyed by Argentinists that only
the Europhile elite, not the masses of people, opposed Fascism. As Aurora
Levins Morales has noted, putting women and their concerns at the center
of our inquiries “changes the landscape.”3
Four examples from Argentine-Jewish women’s lives illustrate this point
very well. They are the daily routines and education of Eastern European
women in the farming communities; Zionism and philanthropy among
Eastern and central European and Mediterranean women; and the partici-
pation of Eastern European women in the Communist Party and in the
Junta de la Victoria. Placing these examples at the center of our interest
changes the landscape of the history of Argentina, Argentine Jews, and
Argentine women both metaphorically and spatially.
It also changes the landscape of ethnic studies. It reveals that ethnic
groups are not monolithic; instead they are fragmented by gender, class,
and place of origin. Centering on Jewish women shows that ethnic groups
are not closed communities, nor are they exceptional. It also demonstrates
that anti-Semitism is not the sum total of Jewish lives.
First one must situate these women within larger Argentine and
Argentine-Jewish contexts. Argentine Jews created a set of communities
of diverse origins. A few relatively well-off Jews from western Europe and
others from Morocco arrived before 1889, when a mass migration from
eastern Europe began. A significant minority of the eastern Europeans
became farmers, but most settled in the cities. Here, starting out as workers
and peddlers, some men managed to build small industries. The Yiddish-
speaking eastern Europeans and their offspring, known as Ashkenazim,
form the majority of Argentine Jews.4 Jews from the Balkans, Turkey, North
Africa, and the Middle East came before 1930. These Jews who had lived
under Ottoman rule are commonly called Sephardim. Many men from
these groups became peddlers and merchants, and a few became textile
manufacturers. Generally more privileged than their predecessors, cen-
tral European and Italian Jews entered during the Nazi era, and the men
of these communities augmented the numbers of Jews in the professions
and light industry. After World War II a handful of Holocaust survivors
and Jews from Egypt and Morocco completed the local Jewish population.
162
Sandra McGee Deutsch
“Sephardim” accounted for perhaps 17 percent of Argentine Jews in 1930
and 10 percent in 1985.5 I use the word “Sephardim” in quotation marks
because a generalized Sephardic identity did not exist until the 1940s, as
we will see. Rich and poor, rural and urban, of many different geographical
origins, Argentine Jews are hardly a monolithic presence.
The Jewish population grew to 310,000 in 1960, constituting only a
small part of the immense flow of immigrants to Argentina.6 During the
peak years between 1870 and 1910, about 2.2 million people settled perma-
nently in the country. In 1914 about 30 percent of the total population and
an even greater percentage of the inhabitants of the economically dynamic
portions of the country were foreign-born.7 These were higher proportions
than those ever reached in the United States. However, most of the immi-
grants were Italians and Spaniards; they were similar culturally to native-
born Argentines, and like them they were Catholic. Jews stood somewhat
apart in an immigrant nation that was more homogeneous than the United
States, but they were not isolated.
Pioneer Women
Many of the eastern European Jews who arrived in the late 1800s and early
1900s headed directly to the agricultural settlements. These settlements
have received much scholarly attention. Existing histories of the colonies
focus on communal politics, the formation of cooperatives, and conflicts
with the landlord, the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA). Founded in
1891 by philanthropist Baron Maurice de Hirsch, the JCA settled thousands
of Jews on its Argentine lands. Women participated only indirectly, or infor-
mally, in these activities, and studies have accordingly overlooked them.
The JCA awarded land titles to male heads of households alone; the few
female titleholders were widows who inherited deeds from their husbands.
The rare women who appear in the records of the cooperatives as mem-
bers or petitioners also were widows. Only in recent years, well after the
decline of the colonies, have women participated actively in the rural politi-
cal arena. Viewed through women’s eyes, during its golden years Jewish
rural life revolved around education, philanthropic and Zionist groups, and
daily routine.
The daily routine included rearing, feeding, and clothing large families
and cleaning the home under arduous, pioneer conditions. It also meant
absorbing local customs, such as food preparation, from Creoles (native-
born, generally mestizo Catholics) who worked in Jewish homes and farms
163
or lived nearby. Women worked the fields alongside the men, tended gar-
dens and animals, and sold produce in nearby towns.8
The struggle for education helped define women’s lives. In 1914 less
than half of the Russian-born women in the country were literate.9 (This is
only an approximation of the Jewish population. At the time most Jews in
Argentina were of Russian origin, but some Russians were not Jewish, and
this category excludes Jews of other origins.) Many hungered for learning,
for themselves and their daughters. Children often had to ride a horse or
carriage long distances to attend the first few grades at a rural school. Any
further education meant living with relatives or in a pension in a distant
city. Lacking financial resources, unwilling to lose their daughters’ labor, or
loathe to risk the possibility of their daughters moving out of a Jewish orbit,
some parents did not encourage them to seek education. However, aware
that the horizons in farming were limited, others did, risking criticism from
socially conservative neighbors.10
Attending normal school became a formative experience for Jewish
women able to continue their studies. Teaching at the primary level appears
to have constituted the typical path of upward mobility for young women in
the countryside and city alike, and not only for Jews. Jewish women, then,
were not exceptional.
Teachers were respected despite the low pay. There was much competi-
tion for teaching positions, and political influence was needed to secure a
job. That Jews acquired teaching positions suggests that some had made
these valuable connections.11 Much of the literature on Argentine Jews
emphasizes anti-Semitism, yet the study of women indicates that Jews were
not as marginalized as one might think.
Normal school students absorbed pride in the liberal national project
and a sense that women could contribute to it through teaching; both notions
had characterized liberal president Domingo F. Sarmiento (1868–1874),
who had promoted secular education and teacher training.12 The desire to
transform society propelled some Jewish women educators into teachers’
unions and the Socialist, Communist, and other leftist movements. A few
teachers also went to Spain in the 1930s to participate in the Civil War, pit-
ting the democratic Republic against rightist rebels. They participated with
other Argentines in all these progressive causes.
The authorities were aware of these political affiliations; even where
they did not exist, officials tended to identify Jews with leftist attachments,
because many were of Russian origin. Such linkages dated back to the early
1900s, when rightist Argentines began to identify Jews with Bolshevism
164
and anarchism. Such sentiments had led policemen and bourgeois citizens
to attack Jewish workers in 1910 and 1919.13
In 1943 rightist military officers took control of the government, and
their underlings carefully monitored the political leanings of Jewish and
other Argentines. In 1944 Governor Lieutenant Colonel Carlos María Zavalla
of Entre Ríos province, the center of Jewish agricultural settlements, fired
the Jewish teachers of Villa Domínguez, all of whom were women, accusing
them of being unpatriotic citizens and Communists or fellow travelers. In
his view, Jews were not genuinely Argentine. One attributed her dismissal
to the fact that her principal denounced her and her colleagues for laugh-
ing at a speech given by the president. Zavalla followed this action by firing
about 120 more teachers from across the entire province, most of whom
were Jewish and many female. Some of these teachers were fired simply
because of Jewish-sounding last names, even though they were of German
Christian descent. These Christian teachers immediately returned to work,
but not the Jews. The Jewish teachers and their supporters within and out-
side the community, including teachers’ unions, protested for months until
the new governor, General José Humberto Sosa Molina, reinstated them.14
This incident is telling. It belies the common notion that Jewish wom-
en’s public and especially political roles were muted until the 1960s. Fur
thermore, it changes the landscape of Argentine women’s history. Scholars
have concentrated on how women entered the public arena through femi-
nism, unions, and Peronism.15 Teaching constituted another path. The epi-
sode also shows how Jewish women fought attempts to exclude them from
the nation. Rather than choose between their ethnic and national identities,
they insisted on both.
Women’s lives in the agricultural colonies also revolved around charity
work. Like their Catholic counterparts, wealthier Jewish women collected,
administered, and distributed aid to the poor, communal institutions, and
local schools. Groups of older pious women gave alms to the needy, pre-
pared bodies for burial, and provided trousseaus for impoverished women.16
Such circles were the precursors of the ladies’ beneficent societies that arose
in many Jewish communities. Providing health care for the indigent and
maintaining Jewish hospitals were additional tasks. The beneficent societ-
ies often contributed funds to Jewish institutions in Buenos Aires and sent
people to the federal capital to access these services. Such establishments
also had branches in the interior that collected money for them. Parents—
but more typically mothers—formed societies that watched over the schools,
served milk and snacks to pupils, inspected the premises for cleanliness,
165
supplied equipment, and provided children with clothes. To raise money,
these charities held dances, picnics, theatrical and musical performances,
films, and other cultural events, which enriched social life.17
The study of Jewish women calls attention to the dense associational net-
works in the small towns and colonies, which created links among women,
assisted the poor, enhanced children’s education, and maintained the qual-
ity of local services. They strengthened the bonds of community yet also
may have highlighted the class divisions within it, since women of means
dispensed largess to those who needed it. Ignored in most of the published
work, these networks were a vital feature of daily existence. In addition,
placing women at the center of Jewish rural life changes the landscape in a
concrete spatial sense. It demonstrates how women helped fill in the terrain
of the colonies by opening new spaces for communal sociability.
Women also struggled to create spaces for themselves. Associational
records chronicle their continual negotiations and conflicts with male orga-
nizations over self-expression, competing activities, and securing their own
meeting places. In 1928 the female auxiliary of the Hospital Clara in Villa
Domínguez, Entre Ríos, received the male board’s permission to attend and
speak out at its meetings, but not the right to vote. In another case, in 1926,
the local ladies’ beneficent society repeatedly complained to the male board
of the hospital of Basavilbaso, Entre Ríos, about the lack of cleanliness at the
facility, to which the men reacted rudely; they also refused to clean up the
hospital. Additional frustration arose when the board insisted that the soci-
ety delay a long-planned fund-raiser to help it construct its headquarters.
The men wanted to schedule a benefit of their own. In the end, the society’s
protests forced the board to compromise.18
The battle over the fund-raiser related to the society’s larger struggle to
attain its own building. Over the years the ladies had met in private homes
and in the local Jewish library, but these arrangements proved unsatisfac-
tory. Having their own space would allow the women to congregate and
voice their concerns freely, as well as to extend and more fully control their
activities. Acceding to the ladies’ request, the JCA gave them a piece of land
in 1916. However, the society could not secure the money to develop it, and
by late 1925, the JCA threatened to repossess the land if construction did not
begin. The beleaguered women bargained with the JCA until, at last, they
raised the funds, which included a grant from the provincial governor. By
1935 the ladies finally had their own building.19
The existing histories of the colonies barely mention women, let alone
their relations with men.20 The silence leaves the impression that women
166
compliantly followed the men’s lead in the struggles to survive in the dif-
ficult rural environment and attain rights from the JCA. Focusing our gaze
on women shows that they were not passive. They constantly negotiated
with men, at times contentiously, and created, maintained, and developed
spaces for themselves, demonstrating that gender divides ethnic groups.
Moreover, Jewish women’s involvement in teaching and politics, and the
government recognition they received, demonstrates that they were neither
isolated nor unique.
Ashkenazic Women and OSFA

Ashkenazic women created the Organización Sionista Femenina Argentina
(OSFA; Argentine Feminine Zionist Organization), the Argentine branch
of the Women’s International Zionist Organization (WIZO), in 1926. OSFA
spread across the country, with the Jewish agricultural settlements hosting
particularly active chapters. In 1931 the rural centers of Villa Domínguez
and Moisés Ville (Santa Fe) boasted 205 and 222 members, respectively,
while Córdoba, a major city, only had 100.21 Some have claimed that all
female Jews in the colonies and small towns belonged to OSFA, rather than
the small percentage of women who joined in the cities.
Setting themselves apart from other Jewish women’s groups, OSFA
members described their purpose as primarily one of liberating and recon-
structing a nation, instead of dispensing alms. Their task was to help create a
new country and tighten the links between it and Argentine Jews. They sent
aid to the Jewish community in Palestine and contributed funds to a school
in the town of Afulah that trained young Jewish women in agricultural work.
To heighten a sense of Jewish identity tied to Zionism, they ran cultural pro-
grams, founded libraries, formed kindergartens, and disseminated informa-
tion on Palestine through lectures, meetings, and a magazine.
Women’s duties in OSFA took them outside the usual female roles. Many
Argentine-Jewish families deposited spare change destined for the Jewish
National Fund, which purchased land in Palestine, in little boxes they kept
in their homes. OSFA members traveled hours down rugged country roads
in horse-drawn carriages to collect these funds.22 Like women in the benefi-
cent societies, OSFA women grew accustomed to keeping records, handling
finances, and organizing; much more than the philanthropists did, how-
ever, they also learned how to write articles and give speeches. The articles
appeared in their magazine, which was inaugurated in 1935.23 Women gave
talks at local, regional, and national OSFA meetings, cultural events, and
167
community forums. Perhaps for the first time in their lives, some left their
homes to travel unescorted on OSFA business throughout Argentina or to
other nations.
These experiences inspired OSFA activists not only to work to revive the
Jews as a people, but, as the Revista WIZO put it, to convert homemakers
who, until this point, had been “a passive element,” into an “active” one. Once
such women became members, many discovered previously unknown tal-
ents. On the tenth anniversary of the periodical, the first to be created and
published exclusively by Argentine-Jewish women, the editors recalled that
when they had set out to launch a magazine, they had little confidence in their
abilities, not to mention that they lacked resources, experience, and guidance
from the central office in London. Yet their desire to express their Zionism
helped them attain their goal.24
The magazine was significant for another reason as well. In it many
articles and photos appeared featuring Jewish women’s participation in the
military, agricultural, and other uncustomary arenas in Palestine/Israel.
This was also a favorite topic for OSFA orators. Members read or heard—
however true these reports were in fact—about Ashkenazic women in
Palestine, who lived in “almost complete equality” with men, even in public
life, enjoyed the same rights, and freely entered the professions.25 The
constant repetition of this theme may have led OSFA members to reflect
upon the differences between their lives and those of their counterparts and
so to regard their activity in OSFA as a means of lifting women’s status.
According to one long-time activist, OFSA/WIZO did more for women in
Argentina and Latin America than it did for women in Israel.26 Centering
on women enables one to see that they believed they had a dual mission.
Zionism not only related to Jewish national fulfillment in Israel, but Jewish
women’s status in Argentina.
Activism among Mediterranean Women

Women of Mediterranean origin did not come to Argentina through the
auspices of the Jewish Colonization Association. The few such women
found in the agricultural colonies were the wives of JCA administrators and
teachers, the latter chosen for their knowledge of Spanish. Moroccans dis-
persed throughout towns in the interior and in Buenos Aires, where the
majority of Ashkenazim also lived. Jews from the Balkans, Turkey, and the
Middle East settled in larger cities, particularly Buenos Aires. Although most
Mediterranean women, like their Ashkenazic counterparts, saw themselves
168
at this time primarily as homemakers, women commonly “helped out” in
family enterprises, or they earned money sewing and embroidering.
Members of these communities themselves have assumed that Med
iterranean Jews were less active than Ashkenazim in communal affairs.
According to this view, unlike the Ashkenazim, many of these Jews went to
Argentina planning to save money and return to their homelands. Organiz
ing was not on their minds. Either they had not yet developed a Zionist con-
sciousness, or they tended to be suspicious of the predominantly Ashkenazic
Zionist leadership and doubted that the movement would help their breth-
ren. A more recent work, however, has found signs of early Sephardic inter-
est in Zionism.27
Many have also assumed that until recently women of these backgrounds
were less likely to attain a higher education or involve themselves in endeavors
outside the home. Such notions about education and careers may have some
foundation; the first Argentine Sephardic woman to become a physician,
Victoria Simsolo, received her degree in 1946, whereas her Ashkenazic coun-
terpart had graduated in 1909.28 However, there is evidence of Mediterranean
female participation in philanthropic groups as early as the late nineteenth
century, predating the rise of the principal urban Ashkenazic women’s
association, the Sociedad de Socorros de Damas Israelitas de Beneficencia
(Israelite Beneficent Ladies Aid Society) of Buenos Aires, in 1908.29
A first example comes from the Moroccan community; not coinciden-
tally, early Moroccan immigration preceded the mass migration from the
Russian empire. By 1899 the Sociedad de Beneficencia “Damas de Sión”
(“Ladies of Zion” Beneficent Society) in Buenos Aires helped the indigent
and sick and sent groups to visit the bedridden. Members particularly were
interested in aiding expectant mothers, whom they supplied with bedsheets,
wine, chocolate, and small stipends.30
Jews of a particular origin, such as those from Aleppo, Syria, or the Aegean
island of Rhodes, organized their own synagogues; there was little sense of
any overarching Sephardic identity that linked these narrow communities.
Small groups of women associated with these temples distributed aid to the
poor of the congregations. For example, the Sociedad “Damas Sefardí de
Beneficencia” (Sephardic Ladies Beneficent Society) was the female charita-
ble arm of the Etz Ajaim synagogue, founded by the Moroccans of Rosario in
1909. When the Damas consolidated is not clear, but they had been engaged
in philanthropy for some time before 1917.31
There were other forms of female activism. Women gave small dona-
tions to communal causes and figured among the contributors to the
169
Comité Israelita pro Víctimas de Salónica, which sent relief to the victims
of the disastrous fire of 1917 in that Greek city.32 Social clubs and youth
groups had male and female members. The Sephardic Ateneo Juventud
Hebraica Argentina (Argentine Hebrew Youth Atheneum) of Rosario had
a female officer in 1928, and five of the eight “members at large” on its gov-
erning body were women.33 Young women in these groups typically raised
money and organized social gatherings.
Mediterranean women’s participation in Zionist programs began in ear-
nest in the late 1930s. Aside from the reasons already mentioned, the use of
Yiddish within OSFA no doubt put off, if it did not exclude, Ladino, Arabic,
Italian, and Spanish speakers. The first evidence of broader participation
in this organization appeared in 1937, with the creation of an OSFA center
in the prosperous Belgrano neighborhood of Buenos Aires. Sharing class
affiliation, neighborhood, and the use of languages other than Yiddish,
well-off central European and Mediterranean Jewish women joined this
chapter.34 By 1940 the Comisión de Señoritas del KKL (Young Women’s
Commission of Keren Kayemet Israel) formed within the Centro Sionista
Sefaradí (Sephardic Zionist Center).35
The catalysts for greater involvement were World War II, German per-
secution of Jews in southeastern Europe, and the impending creation of the
State of Israel. Assisting the OSFA executive, the Comisión helped lay the
groundwork for Sephardic participation by compiling names of potential
members and contacting them. Building on this foundation, Sara de Cuenca,
the president of the WIZO Sephardic chapter in Montevideo, Uruguay, and
Alegre de Bonomo founded the Centro Sefaradí in Buenos Aires in 1946.
The Italians formed their own OSFA center in 1954. By 1955 there was a full-
blown Sephardic sector within OSFA, containing 1,340 members in centers
in the Buenos Aires area and several provinces.36 One prominent member
was Bruria Elnecavé, an ardent Zionist of Bulgarian origin who joined the
OSFA executive in 1950. As director of the department of culture, Elnecavé
gave speeches, taught classes, and directed a publication series.37
Judith Cohen de Isaharoff, originally of Samarkhand, was responsible
for another Zionist initiative. Previously involved in philanthropy, in 1940
Isaharoff had helped organize a benefit for the Jewish girls’ orphanage. A
speech given by the Argentine Socialist feminist leader Alicia Moreau de
Justo on the Jewish labor federation in Palestine intrigued Isaharoff, who
leaned toward Socialism; her interest in Moreau de Justo indicates that Jews
of non-Ashkenazic origins were not as isolated from Argentine politics as
some have thought. Personally convincing women of different communities
170
to put aside their particularisms, Isaharoff created the Amigas Sefaradíes
de la Histadrut (Sephardic Friends of the Histadrut, the labor federation
in Palestine/Israel) in 1946, and she served as its president for forty years.
By 1947 the Amigas, whose principal activity in its early years was to send
clothing and financial contributions to Palestine, had six hundred mem-
bers in its main Buenos Aires chapter. Other members belonged to affiliate
chapters in various neighborhoods of the capital city, and there was a youth
chapter in Rosario.38
Meeting in 1948, the Segunda Convención Regional Sefaradí Argentina
(Second Regional Argentine Sephardic Convention) resolved to create a
Consejo Central de Damas Sefaradíes (Central Council of Sephardic Ladies).
The idea was to unite the various communities, involve women in Zionism,
and gather funds for needy Sephardim throughout the world. The Convención
invited women of Zionist groups, beneficent societies, and social clubs to par-
ticipate. Some members of OSFA responded, siphoning off personnel and
energy from its Sephardic sector. Consejo members grouped themselves in
subcommittees according to their places of origin: Italy, Palestine, Morocco,
Aleppo, and Damascus (Syria). Division by place of origin thus persisted,
although the women came together under the umbrella of a single organi-
zation. Aside from holding cultural events, the Consejo sent clothing, blan-
kets, medicine, hospital equipment, and funds to Israel. Despite the rivalry
between the two groups, the Consejo contributed to OSFA causes in Israel,
for example, by constructing a kindergarten building for its Afulah school.39
In 1944 the youth department of the Centro Sionista Sefaradí, headed
by Julieta Camji, inaugurated the custom of an annual Purim party to
raise money for the Zionist cause and convoke the various communities.
According to the magazine Israel, never in local history had so many young
people of these backgrounds attended the same social event. Over twelve
hundred youths whose family roots lay in Aleppo, Damascus, Salonika,
Bulgaria, Jerusalem, the central Asian cities of Bukhara and Birobidzhan,
and Smyrna and Istanbul, Turkey, participated in the festivities. Yet, as the
magazine observed, “the youth no longer understand the old distinctions of
origin”; most were “Argentine-born, sharing the same tastes and language.”
Another factor of unity was their sense of allegiance to a Jewish nation.
Candidates nominated by social clubs and youth groups vied for the titles
of Queen Esther and Miss Congeniality—significantly replaced in subse-
quent years by the title “Miss Sefaradí.”40 The Gran Baile de la Colectividad
Sefaradí quickly became the yearly social event, featuring the crowning of
Miss Sefaradí, who symbolized the merging of the various collectivities.
171
The Amigas, Consejo, OSFA Sephardic sector, and young women of the
Centro Sionista Sefaradí performed the role of uniting the disparate commu-
nities and forging a broad sense of Sephardic identity that overrode narrow
regional and city boundaries. Although the word “Sephardic” had appeared
in the names of institutions, periodical subtitles, and visionary articles, until
the 1940s, in Argentina, it existed mainly in theory. The dances, meetings,
collections of goods, and recruitment of members for the Zionist cause fos-
tered interaction among the various groups and helped convert this abstract
term into a reality.41 The literature on Argentine Jews often emphasizes the
divisions among the Jewish communities, including the Sephardic ones.
Putting women at the center of interest teaches us how Sephardic Argentine
Jews came together and pulled down these barriers. It also shows how people
construct ethnicity and how ethnic markers change.
The Communist Party

Before a firm sense of Sephardic identity consolidated, a strong working class
of Yiddish-speaking origins had formed in Buenos Aires. Concentrated in
the needle and textile trades, women labored in factories, small workshops,
and home industries largely located in the neighborhoods of Villa Crespo
and La Paternal and the suburb of Villa Lynch. Jewish workers resided,
shopped, and socialized in these locations, reinforcing the ties among them.
Jewish working-class women became active in unions, the Socialist and
Communist parties, anarchist circles, and smaller leftist factions. Seasoned
in work outside the home and union struggles, Polish women arriving in
the 1920s and 1930s added to this developing sense of militancy.
Jewish women were especially conspicuous in the Communist Party,
where they played important roles in cultural outreach toward other Yiddish
speakers. In the 1920s and 1930s, Communist women began to educate the
community, teaching children in the Jewish worker schools, coaching Jewish
immigrants in Spanish and Marxism, and working in Jewish Communist
libraries. Mothers of young pupils went from door to door, encouraging
other mothers to enroll their children in the schools associated with the
party. Drawing upon workers who were amateur actors and actresses,
the IFT (Idische Folks Teater) presented leftist-oriented plays in Yiddish.
ICUF (Idischer Cultur Farband, or Yiddish Culture Organization), the Argen
tine branch of the Soviet-sponsored global organization founded in 1937,
which promoted a progressive Yiddish-based Jewish identity divorced from
religion or Zionism, took over these activities.42 Women were involved in
172
all the ICUF ventures, which included schools, children’s programs, the
Zumerland camp, IFT, and a translation and publication series. Through its
reading circles and magazine, entitled Di idische froi (The Yiddish Woman),
the ICUF female commission, created in 1947, awakened women to issues
of broader concern to the party, such as opposition to the arms race. It con-
centrated its efforts on homemakers generally ignored by Communist lead-
ers, thus complementing the party’s recruitment strategy among women.43
Women did not have to choose a Jewish or Communist identity; they could
have both.
Jewish women also involved themselves in Communist arenas beyond
the Yiddish-speaking milieu. In the early 1920s the party sent Ida Bondareff
to speak to workers outside factories and at union halls. She served as secre-
tary general of the women’s branch of the central committee but clashed with
party leaders and left for Russia. In the 1940s Fanny Edelman headed the
party’s National Feminine Commission and entered its central committee.
At lower levels, Jewish women organized discussions, distributed and sold
Marxist literature, and wrote articles for Communist periodicals. Many partic-
ipated in labor unions, particularly those of textile workers and seamstresses.
The few who returned from serving in the Spanish Civil War gave lectures
on that conflict and helped organize aid for the refugees. Jewish girls partici-
pated in the Communist high school and university student movements, sell-
ing their newspapers and attending demonstrations and youth conferences.
Women joined the various party-sponsored groups of the 1930s and 1940s
that opposed anti-Semitism and Fascism, such as the Organización Popular
Contra el Antisemitismo (Popular Organization against Anti-Semitism) and
the more select Agrupación de Intelectuales, Artistas, Periodistas y Escritores
(Group of Intellectuals, Artists, Journalists and Writers).44
Jewish women were particularly active in efforts to help those detained
for political reasons. As members of the local branch of Socorro Rojo
Internacional (International Red Aid) and its successor, the Liga Argentina
Por los Derechos del Hombre (Argentine League for the Rights of Man),
they raised money for prisoners’ legal defense and visited them in jail,
bringing them meals, clothing, and messages. The Jewish feminine section
of the Liga was known for its solidarity and courage, and no one stood out
more than its legendary figure Comrade Zlate, whom the police detained
several times. Other women of Jewish origins, such as the aristocratic Delila
Saslavsky, gave speeches on human rights at Liga events.45
The rich texture of Jewish women’s participation contrasts with the
treatment of the Communist Party in the historical literature. Except for
173
Communist participation in the labor movement, there are few serious
studies of this political persuasion, or indeed of any leftist group after
1930.46 Existing accounts tend to be narrowly partisan, in part, because
decades of fierce political conflict and repression resulted in the destruc-
tion and scattering of primary sources. Some of these have become
accessible only recently. Archives in the former Soviet Union were also
long closed.
Yet there is another compelling reason for the lack of work on Commu
nists and other leftists. Coming to power in 1946, Juan and Eva Perón appro-
priated the mantles of the labor movement and progressives, saying they
would Argentinize and fulfill the reformist programs of these groups; they
would also convert what had been an unofficial colony of Great Britain into
an independent nation. The message they projected was that the struggle
for legitimate, nationalist change had culminated in Peronism, rendering
other organizations outmoded and unnecessary. The Peronist government
suppressed independent trade unionists and leftists who were unwilling to
forsake partisan, internationalist, and revolutionary aspirations. Pro-Peronist
authors treated competing movements as preludes to Peronism, dismissing
those that did not fit this narrative as peripheral, foreign inspired, or anti-
national. Its pursuit of goals that often corresponded more with Soviet than
Argentine needs made the Communist Party an easy target, as did the party’s
frequent accord with liberals.
Peronists successfully criticized the Communists about their role in
the presidential election of 1946, in which the Communists had joined
Socialists and moderates in the Unión Democrática (Democratic Union) to
run against Perón. Endorsed by U.S. ambassador Spruille Braden, this coali-
tion denounced Perón as a Fascist. However, this claim did not outweigh
the popular social welfare measures Perón had implemented while secre-
tary of labor during the military government of 1943–1946. These reforms
gave a powerful boost to his election bid. Its association with centrists and
the United States, as well as its opposition to Peronism, severely weakened
the Communist Party’s progressive and anti-imperialist credentials.47
These Peronist interpretations of Communists and other leftists still
tend to prevail. While this criticism of Communist leaders is cogent, it tells
us little about the motivations and daily activities of the rank and file. But
this may be remedied. Centering on Jewish women indicates the need for
researching the grassroots after 1930. Such work could bring to the surface
a different world of popular mobilization and counterhegemonic projects,
one that brought together Argentines of varied backgrounds.48
174
Junta de la Victoria
Any exploration of the Communist Party from the ground up would have
to include consideration of the Junta de la Victoria, which is best viewed
within the context of the mobilization against Fascism in Argentina that
began in the early 1930s. A coup in 1930 ousted a democratic government
and installed a Fascist-leaning military dictatorship that ruled until 1931.
Anarchists, Socialists, Communists, and the democratic-centrist Radicals
protested the repressive policies of the military regime. They also demon-
strated and fought against the radical rightist Nationalist movement in the
streets. In the middle of the decade the struggle gained steam, as moder-
ate and leftist parties used anti-Fascist rhetoric to contest the fraudulently
elected conservative governments that succeeded the dictatorship, as well as
to oppose the Nationalists, who sometimes were its allies. Leftists, includ-
ing Jewish women, formed organizations throughout the country to work
against the German Nazi threat in Europe, as well as the threat that they
sensed at home. Rosa M. de Ziperovich, a teacher, Communist, and union
leader, founded such a group in the small town of Palacios, in the Jewish
agricultural zone of Santa Fe province.49
The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 catalyzed opponents of
Fascism. Leftist intellectuals and workers alike saw these events as the open-
ing salvo of a battle between Fascism and democracy that could soon envelop
the world, including Argentina. The war was pivotal in raising the political
consciousness of many Argentine women, and Jews were among them.
Girls walked from door to door and collected newspaper, metal scraps, and
donations; women participated in Jewish, Socialist, and Communist groups
that sent aid to the Republic and its refugees. Communists Raquel Levenson,
Dora Trumper, and Fanny Edelman, among others, went to Spain to con-
tribute to the Republican war effort. There, Mika Feldman Etchebéhère cap-
tained a regiment of the Trotskyist Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista
(Worker Party of Marxist Unification).50 For many Jewish women, the
Spanish Civil War marked the beginning of their political involvement in
the left; for others it represented a culmination of militancy.
From helping the Spanish Republicans it was a logical step to work for
the Allies during the Second World War, despite Argentina’s neutrality until
near the end of the conflict. The greatest effort began after the German inva-
sion of the Soviet Union. Before this, the Soviet-German defense pact had
kept Communists from taking part in such activities; afterward, they became
the main impetus behind the aid effort. September 1941 witnessed the for-
mation of the Junta de la Victoria, dedicated to defeating Fascism overseas
175
and preventing it from spreading to Argentina. The president was Ana
Rosa Schlieper de Martínez Guerrero, a non-Jewish aristocrat active in Pan-
American feminist circles, member of the Radical party, and secretary general
of the anti-Fascist Acción Argentina (Argentine Action). The Junta included
women from different sectors and classes: feminists like Schlieper who had
belonged to the pro-suffrage Unión Argentina de Mujeres (Argentine Union
of Women); intellectuals and artists; members of the Argentine upper class,
who idealized the British and French cultures; liberal Catholics; prominent
immigrants and wives of diplomats from anti-Fascist nations; plebeian urban
and rural women, many of them originally from the occupied countries;
and Communist militants.51 During the war the Junta’s diversity represented
strength, since it signified widespread involvement, but its heterogeneity
presaged the difficulties Perón’s opponents would eventually face.
Inspired by solidarity and the desire to defeat Hitler, many Ashkenazic
Jewish women in the cities and colonies affiliated with the Junta. These
included the sculptor Cecilia Marcovich, the writer and educator Berta de
Braslavsky, and Fanny Edelman and Dalila Saslavsky. Associated with the
Communist Party, they figured in the Junta’s national leadership. Others
served as officers in local chapters, such as Clara Schliapnik, a medical
doctor and Jewish community activist, who was the Junta president in Villa
Domínguez, Entre Ríos.52
Raquel A. de Monín, a Jewish immigrant from Poland, married to a
Socialist and living in a working-class suburb of Buenos Aires, belonged to a
chapter located in a nearby, more privileged neighborhood. Most of its mem-
bers were wealthy Anglo-Argentines or their Argentine wives. They rented
a house, where they held benefit teas and raffles and knit clothes to be sent
overseas. Monín and her daughter went from house to house in her barrio
selling raffle tickets, while other members collected materials for recycling.53
In the Argentina of the 1940s, working-class women of any origin had few
opportunities to intermingle and collaborate with women of upper-class
backgrounds. By helping to construct these spaces, Jewish women changed
the landscape, creating a more pluralistic and integrated nation.
Supplying the Allies involved many tasks. The leaders established ties
with diplomats of the Allied countries, solicited donations from business-
men, and traveled through Argentina, founding an estimated 125 chapters.
They drafted press releases and delivered speeches. The Junta executive
organized exhibitions of anti-Fascist artists, teas to honor Allied female dig-
nitaries and dedicated Junta members, and large benefits featuring well-
known performers, statesmen, and thinkers. At the chapter level, members
176
met to knit or pick up wool to knit at home, organize smaller benefits, and
discuss civic and women’s concerns. They also were supposed to look for
and document the activities of Nazi sympathizers.54
The members’ discussions of issues indicated that the Junta defined its
purpose broadly: “to definitively annihilate fascism, establish peace, defend
the rights of the woman and solve the problems of children’s health and edu-
cation.”55 Defeating Fascism entailed incorporating women into the public
arena and relieving poverty, although such measures would have to await
the end of the war to begin;56 it also meant an egalitarian style of debating
and decision making. In May 1943, two hundred delegates attended the
Junta’s national congress to discuss their labors. The Junta boasted that
each chapter had “democratically” formulated work plans to be submitted
to the assembly and that the goal of the meeting was to articulate the aims
of women who defended democracy in the world and practiced it in their
daily lives.57 Through their involvement in the Junta, observed Schlieper,
women gained expertise in “norms of getting along with others collectively
and training in tasks useful to the State and its defense.”58 Thus Jews joined
with Christians in the Junta to promote democracy.
The Junta faced detractors, particularly from the far right. Hostile to
Communist influence, sympathetic to Fascism, and favoring a neutrality
policy that tilted toward the Axis, Nationalists denounced the Junta as “a
movement of social dissolution.”59 Foreshadowing the future rhetoric of
Peronist historians, another frequent Nationalist complaint was that the
Junta ignored local problems and focused on matters that did not affect
the country. For example, María Esther Méndez compared her fellow
women Nationalists, who apparently collected aid for impoverished Argen
tines, with the Jews, Communists, and oligarchs of the Junta, who shipped
goods abroad.60
The Junta also faced opposition from two successive governments.
During President Ramón S. Castillo’s increasingly repressive administra-
tion (1940–1943), the police kept the Junta from holding some of its meet-
ings, public rallies, and benefit performances, and broke up others in
progress. From time to time, the authorities in the federal capital detained
Junta members. Junta leaders talked with government officials about their
goals and demanded the right to continue their activities.61 Such action did
not bring lasting results. The even more rightist military government that
ousted Castillo closed the Junta down, in June 1943, shortly after coming to
power.62 This was part of the regime’s policy of clamping down on all pro-
Allied, leftist, and democratic movements.
177
The Junta, however, did not end here. When the Allies liberated Paris
in 1944, the leaders of the dormant organization invited women to a dem-
onstration in the Plaza Francia in Buenos Aires; many others unconnected
to the Junta, including men, also gathered there. One who turned up was
the Jewish performer Berta Singerman, known for her dramatic poetry reci-
tations. Sympathetic to the left and the Allied cause, Singerman had also
belonged to the Junta and performed at its benefits before 1943. She recited
“La Marseillaise” to the cheering crowd of about two hundred thousand.
The democratic message of the song and assemblage and the demonstra-
tion of support for the Allies did not appeal to the authorities, who tried to
break up the rally.63
As part of the democratic opening that accompanied the campaign for
the election of 1946, the military government permitted the Junta to reopen
in April 1945. Although the group continued to send clothing to European
refugees, the end of the war compelled it to redefine its goals. From now on,
it would focus on women’s issues: day care for working mothers, enforce-
ment of legislation protecting female workers, the high cost of living, and
preparing women to vote. It redirected its anti-Fascism by organizing rallies,
fund-raising, and aid against the dictatorship of Francisco Franco in Spain
and on behalf of the Republican exiles. Another part of its anti-Fascist cam-
paign, as the Junta saw it, was to support the Unión Democrática and oppose
“Nazi-Peronism.” Although it continued some of its activities after Perón’s
election in 1946, a loss of focus and an inability to attract large numbers of
workers, not to mention police repression, contributed to its final decline.64
Pro-Peronist authors have regarded the participants in the anti-Fascist
and pro-Allied campaigns of the 1930s and 1940s as “sepoys” who empha-
sized foreign over local concerns.65 They have pointed out how these activ-
ists ignored the opportunity offered by neutrality to free Argentina of
British economic control. In their view, by the time the war ended, Fascism
was a chimera, fostered by the Unión Democrática for its electoral advan-
tage. The main intention of the so-called anti-Fascists was to prevent Perón
from delivering social justice to the workers and liberating the country from
foreign capital. A disguise for oligarchical and imperialistic machinations,
anti-Fascism was a trumped-up cause that attracted little popular support.66
Influenced by such opinions, until recently scholars have not considered
the anti-Fascist movement important enough to warrant examination.
Women’s anti-Fascism has received even less attention.67
Focusing on Jewish women allows us at last to catch a glimpse of the
scope of the anti-Fascist movement. One cannot simply collapse all the
178
anti-Fascist and pro-Allied sentiments into a monolithically antipopular and
antinational scheme, as pro-Peronist authors have done. The motives of anti-
Fascists were varied, and their goals, especially those for the home front,
were more diverse than many historians have recognized. Apart from help-
ing Spanish Republicans and, later, the Allies, anti-Fascist women sought to
strengthen democracy at home, which had been assaulted by fraudulently
elected governments, the military, and the Nationalists during these years.
The story of women’s grassroots efforts thus adds complexity to existing
treatments of politics in the 1930s and 1940s. It again shows that Jewish
women fit into larger movements and engaged the nation.
Conclusion
The insertion of Jewish women changes the landscape of Argentine, Jewish,
and women’s history. It adds nuance and texture to the study of the colonies,
Zionism, Sephardim, the Communist Party, and the anti-Fascist struggle. It
provides a more rounded portrait of Argentine Jews, for female perceptions
and experiences were not necessarily the same as those of the men on whom
the histories have been based.
Putting women at the center alters the historical terrain of the colonies
from one that focuses on relations with the JCA to one of education, the daily
routine, and philanthropy. Teacher training provides a useful window through
which to view the incorporation of Jews into the Argentine milieu and lib-
eral project. That Jewish women had the political influence needed to secure
teaching positions indicates there was more pluralism in Argentina than many
might have thought. The controversy in Entre Ríos shows that Jewish and other
Argentine women entered the public arena not just through feminism, unions,
and Peronism, but through the highly visible task of educating the young.
Through their institutional networks women helped fill in the landscape of
rural life, securing spaces for themselves and the community, providing aid for
the needy, and enhancing local services. Women’s groups negotiated with and
contested male leaders, demonstrating that male-dominated harmony between
the sexes did not always prevail in the agricultural settlements.
Zionism expanded the horizons of women of all the Jewish collectivities
in different ways. It acquainted homemakers with the possibility of expanded
roles outside the household, through organizational activity, travel, and identi-
fication with Israeli women. Through Zionist activity, Mediterranean women
changed the landscape of their communities by breaking down the walls that
separated them to forge a larger Sephardic identity. Their participation in the
179
Jewish national cause and synagogue-based charities shows that they were
more involved in communal matters than many have thought, and this real-
ization may prompt reevaluation of the degree of male activity.
Ashkenazic Jewish women were leading participants in the Communist
Party and the Junta de la Victoria. The rich texture of their involvement
suggests a new historical terrain, one that takes account of the vitality of
Communism at the grassroots level and the broad appeal of democratic sen-
timents. Historians cannot simply reduce these phenomena to a static vision
of anti-Nationalist activity dictated by Moscow, the elite, or the United States.
Thus, the insertion of Jewish women contests hegemonic narratives.
Putting Jewish women at the center also contributes to the study of ethnic-
ity. Ethnic groups are not undifferentiated wholes; gender, class, and place of
origin divide them. Gender norms circumscribed the lives of Jewish women,
who sometimes contested the men of their communities. As noted in the dis-
cussions of beneficence, the Communist Party, and the Junta de la Victoria,
there was a class hierarchy among Jews. The categories of Ashkenazim,
Sephardim, and central Europeans separated Argentine Jews, and these group-
ings were further split. Yet the weakening of particularistic identities in favor
of a Pan-Sephardic one demonstrates that ethnicity is protean and malleable.
Ethnic groups consist of more than individuals affiliated with communal
institutions. Only a portion of the women depicted here belonged to such
organizations. Nevertheless, all were Jews, and all had a rich history deserving
of attention.
The case of Argentine-Jewish women shows that ethnic groups are not
hermetically sealed. The former enjoyed political contacts and government
recognition, and as teachers, union members, leftists, and opponents of
Fascism they tried to construct a more democratic and pluralistic Argentina.
They accompanied other Argentines in these struggles. Jewish and non-Jewish
women entered intellectual, professional, and political life through teaching.
The similarity between their beneficent societies and Catholic ones further
indicates that Jewish women were not exceptional. Jewish women did not have
to choose between Jewish and other identities. Instead they formed multifac-
eted identities with gender, ethnic, national, and political components.
One cannot reduce Jewish life in Argentina to mere victimhood. Jewish
women experienced discrimination, but they fought back, as did the teach-
ers in Entre Ríos in 1944 and the various anti-Fascist groups. More impor-
tantly, this article has shown that Jewish women engaged in a myriad of
activities. Their lives consisted of far more than experiences with prejudice.
180
Acknowledgments
I thank Dora Barrancos, Andrés Bisso, James Cane, Yolanda Chávez Leyva,
Rosa Faingold de Villagra, Adela Harispuru, Jeffrey Lesser, Daniel Lvovich,
Margaret Power, Raanan Rein, Mina Ruetter, Kathleen Staudt, and Horacio
Tarcus for offering materials and ideas that proved useful in this article.
Notes
1. On recovering voices see Aurora Levins Morales, Medicine Stories: History,
Culture and the Politics of Integrity (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1998),
26. The only works focusing on the history of Argentine-Jewish women
are Myriam Escliar, Mujeres en la literatura y la vida judeoargentina (Buenos
Aires: Milá, 1996); Sandra McGee Deutsch, “Women: The Forgotten Half
of Argentine Jewish History,” Shofar 15, no. 3 (Spring 1997): 49–63; Nora
Glickman, The Jewish White Slave Trade and the Untold Story of Raquel
Liberman (New York: Garland, 1999); and Donna J. Guy’s selection in
this volume. A third of Escliar’s short book, however, is devoted to literary
depictions of these women. Donna J. Guy, Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires:
Prostitution, Family, and Nation in Argentina (Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 1991), also contains historical data on Jewish women.
2. On oral history methodology see John D. French and Daniel James, “Oral
History, Identity Formation, and Working-Class Mobilization,” in The
Gendered Worlds of Latin American Women Workers. From Household and
Factory to the Union Hall and Ballot Box, ed. John D. French and Daniel James
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997), 298; Sherna Berger Gluck and
Daphne Patai, eds., Women’s Words: The Feminist Practice of Oral History (New
York: Routledge, 1991).
3. Levins Morales, Medicine Stories, 26–27.
4. Although one would normally consider central Europeans to be Ashkenazim,
in Argentina the former distinguish themselves from the latter.
5. Simón Weill, “Población israelita en la República Argentina,” in Estudios
sobre las comunidades judía y francesa en Argentina. Los escritos de Simón Weill,
ed. Alberto Kleiner (Buenos Aires: Libreros y Editores del Poligono SRL,
1983), 82. On Jewish immigration to Argentina see, for example, Haim
Avni, Argentina & the Jews: A History of Jewish Immigration, trans. Gila Brand
(Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1991); Victor A. Mirelman, Jewish
Buenos Aires, 1890–1930: In Search of an Identity (Detroit, MI: Wayne State
University Press, 1990).
6. Sergio DellaPergola, “Demographic Trends of Latin American Jewry,” in The
Jewish Presence in Latin America, ed. Judith Laikin Elkin and Gilbert W. Merkx
(Boston: Allan & Unwin, 1987), 92.
7. República Argentina, Dirección Nacional del Servicio Estadístico, Cuarto
censo general de la nación (Buenos Aires, 1947), 1:lxii, I; Gino Germani, Política
y sociedad en una época de transición: De la sociedad tradicional a la sociedad de
masas (Buenos Aires: Editorial Paidos, 1962), 179, 188.
181
8. Daniel Fernando Bargman, “Un ámbito para las relaciones interétnicas:
Las colonias agrícolas judías en Argentina,” Revista de Antropología 11 (1992):
54–55; Avni, Argentina, 62–63. For firsthand accounts of women’s lives in
the colonies, see Raquel Zimerman de Faingold, Memorias (Buenos Aires:
n.p., 1987); Hèléne Gutkowski, Rescate de la herencia cultural. Vidas . . . en las
colonias (Buenos Aires: Editorial Contexto, 1991); Haim Avni and Leonardo
Senkman, eds., Del campo al campo: Colonos de Argentina en Israel (Buenos
Aires: Milá-AMIA, 1993), esp. 135–46, 193–211.
9. República Argentina, Tercer censo nacional levantado el 1 de junio de 1914
(Buenos Aires: 1916), 3:329. Whether the census takers included literacy
in Yiddish was unclear.
10. María Arcuschin, De Ucrania a Basavilbaso (Buenos Aires: Marymar, 1986);
Lea Literat-Golombek, Moisés Ville: Crónica de un shtetl argentino (Jerusalem:
La Semana Publicaciones, 1982); Tuba Teresa Ropp, Un colono judío en la
Argentina (Buenos Aires: Instituto Científico Judío, 1971); Osías Shijman,
Colonización judía en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Germano Artes Gráficas,
1980); Dora Bortnik de Duchovny, Recuerdos de una maestra de campaña (San
Isidro: División Gráfica Profesional del Instituto Dr. Juan S. Fernández, 1980).
11. Luisa Furman de Bendersky, interview with author, Villa Domínguez, Entre
Ríos, 1997.
12. Georgette Magassy Dorn, “Sarmiento, the United States, and Public
Education,” in Sarmiento and His Argentina, ed. Joseph T. Criscenti (Boulder,
CO: L. Rienner, 1993), 77–89; Nicolas Shumway, The Invention of Argentina
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991); Marifran Carlson, Feminismo!
The Women’s Movement in Argentina from Its Beginnings to Evita Perón
(Chicago: Academy Chicago, 1986), 63–79.
13. Sandra McGee Deutsch, Counterrevolution in Argentina, 1890–1932: The
Argentine Patriotic League (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986), 34,
74–75, 78–79.
14. On this incident see Furman de Bendersky, interview; Olga Kipen, interview
with author, Basavilbaso, Entre Ríos, 1997; U.S. Department of State, “The
Fascist-Totalitarian Character of the Present Argentine Regime,” Oct. 1944,
835.00/6–1848, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; La acción (Paraná),
September 5, 1944, n.p.
15. Carlson, Feminismo; Asunción Lavrin, Women, Feminism, and Social Change
in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, 1890–1940 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 1995); Marysa Navarro, “Hidden, Silent, and Anonymous: Women
Workers in the Argentine Trade Union Movement,” in The World of Women’s
Trade Unionism: Comparative Historical Essays, ed. Norbert C. Soldon
(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985), 167–86; Estela dos Santos, Las mujeres
peronistas (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1983); Susana
Bianchi and Norma Sanchis, El partido peronista femenino. Primera parte
(1949/1955) (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latin, 1988); Mirta Zaida
Lobato, “Mujeres obreras, protesta y acción gremial en la Argentina: Los casos
de la industria frigorífica y textil de Berisso,” in Historia y género, ed. Dora
Barrancos (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1993), 65–97.
16. Literat-Golombek, Moisés Ville, 44.
182
17. On these school groups, see Rosa Gabis archive, Archivo IWO, Buenos Aires;
Furman de Bendersky, interview.
18. Libro de Actas, Sociedad de Damas Auxiliares al Hospital Clara, acta 3
(January 24, 1928), SSJ 1 Hospital, Museo Las Colonias, Villa Domínguez,
Entre Ríos; Libro de Actas, Sociedad de Damas de Beneficencia, actas 44
(August 24, 1926), 48 (September 2, 1926), 50 (September 5, 1926), Archivo de
la Asociación Israelita de Basavilbaso, Entre Ríos. Also see Celia Gladys López
de Borche, Cooperativismo y cultura: Historia de Villa Domínguez 1890–1940,
2nd ed. (Concepción de Uruguay: Tall. Gráf. “El Pensador,” 1985), 77.
19. Libro de Actas, Sociedad de Damas, actas 4 (November 18, 1923), 6
(December 29, 1923), 27 (December 14, 1925), 29 (January 13, 1926), 30
(January 28, 1926), 32 (February 7, 1926), 34 (March 4, 1926); Mundo Israelita,
March 16, 1935, 3. Unless otherwise stated, all Argentine periodicals are from
Buenos Aires.
20. One exception is López de Borche, Cooperativismo.
21. OSFA, “Informe de la Organización Sionista Femenina W. I. Z. O., años
1929–1931,” n.d., Box 149, Archivo IWO.
22. Revista WIZO 34–35 (November–Decmber 1938): 5.
23. Vivencias 24 (November 1996): 5.
24. Revista WIZO 49 (June 1941): 3, and 63 (April 1945): 1.
25. Ibid., 31 (July 1938): 17–18.
26. Amalia de Polak, interview with author, Buenos Aires, 1997.
27. La Luz, March 13, 1931, 3; Victor A. Mirelman, “Early Zionist Activities among
Sephardim in Argentina,” American Jewish Archives 34, no. 2 (November 1982):
190–205. The revisionist view is found in Adriana Brodsky, “The Contours
of Identity: Sephardic Jews and the Construction of Jewish Communities in
Argentina, 1880 to the Present” (PhD diss., Duke University, 2004).
28. Israel, November 8, 1946, 10; Alberto G. Kohn Loncarica, Norma Isabel
Sánchez, and Abel Luis Agüero, “La contribución de las primeras médicas
argentinas a la enseñanza universitaria,” Anales de la Sociedad Científica
Argentina 228, no. 2 (1998): 42.
29. The Ashkenazic women’s group initially arose in 1892, faded into obscurity,
and revived in 1908. On its origins see Lázaro Schallman, “Las primeras
agrupaciones de mujeres judías en la Argentina,” Revista OSFA 306
(December 1972): 37; Mundo Israelita, May 29, 1923, 4.
30. Israel, September 23 and 30, 1927, n.p.
31. Ibid., March 1918, 280.
32. Ibid., 286.
33. Ibid., April 19 and 26, 1928, 48.
34. La Luz, May 28, 1937, 220–21.
35. Julieta Camji, phone interview with author, 2001.
36. Israel, June 16, 1944, 20, and October 25, 1946, 9; La Luz, November 25, 1955,
333; Grinberg to Levy, July 21, 1955, WIZO collection, F49/19, Central Zionist
Archive (CZA), Jerusalem; Revista OSFA 155 (May 1954): 11.
37. Bruria Elnecavé, Crisol de vivencias judías (Buenos Aires: Ediciones “La Luz,”
1994), 66–68, 97–98; Revista OSFA 106 (December 1949–January 1950): n.p.
183
38. Judith Cohen de Isaharoff, interview, 1992, no. 182, Archivo de la Palabra,
Centro Marc Turkoff, AMIA, Buenos Aires, 6–8, 10; La Luz, March 22, 1940,
142; Israel, August 16, 1946, 15; Ibid., December 13, 1946, 4; Ibid., February 7,
1947, 18.
39. Nissensohn to Hauser Zeissler, September 24, 1952, F49/12, and Hauser
Zeissler to Consejo, December 31, 1952, F49/12, CZA; Chola Tawil de Ini,
interview with author, Buenos Aires, 1998; Israel, May 31, 1948, 6–7, 21; Ibid.,
June 25, 1948, 18; Ibid., November 5, 1948, 13; Ibid., June 17, 1949, 18; Ibid.,
September 30, 1951, 31; Ibid., May 2, 1952, 9.
40. Israel, February 11, 1944, 13; Ibid., April 28, 1944, 12–13, quote on 12; Ibid.,
May 25, 1945, 11.
41. This is reminiscent of the manner in which other immigrant groups, both
in Argentina and elsewhere, began to identify with their former homeland,
rather than their region of origin, only when they settled in a new country.
See Arnd Schneider, “Organizing Ethnicity: Three Episodes in the Politics
of Italian Associations in Argentina, 1947–1989,” Canadian Journal of Latin
American and Caribbean Studies 25, no. 50 (2000): 199. Again, it shows Jews
were not exceptional.
42. Politically conservative and religious Jews regarded ICUF with suspicion, yet
its institutions were represented in Jewish umbrella organizations until 1952.
See Lawrence Bell, “Bitter Conquest: Zionists against Progressive Jews and
the Making of Post-War Jewish Politics in Argentina,” Jewish History 17 (2003):
285–308.
43. Leike Kogan, “Achievements and Future of Jewish Women in Argentina”
[Yiddish], Revista ICUF 101–2 (October–November 1951): 50–54; Gregorio
Lerner, interview, 1986, 41, Archivo de la Palabra; Di idische froi 20–21
(March–June 1956): 1, and 25 (June–August 1957): 1–2, 10.
44. La internacional, January 9–10, 1922, 3–4; Ibid., February 3, 1924, 4; Ibid.,
January 17, 1925, 5; Fanny Edelman, Banderas, pasiones, camaradas (Buenos
Aires: Ediciones Dirple, 1996), 98; Mina Ruetter, interview with author,
Buenos Aires, 2000; Organización Popular Contra el Antisemitismo, Estatutos,
3rd ed. (Buenos Aires: n.p., 1938), lists a female officer; Berta Baumkoler, La
lucha es vida (Buenos Aires: Carlos A. Firpo, 2000), 27, 52, 60; James Cane,
personal communication; Navarro, “Hidden.”
45. Derechos del hombre, 2nd period, 1, no. 1 (November 1945): 2, 8; Baumkoler,
La lucha, 20; Ruetter, interview; La voz argentina contra la barbarie (Buenos
Aires: Ediciones Alerta, 1942), 12.
46. On the lack of research on the Communist Party see Jorge Cernadas, Roberto
Pittaluga, and Horacio Tarcus, “La historiografía sobre el Partido Comunista
de la Argentina. Un estado de la cuestión,” El Rodaballo 4, no. 8 (Fall/Winter
1998): 31–40. Exceptions to this rule are Silvia Schenkolewski-Kroll, “El Partido
Comunista en la Argentina ante Moscú: Deberes y realidades, 1930–1941,”
E.I.A.L. 10 (1999): 91–107; Silvia Schenkolewski-Kroll, “Los judíos comunistas
de Argentina de grupo idiomático a la emigración a Biribidian (1920–1937),
en los archivos de Moscú” (paper presented at the Latin American Jewish
Studies Association meeting, Princeton, NJ, March 1999). Scholars have
also begun to work on leftist cultural circles in the 1930s and 1940s, in which
184
Communists participated. See James Cane, “‘Unity for the Defense of Culture’:
The AIAPE and the Cultural Politics of Argentine Antifascism, 1935–1943,”
Hispanic American Historical Review 77, no. 3 (August 1997): 443–82; Sylvia
Saítta, “Entre la cultura y la política: Los escritores de izquierda,” in Nueva
historia argentina. Vol. 7: Crisis económica, avance del estado e incertidumbre
política (1930–1943), ed. Alejandro Cattaruzza (Buenos Aires: Editorial
Sudamericana, 2001), 383–428; María Cristina Mateu, “La integración de los
grupos idiomáticos en la cultura obrera argentina, a través de la política del
Partido Comunista en la década del ’20” (paper presented at the Congreso de
las Colectividades, IDES, Buenos Aires, October 2000). On the Socialist Party
after 1930, see Hernán Camarero and Carlos Miguel Herrera, eds., El Partido
Socialista en Argentina: Sociedad, política e ideas a través de un siglo (Buenos
Aires: Prometeo, 2005); Andrés Bisso, Acción Argentina: Un antifascismo
nacional en tiempos de guerra mundial (Buenos Aires: Prometeo, 2005);
Marcela García Sebastiani, “The Other Side of Peronist Argentina: Radicals
and Socialists in the Political Opposition to Perón (1946–1955),” Journal of
Latin American Studies 35, no. 2 (May 2003): 311–39.
47. Pro-Peronist critiques of the Communist Party include Juan José Hernández
Arregui, La formación de la consciencia nacional (1930–1960) (Buenos Aires:
Hachea, 1960); Jorge Abelardo Ramos, Breve historia de las izquierdas en la
Argentina, 2 vols. (Buenos Aires: Editorial Claridad, 1960), and Historia del
Stalinismo en la Argentina, 2nd ed. (Buenos Aires: Ediciones del Mar Dulce,
1969). On such authors see Michael Goebel, “Marxism and the Revision
of Argentine History in the 1960s,” E.I.A.L. 17, no. 1 (January–June 2006):
161–84.
48. As do Cane, “Unity”; Bisso, Acción; and Camerero and Herrera, El partido.
49. Andrés Bisso, “La apelación antifascista y su recepción en la práctica política
de la Unión Democrática,” Políticas de la Memoria 3 (October 2000): 22–23;
Mujeres en la ayuda (1942): 50.
50. Ester and Salo Koval, interview with author, Buenos Aires, 1998; Edelman,
Banderas, 42–49, 52–76; Ayuda al pueblo español, June 21, 1941, 7; Mika
Etchebéhère, Mi guerra de España (Barcelona: Plaza y Janis Editores, 1976).
Also see Dora Schwartzstein, Entre Franco y Perón: Memoria e identidad del
exilio republicano español en Argentina (Barcelona: Crítica, 2001); Mónica
Quijada, Aires de república, aires de cruzada: La guerra civil española en
Argentina (Barcelona: Sendai Ediciones, 1991).
51. La Hora, August 22, 1941, 4; María Rosa Oliver, Mi fe es el hombre (Buenos
Aires: Ediciones C. Lohle, 1981), 41–45; María Rosa Oliver, interview, May 13,
1971, 53, Proyecto de Historia Oral del Instituto Torcuato di Tella, Buenos
Aires; Lily Sosa de Newton, Diccionario biográfico de mujeres argentinas, 2nd
ed. (Buenos Aires: Plus Ultra, 1980), 433.
52. Mujeres en la ayuda, 11–13, 47–48, 62–64; Kogan, “Achievements,” 50–54.
53. Ana Monín, interview with author, San Isidro, Buenos Aires, 1997.
54. On this last task, see La Hora, April 15, 1942, 5.
55. Junta de la Victoria, Estatutos (Buenos Aires, n.p., n.d.), 3.
56. Mujeres en la ayuda, 8.
57. La Hora, May 5, 1943, 5.
185
58. Ana Rosa Schlieper de Martínez Guerrero to President Pedro P. Ramírez,
June 30, 1943, Junta de la Victoria file, Centro de Documentación e
Investigación de la Cultura de Izquierdas en la Argentina, Buenos Aires.
59. Quoted in La Hora, May 5, 1943, 5.
60. Crisol, December 16, 1941, 3.
61. La Hora, April 24, 1942, 8; Ibid., December 6, 1942, 6; Ibid., December 10,
1942, 6; Ibid., December 31, 1942, 5; Ibid., February 11, 1943, 5; Ibid., March 21,
1943, 6.
62. Mujeres argentinas, August 7, 1946, 7.
63. La Hora, December 5, 1942, 5; Ibid., December 27, 1942, 5; Edelman,
Banderas, 89; Berta Singerman, Mis dos vidas (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Tres
Tiempos, 1981), 112–14. Other groups could not celebrate the liberation of
Paris, either. See Arnd Schneider, Futures Lost: Nostalgia and Identity among
Italian Immigrants in Argentina (Bern: Peter Lang, 2000), 141.
64. Raanan Rein, The Franco-Perón Alliance: Relations between Spain and
Argentina, 1946–1955, trans. Martha Grenzeback (Pittsburgh, PA: University
of Pittsburgh Press, 1993), 150, 152, 286n39; Berta Perelstein de Braslavsky,
interview with author, Buenos Aires, 2000; Mujeres argentinas, August 9,
1946, 7; La Hora, November 15, 1945, 6; Ibid., November 22, 1945, 1; Ibid.,
December 12, 1945, 6; Ibid., December 16, 1945, 3; Ibid., December 19, 1945,
3; Ibid., December 20, 1945, 1; Ibid., April 4, 1946, 6.
65. The term refers to inhabitants of India who fought in the British army when
it was a colony. Some Argentines have used this word to signify lackeys of
imperialism.
66. See, for example, Ramos, Breve historia, 2:136; Hernández Arregui, La
formación, 139–41.
67. The recent works on anti-Fascism are Bisso, Acción; Jorge Nallim, “The Crisis
of Liberalism in Argentina, 1930–1946” (PhD diss., University of Pittsburgh,
2002); Cane, “Unity.”
186
chapter nine
Women’s Organizations and Jewish Orphanages

in Buenos Aires, 1918–1955
!
donna j. guy
B efore World War I, despite the presence of a lively and vigorous Jewish
community in Buenos Aires, the capital city of Argentina, no Jewish insti-
tutions existed to care for orphaned, abandoned, or needy Jewish children.
A 1918 study published by renowned Argentine public health physician
Emilio R. Coni (1854–1928) on the state of welfare services in Buenos Aires
listed more than one hundred institutions, public and private, to help
single mothers and poor or orphaned children. Almost all of them received
municipal subsidies, and some of them also received national subventions
as well. When it came to the Jewish community (which Coni identified as
the colectivdad rusa—the Russian community) he noted that it consisted of
28,436 persons and that within the city of Buenos Aires they were the third-
largest immigrant group, although they operated no orphanages.1
Among the Jewish organizations sponsored by the immigrant commu-
nity, Coni noted that Bikur Joilim, a Jewish workers’ mutual association,
was the oldest, having been founded in the late nineteenth century, and had
over two thousand members. Other groups were more religious and edu-
cational in nature, such as Talmud Torah, which subsidized the religious
instruction of poor students, and the Congregación Israelita Argentina. The
187
latter had been founded in 1868 to build a synagogue in the city. In 1900
the Ezrah Society was founded to provide aid to the poorer members of the
community, as well as to collect funds to build a Jewish hospital.2
Most literature on the Jewish community in Argentina has dealt with
political topics focusing on men. This paper deals with two major groups
of Jewish philanthropic women who labored to provide housing, religious
instruction, and secular education for the orphans and poor children in
their community, as well as for refugee Jewish orphans during the two
world wars. This topic not only expands our understanding of how women
participated in activities related to the Jewish community, it also places
Jewish women among the many groups of female philanthropists who
forged links with the government though the receipt of subsidies and who
helped build the initial edifice of the welfare state. Furthermore, the per-
formance of philanthropy not only helped the community, it also helped
women advance their status at a time when there were few opportunities
for professional women. In the case of Jewish women, however, the com-
munity was less willing than others to promote their status.
The first group of Jewish female philanthropists eventually became
known as the Sociedad de Damas Israelitas de Beneficencia (Society of
Israelite Beneficent Women). They operated the girls’ orphanage, the Asilo
Argentino de Huérfanas Israelitas. The second, the Idischer Frauenhilfsver
ein, founded the Hogar Infantil Israelita as a day care center and kinder-
garten for poor Jewish children. The first group began operations in 1908
and continued into the 1950s. The second group opened its home in 1931
in the midst of the depression and operated facilities well into the 1980s.
These were not the only Jewish child welfare organizations, but they repre-
sent some of the largest and most important institutions principally oper-
ated by women. The women who operated the asilo and the hogar are also
interesting because they chose different paths during the years of Juan
Perón’s first presidency (1946–1955); one offered services that competed
with those offered by Eva Perón, while the other openly courted Peronist
support. Despite their reactions to Peronism, both reached their moments
of greatest expansion between 1945 and 1955, a fact that sheds new light on
Peronism and the Jewish community.
Emilio Coni’s 1918 report carefully cataloged child welfare organizations
as well as those that provided health and welfare services for adults in the
city of Buenos Aires. Among other Jewish organizations mentioned by Coni,
several women’s groups showed indications that they were following the
path already established by Catholic women’s groups that provided services
188
Donna J. Guy
to needy pregnant women and their children. The Aid Society of Israelite
Women (Sociedad de Socorros de Damas Israelitas), an association within the
Congregación Israelita Argentina, in 1908 formed to help Jewish childbear-
ing women and newborn children. Initially they limited their program to pro-
viding medical help, clothing, and food. In 1912 their goals were also adopted
by another group called the Israelite Female Beneficence Society (Sociedad
Israelita Femenina de Beneficencia) who lent small amounts of money to the
poor as well as helped pregnant women. The two groups may in fact have
been the same group, as Coni noted that the Society of Israelite Women con-
templated the establishment of an “asilo infantil,” or children’s home.
According to a fragment of a magazine article published in a Yiddish ver-
sion of the magazine Caras y caretas, the idea of a Jewish orphanage resulted
from the 1915 appearance in Buenos Aires of a Jewish widow from the Carlos
Casares colony who could no longer care for the various orphans in her
charge. She called upon Clara de Banadir to find space in an orphanage for
the children. Señora de Banadir became the first president of the Sociedad
Israelita Protectora de la Infancia, a short-lived organization. That year they
held a fund-raising event at the theater of Max Glücksmann, the future
patron of the Asilo Argentino de Huérfanas Israelitas.3
The first Jewish orphanage for boys and girls opened in 1918 as an adjunct
to a nursing home. The following year the Jewish girls’ orphanage opened
and became the special responsibility of the Sociedad de Socorros de Damas
Israelitas, which in 1927 renamed itself the Sociedad de Beneficencia Damas
Israelitas. Four distinguished male members of the Congregación Israelita,
specifically Hermann Goldenberg, president of Congregación Israelita,
Gustavo Weil, Max Glücksmann, and S. Krämer, helped the women search
for a suitable property. Goldenberg purchased the building at auction for
the women, and Weil contributed 1,000 pesos in his wife’s name. President
Hipólito Yrigoyen of Argentina sent his personal representative to the open-
ing ceremony on December 23, 1919. The intendant (mayor) of Buenos Aires
then attended the celebration honoring the home’s first anniversary, and
Argentine president Marcelo T. de Alvear appeared at the inauguration of
a new building constructed specifically for the asylum on Arévalo Street in
March 1927. It marked the first time an Argentine president attended per-
sonally an official function of the Jewish community.4
The orphanage filled an important need within the community, and
shortly after opening, everyone realized that the dormitory space was too
small. In response to this problem the Chevra Keducha Ashkenazi Society
donated 5,000 pesos to help the group, and the Buenos Aires Municipal
189
Council offered a 5,000-peso subsidy to deal with the large number of
children seeking entry. By 1923, when it became evident that the impact of
post–World War I immigration to Argentina meant that even the expanded
orphanage facilities were too small, the male leaders at the Congregación
Israelita once again offered to help the orphanage by lending the wom-
en’s group 21,973.06 pesos without interest to construct a new building
on land purchased in the Palermo neighborhood. That same year the
Argentine government, in response to the women’s requests, began to
subsidize the orphanage initially with an annual stipend of 1,800 pesos,
one that eventually reached 10,000 pesos.5
Meanwhile the Jewish damas raised money for the orphanage by
organizing raffles, having dances and kermesses (fashionable fairs where
money was raised through raffles, races, etc.), asking for donations from
the Jewish communities of the interior, and receiving special donations
from the wealthier members of the congregation. A frequent contributor
in the early years was the pioneer cinematographer Max Glücksmann, who
also often held special benefit performances in his movie theater the Grand
Splendid. His wife, Rebecca, became fourth president of the sociedad in
1914, replacing señora Francisca R. de Krämer, whose husband helped select
the site for the first orphanage. Rebecca R. de Glücksmann remained presi-
dent until 1954, providing unwavering assistance to the home.6 Her lengthy
administration, however, led to criticisms within the Jewish community
that a select group of rich members controlled the orphanage for their own
status satisfaction. This meant that Buenos Aires collections and donations
beyond the circle of founders and those who attended the parties at the
fancy hotels rarely met either needs or expectations, and the damas had to
hire a man to travel to the interior to collect money from the Jewish com-
munities scattered throughout Argentina.7 However, well into the 1950s no
one stepped up to oppose señora de Glücksmann, and she continued to run
the organization with the unpaid labor of hundreds of women and men.
Despite the elitist accusations lodged against the board of the orphan-
age, the women’s group contributed to the welfare of the Jewish com-
munity in many ways. They adopted as their motto and repeated in each
report:
No hacemos beneficencia por caridad, sino por solidaridad humana.

De manera que el menesteroso de hoy, mediante nuestra ayuda en
un momento crítico de su existencia, sea mañana, en circunstan-
cias propicias, protector de otros necesitados. Como consecuencia
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Donna J. Guy
de estos principios, nadie debe implorer ayuda si realmente no la
precisa, para no degenerar y hacer la caridad un vicio.
[We engage in welfare work not for charity, but for human solidarity.
Poor people who are helped by us in their moment of need tomor-
row will be able to aid others. And, as a consequence of these prin-
ciples, no one should ask for aid if they don’t really need it, so that
they do not end up making charity a vice.]
The damas followed this principle when they shared the expenses of sewing
machines and small business loans to women with the Ezrah Society. Besides
providing layettes for poor pregnant women, they also assisted Jewish immi-
grants of both sexes who arrived from Europe during and after World War I.
Among these refugees, thirty female Ukrainian orphans arrived in Buenos
Aires in 1926. Their presence at the orphanage made the damas realize that
Buenos Aires could be a haven for refugees, and to prepare for this, they
requested double the annual contribution of each patron and planned to
construct a new wing at their property on Curupaligüe Street.8
In 1921 the Sociedad de Protección a los Inmigrantes Israelitas invited the
women running the orphanage to collaborate and help immigrant women
obtain jobs. To that end, they donated sewing machines for a workshop
in downtown Buenos Aires. The damas also received an invitation to ally
themselves with several Jewish philanthropies, a plan intended to rationalize
Jewish charity, promote greater efficiency, and end the need for each group
to support a variety of social events and campaigns. Instead the umbrella
organization planned to charge a single membership quota.
The damas opposed closer association with the various groups for
several reasons. First of all, they doubted whether a system of dues col-
lection would yield adequate income for all Jewish philanthropic endeav-
ors. Second, they argued that they were special because only the woman
who directed the orphanage received compensation—the other employ-
ees served voluntarily. Finally they resisted joining a group that principally
identified itself with the Ashkenazi community. Even though most of the
members of the Congregación Israelita were of Russian origin, the orphan-
age accepted children regardless of their links to Ashkenazi or Sephardic
groups. They also relied on Sephardic groups to promote special activities to
support their institution. And finally, they believed that their social agenda
offered a form of sociability across ethnicities that would be destroyed by
such an alliance, and no other community in Argentina relied on such an
191
umbrella group or philanthropy. The Jewish damas recognized the complex
ethnic character of Jewish immigration and felt they had a particular obli-
gation to the entire group.9
In this way the Jewish community, led by prominent women, joined
other Argentine groups in the battle against infant mortality and child aban-
donment. Since 1823 the Sociedad de Beneficencia de la Capital (Beneficent
Society of the Capital, created by the Argentine liberal Bernardino Rivadavia)
operated the orphanages and girls’ schools confiscated from the Catholic
Church by officials in Buenos Aires. Supposedly disconnected from the
Catholic Church, the elite women’s group in fact turned to nuns in the
1880s to staff their orphanages and hospitals.
For the Jewish community of Buenos Aires, the risks of relying on the
Sociedad de Beneficencia–controlled orphanages were high because all
infants without proof of baptism were baptized and thus lost to the Jewish
community. A 1914 article in the publication of the Ezrah Society clearly
noted this problem:
Our collectivity, whose advancement can be tracked year by year

and which already has resulted in mutual associations . . . still com-
pletely lacks an asylum that collects and cares for our orphaned or
abandoned children.
Perhaps we justify this omission because there are already many
asylums in the country. But we must keep in mind that these charita-
ble institutions pose a grave risk for the continued independence of
certain religious traditions because far from being lay associations,
on the contrary, they are eminently Catholic, run by nuns who are
strongly influenced by a proselytizing mission. And already there
have been cases of baptized Israelite children.10
Equally disturbing to the Jewish community, if mothers had to choose

between baptism and misery that could lead to death, maternal instinct to
keep their babies alive led them to permit baptism.
Before the Jewish orphanages opened, orphanages operated by the
Spanish community took in Jewish orphans and promised not to baptize
them. An examination of the records of the Patronato Español, the principal
girls’ orphanage, offers neither an explanation nor an indication of when
and how many Jewish orphans entered, although the woman in charge of
the archives, señora de Insogna, believes that the Spanish damas observed
the pretext that all Jewish orphans came from Sephardic families and were
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Donna J. Guy
therefore eligible to enter because they had once been Spanish. Other expla-
nations offered included the belief that some Spanish orphanages were
organized by Republicans and were less influenced by the Catholic Church.
No evidence has been located to verify either hypothesis. As the number
of Spanish orphans began to increase, it became clear that there would be
limited space for so-called Sephardic orphans.11
In 1926 the plight of Jewish children in Catholic orphanages still preoc-
cupied the Jewish community. Members of the board of the boys’ orphan-
age met with Rabbi Men on July 18 of that year to discuss the situation.
They estimated that approximately three hundred Jewish children lived in
Catholic orphanages, but to rescue them would be very difficult both politi-
cally and financially. The financial considerations related to the fact that any
“family” member who retrieved a child from an orphanage could be asked
to pay for each child’s room and board at 15 pesos per month for his or her
entire stay. Evidently the Jewish community believed that this fee would be
imposed on them as well, although records from the Sociedad de Beneficence
acknowledge that few families actually paid the lodging and boarding costs.
Nevertheless, the Jewish orphanages had barely enough money to sustain
the children in their care, let alone rescue others.12
The Jewish damas, cognizant that Jewish children entered state orphan-
ages, used this reality to spur contributions. In 1931 they published an adver-
tisement to encourage members of the community to become patrons of the
girls’ orphanage by arguing that “the Girls’ Orphanages save hundreds of
souls for Judaism, because without its help they would be condemned to con-
version or at least to a loss of familiarity of Judaism [la desjudaización].”13
For the Jewish women charity work offered several attractions. First of
all their good deeds acknowledged and reaffirmed their understanding of
Jewish solidarity in Buenos Aires. Secondly, women often organized pro-
grams along with their husbands, and their presence as married couples
further reinforced their status within the community. Finally they cre-
ated a social space within the Jewish community that paralleled that of the
Catholic Sociedad de Beneficencia, whose name they adopted in 1927, and
the Patronato de la Infancia, another charity organized by the city of Buenos
Aires in 1890 and operated by men with a group of equally elite women sup-
porting them. These groups initiated yearly fund-raisers in neighborhoods.
The women displayed poor children collecting contributions and held
special elegant occasions that served as fund-raisers. Jewish women who
copied these groups legitimated their presence in some of the most elite
social spaces in the city, particularly the Plaza Hotel and the Alvear Palace
193
Hotel. The fact that these women had no problems sponsoring activities at
elegant hotels indicated that Buenos Aires high society accepted this Jewish
women’s group at a time when anti-Semitism was increasingly visible.14
While the Jewish damas patterned their name and social activities on the
Catholic model, their attitude toward their charges, as well as their willing-
ness to acknowledge their husbands’ roles in their activities, set them apart.
Historically the Catholic damas of the Sociedad de Beneficencia refused to
share power and authority with anyone. In the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century they vigorously opposed efforts to remove female educa-
tion and the medical care of poor women from their responsibility. Their
disputes with male public health physicians became notorious, and in the
1930s and 1940s they struggled against public officials who wanted to incor-
porate the sociedad’s institutions into the nascent welfare system.15 They
rarely acknowledged any role played by their husbands and only relied on
the recommendations of male legal counsel and powerful politicians when
necessary. If friends or family left property or money to the sociedad, the
donations were never discussed in terms of kin relationships.
These women could afford to publicly ignore their husbands because
their married last names, their apellidos, automatically identified them with
their often powerful male relatives, linking them to the most socially, politi-
cally identifiable individuals in the country. The Jewish damas, on the other
hand, were part of a group officially separated from the Argentine aristoc-
racy by religion and professions. Therefore the women needed more than
apellidos—they needed the physical and often the financial support of their
spouses to retain their support within the Jewish community.
Equally important, the damas of the Sociedad de Beneficencia de la Capi
tal and those in the Patronato de la Infancia never felt a close personal bond
with their charges. A wide class gulf always separated the abandoned and
orphaned children from their guardians. Indeed, these women refused to
give infants last names, thereby relying on foster parents to permit their
wards to adopt their last names. The rest had to make do with matricula-
tion numbers or, upon leaving the orphanages, adopting the last name of
exposito, or “foundling,” to define their social standing. When they spent
time with the children, it was usually to mark official holidays or to make a
public spectacle of charity.16
In contrast, the Jewish damas often celebrated the religious holidays
at the orphanages with their families and charges. They organized par-
ties attended by some of the most respected members of the Jewish com-
munity and their families. The damas encouraged members of the Jewish
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Donna J. Guy
community to celebrate their own family events such as a bar mitzvah by
offering hot chocolate to the orphans. The women insisted that the orphans
address them informally, using tu rather than the impersonal third-person
form usted of Spanish. They also refused to send their wards into foster
care. This meant that all the girls who entered as foundlings or orphans
stayed until the age of majority—twenty-two—or until they married. In
1927 the first female orphan to get married received the blessings of the
community. In celebration of the wedding the temple waived all fees, and
Chief Rabbi Samuel Halphon married Dora Verona and her husband in a
ceremony attended by many people from the Jewish community. A lun-
cheon and reception followed the wedding, and the bride received a com-
plete trousseau, a gift from each woman on the damas’ commission, and
Gustavo Glaser gave furniture as a gift. Donations for the newlyweds came
in from all over Argentina. As the damas put it, “In a word, the Israelite col-
lectivity married off an orphan in the same way they would have done for
a daughter.”17
Some girls stayed on because there was simply no other place for them.
The Ukrainian orphans grew up and some still lived at the orphanage at the
age of twenty-five. In the midst of the depression there was neither work nor
lodging for these women, yet Mundo israelita urged the damas to have the
twenty women leave and not live together outside the institution so that they
could learn the meaning of independence. The fates of these women were
not addressed in annual reports, but they probably stayed on as employees,
which often occurred.
Education consisted of religious and practical courses as well as the
basic curriculum up to the sixth grade as required by Argentine laws. The
girls learned Hebrew and Yiddish and each year had to pass public examina-
tions. While the local newspapers rarely mentioned the quality of education
male orphans received, the Jewish public remained extremely concerned
that the girls be cognizant not only of language and Bible stories, but also
Jewish spirituality. Unlike the boys, they did not have a bar mitzvah (in the
case of the orphans these were often conducted in mass groups of twenty or
so orphans followed by a big party), and since religious identity was passed
on through mothers, the girls’ education became a public preoccupation. In
all likelihood the orphan girls ended up much more aware of ritual and reli-
gious matters than those brought up in private homes where public authori-
ties did not investigate the quality of religious education.18
This did not mean, however, that the girls were raised with solely middle-
class identities. Instead they learned sewing just like the girls raised by the
195
Sociedad de Beneficencia, as well as the waifs rounded up by the police and
sent to the Women’s Correctional Facility. Later the older girls also went to
secretarial and nursing schools. By 1943, within the asylum, girls attended
classes from kindergarten to grade six and also learned nursing, decorative
arts, secretarial, and bookkeeping skills.19
The outbreak of World War II presented new challenges for the Jewish
damas. As refugees began to arrive, the damas believed they would have to
expand their facilities even more. In 1944, for example, the Jewish commu-
nity unsuccessfully lobbied to bring in one thousand refugee children, but
only sixty-five arrived due to Argentine restrictions. Then in 1947, mem-
bers of the Jewish community approached the Peronist minister of foreign
relations to admit one thousand child refugees, again in vain. This time,
the Peronist government supported the request but never admitted the
children. For the damas, their mission to provide lodging for these refu-
gees encouraged them to believe that there would always be a need for
their orphanage.20 In addition to caring for orphans, the damas bought
small businesses for adults, obtained sewing machines and other work
implements as well as jobs, and paid the rent for those who could not.
They had a social worker, Aída Cherniak, and two women, Sofía S. de
Reinoff and Rosa R. de Goldfarb, who served as inspectors and distributed
layettes (ajuares) and clothing for poor women. By that time the damas
also welcomed orphans from Buenos Aires, the interior, neighboring
countries, and still thought orphans would arrive in droves from Europe.
They therefore decided to construct a fifth dormitory and continued their
fund-raising activities.21
The 1943 revolution, added to growing demands on the women’s group,
according to the traditional historiography of Peronism, should have led to
reduced activities on the part of these damas, but the hopes of admitting
one thousand child refugees, along with Argentina’s recognition of Israel,
meant that relations between Jewish charities and the government were not
affected by the government’s intervention in the Sociedad de Beneficencia
in 1946.
In 1943 the Asilo Israelita de Huérfanas celebrated its twenty-fifth anni-
versary, and Mundo israelita devoted an entire page to the gala event. Two
years later, the women purchased a rural property in General Belgrano,
Province of Córdoba, so that orphaned girls could have summer vacations.
The local committee in Córdoba took care of the property. Back in Buenos
Aires, the damas began to receive inheritances from the community that
had supported them for so long, and they continued to receive a national
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Donna J. Guy
subsidy as well as occasional donations such as 2,500 pesos from the YPF,
the state petroleum monopoly.22
This trajectory continued under Peronism. In the 1950–1951 report of
the damas, they mentioned having distributed 27,835 pesos in subsidies to
poor Jews, with only 4,560 going to mothers with children. They contin-
ued to provide jobs, pay rent for the poor, and provide shoes and clothing.
Furthermore, in direct imitation of Eva Perón who had her own charita-
ble organization, the Jewish damas opened up their own hostel for adult
women who found themselves in Buenos Aires without lodging. These
poor women were also offered adult education religious classes. Clearly the
damas did not want Jewish women to enter Peronist homes for transient
adult women. Perhaps this also explained why the annual financial report
did not include a national subsidy as in past years.23 In any case, the Asilo
Argentina de Huérfanas Israelitas survived the war years and was neither
interfered with nor taken over by the government. In fact, few philanthropic
groups felt the wrath of the Peronist government. Instead, they all faced
decreased subsidies as the welfare state proceeded.
The history of another group of Jewish philanthropic women in Argen
tina showed that the experience of the Sociedad de Beneficencia de Damas
Israelita was not unique. Although the second group began its efforts to aid
children more than a decade later, it, too, became part of the community sup-
port offered to poor Jewish children. In the midst of the worldwide depres-
sion, in 1931 Yiddish-speaking Jewish women of German origin banded
together and founded the Hogar Infantil Israelita (Jewish Infants’ Home)
that helped women of newborns or poor women. The home was designed
as a temporary place to house young children whose parents were ill or had
to work, or one of whom was in the hospital or deceased.
The founders—Rosa G. de Gierson, who within several years was
named president and, like Rebecca de Glücksmann, served for many years,
Ana S. de Gaversky, Tary B. de Svartz, Esther de Fischer, Sofía de Milleritsky,
Paulina Goldfarb, and Eva Priluk—planned to admit the children on a case
by case method; Esther de Fischer became the first president. The kinder-
garten received children between the ages of four and six, and they were
bussed to school each day. Within one year the home provided day care
facilities for seventy children under the age of six, mostly during the day at
their establishment in the Flores neighborhood.24
The records of the Hogar Infantil initially recorded all the cases they
encountered. Often the petitioners had a letter from some member of the
community. The women paid for circumcisions for boys and generally
197
took in children of hospitalized parents. They drew the line at unweaned
babies until they opened their own infants section in 1934, but they pro-
vided health information to immigrant women by calling upon them and
speaking Yiddish. They also published pamphlets in Yiddish. The women
accepted Jewish children from the Argentine interior to justify the dona-
tions they solicited there, and they even gave monthly contributions to the
local police home for children.25
Since the children in their care had parents, most stayed at the institu-
tion or attended the day care facilities as needed. Thus when these damas
were approached by individuals seeking a child to adopt, they quickly noted
that they did not deal with such issues. They willingly cared for children in
abusive families. In a case that occurred on February 2, 1934, señora Fischer
reported to the committee that upon visiting a woman living at Avellaneda
925, and having talked with the mother of several children, señora Fischer
determined that the woman suffered from bad health and mistreatment
by her husband. Accordingly, señora Fischer urged the group to admit the
children.26 Each week the group recounted the impoverished situations of
immigrant Jewish families.
Like the Sociedad de Beneficencia de Damas Israelitas, the Idischer
Frauenhilfsverein raised money through dances at fancy hotels, but more
often they held events on the grounds of the hogar.27 In fact, there never
seemed to be any accusations of elitism lodged against these women.
Perhaps it was due to their association with a noted physician, Dr. Jaime
Favelukes. Favelukes represented the Jewish community and championed
the use of social workers to help immigrant families at the First Congress of
Social Work and Infancy held in 1932. The following year he gave a similar
talk to the First National Conference on Social Work. At that time he argued
that social workers’ efficacy was limited because they acted as representa-
tives of charity, rather than professionals.
To reinforce his ideas concerning immigrant families, ones that included
an ability to speak the language of the family as well as understand the
living conditions and situations confronting the immigrant poor, Favelukes
remarked that he had learned about social work in 1925 while perform-
ing medical duties for several Jewish organizations. At that time Favelukes
headed the Liga Israelita Argentina Contra la Tuberculosis (Argentine
Jewish Anti-Tuberculosis League) where a social workers’ office took shape.
Favelukes soon understood the merits of trained specialists, and in 1932,
upon becoming the president of the Jewish Hospital, he opened a similar
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office. With these credentials, his association with the hogar identified the
institution as progressive and scientific.28
In 1933 the organization acknowledged the need for an infants’ dor-
mitory, and even before they could add one to the property, they began to
hire wet nurses to help mothers “whose husbands have taken up drinking
and cannot support the family.” Their reports provide insights into the
plight of poor Jews rarely found elsewhere. As far as the children were
concerned, they did not live at the hogar permanently, but some stayed
until family problems disappeared.29
By 1938 the missions of the women who operated the Hogar Infantil
Israelita seemed to be very similar to those who ran the Asilo Argentino
de Huérfanas Israelitas. When they were approached regarding possible
unification, the Frauenhilfsverein rejected this path. Instead, in 1940 they
formalized their ideas and proposed statutes for the institution and defined
themselves as an organization of Israelite women who operated a chil-
dren’s home designed to help indigent parents of preschool children. They
planned to create similar institutions throughout the capital city and operate
a ward for children under age two.30 By that time the home had moved to a
new, larger location and defined its character as a kindergarten with more
than ninety children, most of them children of working people. They, too,
opened their doors to Sephardic children, although the majority of children
were of Ashkenazi origin.31
In 1936 Ana de Gaversky became president of the hogar. The insti-
tution cared for 100 to 130 children each day, and they had two buses
that transported the children from the center to their homes. At that
point they owned no buildings of their own but instead relied on renting
from others. They began a building campaign that continued into the
1940s. Eventually they purchased a building. By 1946 the organization
was swamped with requests to help children, and they began to contem-
plate opening another institution.32
To support their activities, the damas of the Hogar Infantil organized
collections similar to many Buenos Aires child welfare charities. Each year
there was a campaign just before the Jewish New Year to pay for gifts
of food, and they relied on bridge tournaments, dances, and an annual
dinner. Equally important were individual contributions by donors, which
were always mentioned in extensive lists published in the hogar’s annual
reports along with many pages of paid advertisements by members of the
Jewish community, a tactic also pursued by the Damas de Beneficencia.
199
From time to time they also solicited contributions at synagogues during
important holy days such as Yom Kippur.33
Between December 1, 1930, and 1967, more than 4,048 children attended
the day schools or lived in the dormitories of the Hogar Infantil. Children
often attended the day school with their siblings. While the great majority
were identified as Argentines because they were born in Buenos Aires, the
next most frequent nationality was Polish. Others included Cuban, American,
Uruguayan, Brazilian, Greek, Lithuanian, Palestinian, Chilean, German, and
Austrian. These last two groups were most notable in the late 1930s. Many
of the Argentine children had Syrian parents, indicating the hogar’s commit-
ment to the Sephardic community. By the 1950s many of the parents were
second-generation Argentines, indicating that many in the Jewish commu-
nity had not been able to prosper after their arrival in Buenos Aires.34
During those years, the women who ran the hogar seemed to be on
better terms with the Perón government than the damas of the girls’
orphanage. Perhaps this was due to Perón’s willingness, at least rhetor-
ically, to allow the European refugee children into Argentina, as well as
his government’s recognition of Israel. As testimony to their support, the
women of the hogar for several years ran a page dedicated to Perón’s Second
Five-Year Plan (Segundo Plan Quinquenal) in their newsletter. In 1955 they
advocated creating a forest in Israel named after Perón by “planting trees
as a just homage and expression of the friendship between two nations
that are fighting to achieve greatness: Argentina and Israel.”35 The hogar
continued all throughout the Peronist era to operate day care services for
young children.
The comparison of these two institutions reveals important aspects of
the history of the Buenos Aires Jewish community. Just as Emilio Coni
noted that Jewish women desired to participate in child-focused charities
in Buenos Aires, upper-class Jewish women also wanted these activities to
validate both their position in the Jewish community as well as the Jewish
upper-class presence in the fashionable spaces of Buenos Aires and the
interior. Although these women had their critics, they were usually found
within the Jewish community itself. This community was further divided
by a series of ideological issues as well as by class differences. Despite
these criticisms, the Jewish community lauded the women for their well-
run institutions, and Argentine political officials attended the institu-
tions’ important ceremonies. Indeed, one could argue that these women
forged linkages of acceptability for the Jewish community with the larger
Argentine society that heretofore have been ignored.
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The demise of these groups had less to do with Peronism and much
more to do with restrictions placed on Jewish immigrants, both young and
old, in the 1940s. The community had invested time and money to ensure
that there would be sufficient space to house all Jewish orphans needing
care. The creation of the State of Israel, however, preempted that role for
Argentina, and Perón’s recognition of Israel softened the reality that his gov-
ernment would not allow Jews to enter Argentina at will. Thus the number
of Jewish orphans needing care diminished rather than expanded, and soon
the orphans remaining in Argentina were sent to Israel, along with thou-
sands of other Argentine Jews who joined the Zionist cause. By the 1950s
there were simply too few female Jewish orphans to justify the maintenance
of the girls’ orphanage. Parts of the orphanage were rented out to Hebrew
language schools, and the girls who remained went to Israel or returned to
their relatives.36
The elegant edifice housing the Jewish girls’ orphanage was subse-
quently used by several organizations until sold to a bus company for its
headquarters, and it still functions in that capacity. A smaller institution,
known as the Hogar de Niñas, with no public Jewish identification, took over
the orphanage and it was operated by a Jewish-Dutch refugee. It functioned
as a home and a school linked to the Sojnut, a Zionist institution, but did
not teach religious classes as before. Instead girls learned Hebrew to prepare
the children for emigration. Finally, in the 1980s, even those limited func-
tions proved unnecessary, and most of the girls emigrated to Israel when the
home closed.37
The dearth of clients forced the Hogar Infantil to become a regular
day school with no facilities to house children after school. The days of
large institutions with resident facilities had ended, not only in Argentina,
but throughout the world. New approaches to orphans included a greater
emphasis on foster care and adoption, a legal procedure finally available in
Argentina in 1948, although not frequently used due to its cumbersome
requirements. And, with changing economic conditions that pushed women
into the paid workforce, fewer volunteers offered to staff the homes.
Collective memories of the immigrant experience often focus on the
personal, rather than the institutional. This is particularly true for the his-
tory of child welfare institutions. Neither the women who labored without
pay to administer, care for, and educate orphan and poor Jewish children,
nor the institutions themselves, have been embedded in the history of the
Argentine-Jewish community. The relationship of Peronism to the closure
of the Sociedad de Beneficencia and frequent reports of anti-Semitic attacks
201
during the 1940s have led to strong accusations of anti-Semitism under the
Peronist regime. Recent scholars like Raanan Rein have begun to create a
more nuanced perspective by carefully analyzing the complex relationship
between Perón and Israel and Peronism and the Jewish community, while
others have explored anti-Semitism as an Argentine theme.38 Nevertheless,
none have looked at how Jewish women were capable of entering social
spaces reserved for Catholic elites, nor how they helped shape community
identity through child welfare. These very public groups, even at the height
of Argentine anti-Semitism, were never criticized by the dominant com-
munity. As these women danced at cocktail parties and kermesses at the
Alvear Palace Hotel and invited the community to attend Jewish holidays
with them, the larger Argentine community found reasons to protect and
sustain these female-operated institutions until the welfare state had no
more need for their services. The history of these philanthropic women is
embedded in the Argentine-Jewish immigrant experience.
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Donna J. Guy
Acknowledgments
The research for this article was made possible by grants and fellowships
from the University of Arizona, Social and Behavioral Sciences Institute, the
American Council of Learned Societies, and an Ohio State University leave of
absence. I would like to thank Abraham Lichtenbaum of the IWO Archives
for permission to work in those archives and Ana Weinstein of the Mark
Turkow Archives of the AMIA for similar permission. I would also like to
thank Sandra Deutsch for comments on earlier drafts and Alma Ruibal for
her notes on Mundo israelita.
Notes
1. Emilio R. Coni, Higiene social; Asistencia y previsión social. Buenos Aires
caritativo y previsor (Buenos Aires: Imprenta de Emilio Spinelli, 1918),
656–57. By defining the community simply as being Russian, Coni ignored
the other members of the Jewish community such as the Sephardic and
German Jews. His definition makes it clear how difficult it was to “count”
the Jewish community when most information was provided by nationality.
2. Coni dates the founding of the Sociedad de Damas to 1903, but according to
the Jewish newspaper Mundo israelita, it began on September 17, 1908, as the
result of efforts by Rabbi Samuel Halphon; Coni, Higiene social, 657; Archivo
IWO, Mundo israelita, June 26, 1943.
3. Gloria Rut Lerner, “El Asilo de Huérfanas Israelitas” (Licenciature Thesis,
Universidad Nacional de Luján, 2001), 35–36. The fragment can be found at
the Instituto Científico (IWO), Buenos Aires. I would like to thank Gloria
for this information.
4. Coni, Higiene social, 658. Sociedad de Socorros de Damas Israelitas, Reseña
sobre la marcha de la Sociedad de Socorros de Damas Israelitas, 1918–1919, 11;
Ibid., 1920–1921, 12–13. The society changed its name to the Sociedad de
Beneficencia de Damas Israelitas in 1927. In addition to helping pregnant
women, the Jewish community had already established an association to pre-
vent young Jewish girls, particularly immigrants, from becoming entrapped
in “white slavery” or the international traffic in women and children. See
Donna J. Guy, Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family and Nation
in Argentina (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991). The advertisement
was published in Mundo israelita, May 7, 1927, 4. It noted that the president
of Argentina would be accompanied by his wife, members of the Argentine
congress, and ambassadors of foreign countries.
5. Lerner, “El Asilo de Huérfanas Israelitas,” 23.
6. There were earlier presidents of this women’s group, but after 1919 they
identified these two women as the first and second presidents. See Lerner,
“El Asilo de Huérfanas Israelitas,” 20.
7. A long controversy preoccupied the Buenos Aires Jewish Community. It
began in 1931 when Mundo israelita urged the group to provide an alternate
slate of candidates. Subsequently the newspaper realized that those opposing
203
Rebecca R. de Glücksmann never bothered to organize their own slate and
that unfounded rumors existed in the capital accusing the philanthropic
women of forming a closed circle of aristocrats. Although Mundo israelita
subsequently refuted this accusation, the orphanage suffered by having
many fewer patrons. “La renovación el la Sociedad de Damas,” Mundo
israelita, August 22, 1931.
8. Reseña sobre la macha de la Sociedad, 1921–1922, 11; Ibid., 1922–1923, 16.
9. Ibid., 1922–1923, 25–30.
10. Archivo Centro de Documentación e Información sobre Judaísmo “Mark
Turkow,” (Archivo Turkow), “Ezrah” 7–98, Hospital Israelita (enero 1 1914):
97–98, “La infancia abandonada; Necesidad de un asilo infantil en nuestro
medio.”
11. Conversation with señora Insogna at the Patronato Español, 2002.
12. “Asilo israelita argentino,” Mundo israelita, July 24, 1926.
13. Advertisement, Mundo israelita, undated, ca. 1931.
14. For example, the Sociedad de Beneficencia de Damas Israelitas sponsored a
tea dance at the Imperial Salon of the Alvear Palace Hotel on July 22, 1941.
The proceeds were intended to subsidize the girls’ orphanage. Archivo IWO,
Mundo israelita, July 14, 1941. Prior to the construction of the Alvear Palace,
the damas held events in the Plaza Hotel and the Savoy Hotel, both consid-
ered fine upper-class city hotels. Sociedad de Socorros de Damas Israelitas,
Reseña sobre la marcha de la Sociedad, 1920–1921, 12–13.
15. José Luis Moreno, organizador, La política social antes de la political social;
(Caridad, beneficencia y política social en Buenos Aires, siglos XVII a XX)
(Buenos Aires: Trama Editorial, 2000).
16. Film clips as well as photos of gatherings sponsored by Catholic women’s
charities often indicate clear social cleavages, including making the orphans
wear uniforms for collection drives. In contrast, the Sociedad de Socorros
de Damas Israelitas de Beneficencia, Asilo Argentino de Huérfanas Israelitas
memoria y balance, 1945–1946, 31–32, contains a list of holidays both secular
and religious celebrated at the orphanage, along with a long list of prominent
Jewish families who attended Passover services there.
17. This information came from a conversation with señora Berta Bairach, who
went to live in the asilo after having spent time at the Casa de Expósitos and
the Sociedad de Beneficencia’s Asilo de Huérfanas in the 1930s and 1940s
because her mother died at birth. She claims that members of the community
urged her father to send the daughter to the Jewish orphanage. Conversation,
September 23, 2002, Buenos Aires. I thank her for her comments.
18. See the long article about girls’ spiritual welfare in “Ampliación spiritual del
Asilo de Huérfanas,” Mundo israelita, November 25, 1936.
19. Donna J. Guy, “Girls in Prison: The Role of the Buenos Aires Casa
Correcional de Mujeres as an Institution of Child Rescue, 1890–1940,” in
Crime and Punishment in Latin American Law and Society since Late Colonial
Times, ed. Ricardo D. Salvatore, Carlos Aguirre, and Gilbert M. Joseph
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001), 369–90. Sociedad de Socorros
de Damas Israelitas, Reseña sobre la marcha de la Sociedad, 1923–1924,
17. Immigrant women also worked at the asilo as seamstresses, but the
204
Donna J. Guy
workshop closed the following year. IWO, “Através del Asilo de Huérfanas se
cumple una tarea de gran importancia,” Mundo israelita, June 26, 1943, 12.
20. Archivo IWO, “Informe de la ‘Soroptomis’ por el año 1944,” manuscript, 14;
“Han tenido éxito las gestiones de la DAIA para lograr que mil niños ingresen
al país,” Mundo israelita, January 18, 1947, 7.
21. Sociedad de Damas Israelitas de Beneficencia, Memoria, 1941, 14–16, 30, 37.
22. Ibid., 1946, 35, 41, 50. The society had been receiving 10,000 pesos per year
from the national government. Private inheritances that year, however,
reached 47,000 pesos out of 267,807.84—a truly unusual event.
23. Ibid., 1950–1951, 15–16, 42, and unpaginated financial report to June 30, 1951.
24. Archivo IWO, Hogar Infantil Israelita Argentina, Libro de actas, 1931, f. 141;
Mundo israelita, August 1, 1931; an advertisement from the Hogar Infantil
Israelita Argentino invited members of the Jewish community to an open
house; “El Hogar Infantil en su primer aniversario,” Mundo israelita,
November 21, 1931.
25. Archivo IWO, Hogar Infantil Israelita Argentina, Libro de actas, May 31, 1933,
ff. 14–24; Ibid., September 19, 1933, ff. 44–50; Ibid., January 2, 1934, ff. 167–71.
26. Ibid., May 31, 1933, f. 14; Ibid., September 19, 1933, ff. 44–50; Ibid., January 2,
1934, ff. 167–71.
27. See for example, Mundo israelita, November 23, 1931, and February 20, 1932.
28. “Primer congreso nacional del servicio social a la infancia,” Mundo israelita,
October 1, 1932, 2; Dr. Jaime Favelukes, “El servicio social del inmigrante,” in
Primera conferencia sobre asistencia social, 3 vols. (Buenos Aires: Kraft, 1934),
26–33.
29. Archivo IWO, Hogar Infantil Israelita Argentina, Libro de actas, August 22,
1933, f. 36.
30. Ibid., August 23, 1938, f. 21; Ibid., December 18, 1940, f. 27.
31. Ibid., Memoria y balance general, 11th ejercicio, 1938–1939, 15–16.
32. Mundo israelita, October 4, 1941, 8; Hogar Infantil Israelita Argentina,
Memoria y balance general, 1946–1947, 48–49.
33. Archivo IWO, Hogar Infantil Israelita Argentina, Memoria y balance general,
1946–1967, 39; Ibid., Memoria, 1985–1986, unpublished document.
34. Ibid., Registro de niños. This is a two-volume ledger where all children are
identified by name and nationality, but not all parents’ nationalities are
identified. Other information includes reasons for admission such as “father
abandoned the home,” the child’s domicile, and who went to interview the
family. Although the information is rather sparse, it gives a vivid picture of
the poverty and social problems encountered by working-class immigrant
Jewish families in Buenos Aires and in the interior.
35. Ibid., Memoria y balance general, 27th ejercicio, 1954–1955, 33.
36. Berta Bairach, for example, still had a father, uncle, and disabled brother
living in Buenos Aires. As an adolescent she finally went to live with her
father and worked in his garment factory, eventually taking it over until it
closed. Interview, September 23, 2001.
205
37. Lerner, “El Asilo de Huérfanas Israelitas,” 64, 68.
38. Raanan Rein, Peronismo, populismo y política: Argentina 1943–1955 (Buenos
Aires: Editorial de Belgrano, 1998); Raanan Rein, Argentina, Israel y los
Judíos: Encuentros y desencuentros, mitos y realidades (Buenos Aires: Ediciones
Lumière, 2001). See also Lawrence D. Bell, “In the Name of the Community:
Populism, Ethnicity, and Politics among the Jews of Argentina under Perón,
1946–1955,” Hispanic American Historical Review 86 (February 2006): 93–122.
206
Donna J. Guy
chapter ten
Nation and Holocaust Narration

Uruguay’s Memorial del Holocausto del Pueblo Judío
edna aizenberg
A Picnic on the Boardwalk
Wonderful bicycle ride along our exceptional “rambla,” enjoying the

fresh sea air of famous Pocitos Beach, the most popular in Monte
video. The package includes transportation to a booth just meters
from the shore and a nice bicycle to enjoy the charms of our sea-
shore. Bikes available for ladies, gentlemen and children.
M
—From a tourist brochure for Montevideo
ontevideo’s rambla, or “boardwalk,” characterizes the city, running

for miles along the banks of the River Plate, crossing neighborhoods and
landscapes. I landed in this coastal city on August 5, 2002, the day the bank-
ing system collapsed. “When Argentina sneezes Uruguay catches a cold,”
the saying goes, and that’s exactly what had happened. After months of
ever more severe economic bronchitis on the other bank of the River Plate,
accompanied by ever louder monetary coughing in the form of defaults and
devaluation, poor Uruguay had finally caught the bug. The day I arrived, the
banks were shut down, there were street riots, and the armored trucks I saw
on the highway leading from the airport to the city were filled—so rumor
207
had it—with fresh dollars dispatched by the International Monetary Fund
to shore up Uruguay’s battered peso.
In the lead gray of the Southern Hemisphere winter, Montevideo seemed
a shuttered ghost town, much like the desperate fictional city of Santa María
created by Uruguay’s master writer, Juan Carlos Onetti. But in the midst
of this deep crisis that had turned Montevideo’s citizens into hostages of
its failing currency, at least one family had decided to escape its seeming
house arrest in order to enjoy the fresh sea air of famous Pocitos Beach.
When I got to the rambla, this family was sitting comfortably in folding
chairs on the splotchy seaside grass, gamboling with its terrier, pouring hot
water from a thermos and enjoying mate, the bitter tea no self-respecting
Uruguayan can do without. A few steps away from the impromptu picnic,
this déjeuner sur l’herbe criollo style, and almost hidden among the stubby
bushes, there were two short pieces of railroad track and a plaque carved
with this inscription:
El Memorial del Holocausto del Pueblo Judío fue erigido en nombre

del Uruguay, a iniciativa del Poder Ejecutivo aprobada por el Parla
mento mediante el Art. 252 de la Ley 16320, bajo la Presidencia del
Dr. Luis Alberto Lacalle Herrera, e inaugurado el 10 de noviembre
de 1994.
[The Memorial to the Holocaust of the Jewish People was erected

in the name of Uruguay, at the initiative of the Executive Branch,
approved by Parliament through Art. 252 of Law 16320, under the
presidency of Dr. Luis Alberto Lacalle Herrera, and inaugurated on
November 10, 1994.]
While I was standing near the picnickers, looking out from the board-
walk toward the water, I could see little of a memorial (figure 4).
All I saw was a low-lying red-granite wall jutting up from the beach
below, surrounded by broken rocks, and right near it two taller walls tum-
bling on their sides (figure 5).
Only when I walked down to the river along a sloping, rough wooden
ramp and turned my back to the Río de la Plata in the direction of the rambla
did the full presence and impact of the memorial begin to emerge. Now the
seemingly calm horizontal slabs that mimicked the placid waterline took on
a much more ominous coloring, sundered by the huge gap yawning between
the precariously tilted vertical boulders (figure 6).
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Edna Aizenberg
figure 4.
View of the Holocaust memorial plaque near the picnickers.
© Photographed by Edna Aizenberg, 2006.
figure 5.
View of the memorial looking out from the boardwalk toward the River Plate.
All that is visible is the low-lying granite wall with two taller walls
tumbling on their sides. © Photographed by Edna Aizenberg, 2006.
209
These cleft surfaces enclosed an open plaza also paved with red-granite
rock, their unsettling effect heightened by the four tombstonelike tablets
arrayed along the breached rampart. Each tablet had a saying etched in
Hebrew-looking Spanish characters. “Siete veces cae el justo y siete veces
volverá a levantarse (Seven times shall the just man fall and seven times
shall he rise) (Proverbios 24:16),” read one (figure 7).
“Elegid siempre la vida y el bien pues la elección está en vuestras manos
(Always elect life and good, for the choice is in your hands) (Maimonides),”
said another. “En el recordar está la redención (Remembrance brings
redemption) (Baal Shem Tov),” noted the third. And “A la tristeza queremos
que la acompañe la esperanza (Let hope accompany sorrow) (Elie Weisel),”
the fourth.
As I moved from tablet to tablet, from maxim to maxim, the path led
me gently upward, out to the other end of the plaza, back to boardwalk level
(figure 8).
A few more steps and I was again strolling on the grassy knoll, once more
squinting at the luxury high-rises of Pocitos Beach, at the family drinking
mate, at the frolicking dog.
figure 6.
View of the memorial looking from the River Plate toward the boardwalk.
This view shows the tilted vertical slabs separated by a gap.
210
Edna Aizenberg
figure 7.
Tablet with the saying
“Seven times shall the
just man fall and seven
times shall he rise”
(Proverbs 24:16).
© Photographed by
Edna Aizenberg, 2006.
figure 8.
Path up from the Holocaust memorial back to the boardwalk.
211
What was one to make of this memorial at once so rooted in its environ-
ment yet alien to it, at once so naturalized and disruptive? What relation
did it bear to Uruguay’s history, to the men of marble and bronze riding
through Montevideo’s plazas or entombed in the mausoleums that fill the
nation’s memory spaces, its lieux de mémoire, in Pierre Nora’s terminology?
What did it say to the mate sippers on the lawn, who when I chatted with
them seemed oblivious to the less than fun associations of their picnic site?
And how did it dialogue with better-known Holocaust memorials and with
other remembrance traditions, the Jewish tradition, for example?
I ask these questions as part of a larger reflection, for a book entitled
Stones of Memory, on public space and Jewish memory in Latin America, a
topic that has been barely studied. Jewish memory now has inserted itself
openly in Latin America’s cityscapes, fostering new dialogues and new ways
of understanding “the Jewish” within “the nation,” while redefining “the
nation” from the perspective of “the Jewish.”1 Like all dialogues born of
memory, these conversations can be knotty and painful. What I’d like to do
here is to confront just one site, less well known than the Jewish memory
sites that have sprung up around the destroyed AMIA (Asociación Mutual
Israelita Argentina) building in Buenos Aires, but as important—Monte-
video’s Memorial to the Holocaust. I want to do so as a way of probing the
challenges of this novel Latin American Jewish “irruption” and of expand-
ing my arguments in Books and Bombs in Buenos Aires.2 There, still reeling
from the hurt of the AMIA bombing, I wrote, “The fruitful insertion of
Jewish culture within Latin America’s exuberant hybridities fosters a liber-
ating unhinging of people and ideologies from fixed categories, the kind of
categories that undergird inquisitorial flames, Nazi guns, and Buenos Aires
bombs.”3 Now moving out into the open from the more protected space of
literature, I’d like to add Uruguayan dictatorships to my historia latinoameri-
cana de la infamia.

James Young, author of most authoritative study on the subject, The Texture
of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning, has masterfully glossed the
varying textures of Holocaust memory in the “central” countries. Each
nation inscribes the catastrophe according to its needs, myths, and history.
Nation and narration go hand in hand. In Germany, conflicted remem-
brance swirls around the conundrum, How does a state “memorialize” a
Nazi genocide that the state itself perpetrated? The complexities of dealing
212
Edna Aizenberg
with this dilemma are obvious in the convolutions of every museum, every
memorial, including the Jewish “extension” of the Berlin Museum and the
disputed Berlin Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe whose very name
betrays the tangles.4
In Poland, site of the Holocaust’s major killing fields, commemoration
focuses on the World War II martyrdom of the Polish and other nations,
with slaughtered Jews constituting the absence that Poland fills with signifi-
cance of its own. The January 2005 ceremonies on the sixtieth anniversary
of the liberation of Auschwitz did finally recognize Jewish suffering, but
Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski still tried mightily “to balance the
different meanings of Auschwitz.”5
In the United States, freedom, democracy, and pluralism are the key
themes—the Americans defeated the Nazis, liberated the camps, and opened
the doors to the tortured remnants of European Jewry. The Holocaust Memo
rial Museum in Washington reflects this understanding of the Shoah most
dramatically. And in Israel, the overpowering memory of the Shoah justi-
fies the very existence of the state; Holocaust recollection marks the latest
version of the age-old Jewish passage me-hurban le-geulah, “from destruction
to redemption.”
From the viewpoint of the power-filled Northern Hemisphere, to erect
and to study these Holocaust memorials in Germany or Poland, Israel or the
United States, seems to make perfect sense, but in little Uruguay? Like so
much in Latin America, the influential ignore Uruguay’s unique response,
despite the fact that the Memorial del Holocausto shapes an urgent and dif-
ferent Holocaust memory.
Here is my thesis: Montevideo’s memorial engages many of the textures
outlined by Young and in Latin American style recycles them into a sort of
postmodern mestizo, or culturally hybrid, memorial that adds its own sin-
gular history to the mix.6 The memorial to the Shoah insinuates a specifi-
cally Uruguayan tragedy, the military dictatorship of the 1970s and 1980s,
when Fascists schooled in Hitler’s philosophy established one of the most
pervasive systems of totalitarian control of any such regime in the world.
Through progressive repression, summary trials, long sentences, physi-
cal torture, and the disappearance of children and adults, the Holocaust
was replayed in a minor if no less horrible key in the far South.7 This brutal
regime was a departure from Uruguay’s generally representative twentieth-
century tradition, with decades of electoral politics, and the country’s
reputation as a prosperous and tolerant “Switzerland of the South.” The dic-
tatorship resulted from many factors, hard to simplify, but fundamentally
213
the breakdown of the state under the pressure of economic and social cleav-
ages. A rise in Marxist urban guerrilla movements gave the military the
justification to destroy political and human rights.8
The Memorial del Holocausto tells the story of the Holocaust when
Uruguay, like so many countries, had less than a laudatory response to
Jewish suffering in Europe, and then, it incorporates Holocaust memory
into a remembrance of Uruguay’s own tragedy and into a contemporary,
democratic, postdictatorship definition of nation.9
Small wonder, then, that in 1994, the year the memorial was erected
at the initiative of the national government, Uruguay’s conflicted remem-
brance swirled around the conundrum: How does a nation remember—or
forget—the atrocities that the nation itself perpetrated? How can it seek
justice if it gives amnesty to the guilty in the interest of social peace? And
how can it elaborate the traumas of the body politic if it lacks an appro-
priate symbolic language?10 As a means of addressing, and eliding, these
problems the recollection of World War II’s slaughtered Jews was corre-
lated with the not yet entirely approachable memory of Uruguayans tor-
tured and massacred by the generals. Only in 2002 would a memorial
directly devoted to the detained and disappeared in Uruguay be dedicated
on the Hill, El Cerro, Montevideo’s other great emblematic place, and then
only at the initiative of the left-controlled Montevideo municipality, not the
center-right national government (which “adhered” to its importance ex
post facto).
By their own testimony, the designers of the Memorial to the Detained-
Disappeared had the “imprint” of the Memorial del Holocausto indelibly in
mind, establishing a colloquy of public spaces, while pointing to the seg-
mented politics of remembering and reimagining the nation. Jews, nation,
and narration danced a convoluted dance of memory at a Holocaust memo-
rial, a memorial that architecturally rehearsed new possibilities for Uru
guayan democracy.
Montevideo: Men, Bronze, and Marble

To understand the steps in that dance’s choreography I needed to survey
Uruguay’s traditional memory places, first up on the Hill. Montevideo was
originally founded on a promontory beside a large bay that forms a perfect
natural harbor. I could get a sweeping view of the city from that promontory,
better known as El Cerro, a proud rise in a region of lowland pampas and
Montevideo’s chief symbol. But despite the elevation, there are no heights
214
Edna Aizenberg
of Machu Picchu here, no ruins of Chichén Itzá, the grand telluric stones of
pre-Columbian antiquity hanging in Peru’s towering Andes or sprouting on
Mexico’s mighty Mesoamerican peninsulas. These are the monuments we
usually associate with Latin America, primeval remains that elicit wonder,
visitation, and song—witness Pablo Neruda’s sonorous “Heights of Machu
Picchu” or Octavio Paz’s meditative “Hymn among the Ruins.”
Yet if hoary archaeological sites didn’t make up Montevideo’s existing
public memory maps, I found no lack of stones that celebrated the saga of
the nation, the other major component of Latin America’s official memory.
Crowned by massive statues of próceres, illustrious founding fathers astride
gargantuan horses, these stones charted a citywide itinerary of men, bronze,
and marble, as one historian of Montevideo aptly and wryly puts it.11 With
human rights activist Danny Kripper and his wife, Flora, as my guides, I saw
the huge bronze statue of the gaucho, the archetypal cowboy-centaur of the
pampas. I saw La carreta, the gigantic bronze ox-drawn wagon set on a base
of the red granite typical to Uruguay and betokening nineteenth-century
settlement, transportation, and progress. I saw the four-figured Los últimos
Charrúas (Last of the Charrúa Indians), another bronze and red granite
“homage,” this time to Uruguay’s now largely exterminated Native American
peoples. (I refer later to Hugo Achugar’s penetrating reading of this monu-
ment.) And to cap it all, I saw the equestrian extravaganza to General José
Gervasio Artigas (1764–1850), the founder of Uruguayan nationality.
I remembered how many years earlier I had read and taught the
wonderfully droll description of the statue, which stands in Montevideo’s
Independence Plaza, by the distinguished Uruguayan author Cristina
Peri Rossi:
It was an enormous horse, mounted by a national hero. It was cus-

tomary for visitors and many tourists to stop and contemplate both
horse and hero. The stateliness of the horse, his colossal size, the
perfection of his muscles, his stance, his crest, everything about that
magnificent beast gave cause for admiration. They were the work of
a professional sculptor who specialized in monuments commemo-
rating special anniversaries of historical events, and had been com-
missioned many times by the government for that reason. The horse
was enormous and seemed to be almost breathing. His magnificent
haunches always elicited praise. The guide would draw the public’s
attention to the tension in his muscles, the space behind his knees,
his neck and formidable jaws. The hero, meanwhile, was dwarfed.12
215
In Peri Rossi’s Botero-esque, magical realist re-creation, el prócer stirs back
to life, jumps down from his overwhelming steed, and begins to walk about,
taking stock of his troubled country. The time is the late sixties and early
seventies when Uruguay was descending into its dictatorial hell. Soldiers
armed to the teeth surround the horse, tanks and army vehicles patrol the
city—his beloved city—beggars crowd the sidewalks, and troops arrest
alleged opponents. Could this be his country, the old leader sadly muses,
the one he had fought so hard to shape? Did he have any descendents in
this cowed and crestfallen land? The story ends on a somber but still hope-
ful note, as a student assures the hero that all isn’t lost, that the resistance
to Fascism goes on.
Peri Rossi’s deflationary verbal legerdemain transformed this most offi-
cial of Uruguayan monuments, the awesome place where the mighty com-
manded the cityscape and manipulated history, into what art historian Sally
Morgan calls a guerrilla memorial. Her unsanctioned, seriously humorous
intervention—dropping the founding father from his pedestal, pumping
up the horse, which involves siding the hero with the hunted—deflates this
architectural control marker and defiantly delivers an alternative version of
heritage—a guerrilla version.13 In 1970 it could only be done on paper. For
such variant renditions to follow Peri Rossi’s Artigas, spring off the written
page, and take on the cityscape would take several more decades, and much
blood. The Memorial del Holocausto represented one of the first steps in
this architectural “taking on.”
Zorrilla de San Martín’s Atelier

I had another stop with Danny and Flora on my itinerary of marble and
bronze machos—the tucked away, largely forgotten workshop on Tabaré
Street where many of them were engendered. This was the studio of José
Zorrilla de San Martín (1891–1975), one of Uruguay’s most prolific official
sculptors, son of its putative national poet, Juan Zorrilla de San Martín.
The elder Zorrilla was the author of Uruguay’s national epic poem, Tabaré
(1888), about the “dead race” (read “the massacred”) Charrúa Indians, and
a known anti-Semite. When I stepped into the old barnlike taller from the
small tree-filled patio behind the Zorrilla family manse, I felt that, like Alice,
I had passed through the looking glass. I had entered a fantastically omi-
nous plaster-of-paris land whose denizens were the broken casts and dis-
carded molds of the monumental statues I had just seen on Montevideo’s
avenues. Fragmented and hidden from public view, they didn’t seem quite
216
Edna Aizenberg
so grand, amassed as they were in a chalk-white jumble of bodiless heroes,
beheaded warriors, armless deities, and shrunken gauchos.
There were many plaster versions of Artigas, including giant heads of
the hero and the model of Zorrilla’s final, never completed prócer, stand-
ing with his extended arm pointing to the words at the base of the statue:
“Mi autoridad emana de vosotros y cesa ante vuestra presencia soberana”
(My authority derives from you and ends before your sovereign presence).
The rough-hewn model dated from 1973, and some thirty years later, a book
about Zorrilla’s studio still has trouble talking openly about the horrors of
those days, euphemistically beating around the bush. It stammers, “The
unfinished statue surely reflects the sculptor’s troubled state of mind about
the exceptional situation that our country was experiencing at the time.”14
The finger of the unfinished Artigas who never saw the light of day
pointed to the end of constitutional legitimacy and to the absurd and exclu-
sionary outer limit of the men, bronze, and marble aesthetic. At the end
of the troubled twentieth century could you still stage the fatherland on
horseback without Peri-Rossi-style irony? The answer would seem to be
a resounding no, but that’s exactly what the dictatorship did. Uruguay’s
generals went on a mad building spree in the best tradition of Caligula-
like monumental Fascism. Bombastically declaring 1975, the 150th anniver-
sary of independence, as El Año de la Orientalidad, “the Year of All Things
Uruguayan” (the country’s official name is República Oriental del Uruguay
from its location on the eastern bank of the River Plate), the military co-opted
and reshaped public space. Silence and repression amplified the clang-clang
of new statuary and mausoleums noisily and monumentally going up on
often renamed plazas, streets, and other localities. The Army Plaza, Plaza
del Ejército, in honor of the country’s “defenders,” and an equestrian statue
of the nineteenth-century hero General Juan Antonio Lavalleja, second only
to Artigas in the national pantheon, were among the centerpieces.15
But the build-till-you-drop ethos didn’t end there. Old-fashioned eques-
trian colossi could still be sabotaged, transformed into guerrilla monu-
ments, but a mausoleum? Today, thanks to the military, you can descend
underground below the massive Artigas statue in Independence Plaza to
witness the dictatorship’s crowning architectural achievement. As your eyes
adjust to the huge subterranean granite penumbra, you confront the urn
containing General Artigas’s mortal remains, with two grenadiers stand-
ing on either side in stiff attention. A truncated pyramid hanging directly
above the mortuary vase bathes the hallowed remains in eternal incandes-
cent light—emergency generators assure continuous illumination in case
217
of power failures. Along the walls, huge concrete bas-relief inscriptions mark
major moments in the prócer’s life. The thought seized me: was this some
ancient Egyptian tomb, some pharaoh’s crypt whose sides were hieroglyphs
inscribed with the great deeds of the fallen leader? The analogy isn’t friv-
olous, since this was Artigas mummified, removed from the din of com-
peting interpretations, frozen into the armed forces’ rigidly authoritarian,
xenophobic Doctrine of National Security, which fed its military recruits on
pro-Fascist and anti-Semitic literature. In this sanctum there was no chance
of Artigas leaping into action or stretching his arm toward the rule of law.
Lest We Forget
With this immersion in Uruguay’s traditional, and dictatorial, memory
stones, I was ready to return to the Memorial to the Holocaust of the Jewish
People to try to find answers to my questions. My patient guides were archi-
tect Fernando Fabiano, one of its designers; Roberto Wajner, president of
the Memorial Commission, and his daughter, Raquel; and architect Marta
Kohen, who designed the Memorial to the Detained-Disappeared along
with her partner, Rubén Otero. I am deeply grateful to all of them.
Abstract, environmentally aware, integrated with the rocks, bushes,
lagoons, and green zones of the coastal landscape, unabashedly confront-
ing the river that flows out to the world, the Memorial del Holocausto del
Pueblo Judío unmistakably overturned the military’s aesthetic of sunken
mausoleums and anachronistic horsemen. It was a postdictatorship public
space, a sensitive memorial rather than a turgid monument that pointed
beyond Uruguay to Jerusalem, the Western Wall, the Hebrew language, and
the Jewish heritage. Revising the hoary iconography of Uruguay’s national
memory, it employed the traditional material par excellence, red granite, to
bespeak something else—freedom, democracy, and pluralism. The Memorial
del Holocausto marked the passage from destruction to redemption of the
Jewish people, and the Uruguayan people, asserting a civilian and constitu-
tional Uruguayan state. For the first time, Jewish experience and symbolic
language became part of the nation’s vocabulary for its civic landscape.
Here is how Roberto Wajner describes the process of the Holocaust
memorial’s coming into being:
The initiative for the building of our Memorial came entirely from
President Lacalle. It materialized through a series of decrees to form a
commission to carry out the project. The Memorial is a national work,
218
Edna Aizenberg
the congress and all of the political parties unanimously approved an
appropriation ($25,000) for the initial phase.
There was a public competition for the Memorial’s design and
about twenty projects were submitted by teams of architects and
artists; we selected the one that was eventually built. The jury that
selected the winner was made up of university administrators, rep-
resentatives of the Uruguayan Society of Architects, the Mayor’s
Office, and the participants themselves. Financing was obtained
through contributions from the public and donations from the gen-
eral and Jewish community. Naturally, Jewish contributors were
more motivated than others to give.
The Memorial’s building commission was mostly made up of
members of the Jewish community, but also included non-Jews. The
Ministry of Culture gave us an office . . . and we had complete coop-
eration from the authorities. . . . While the Memorial was being built,
the congress again unanimously voted to exempt the Memorial’s
commission from taxes and social welfare payments on materials
and labor.16
As Wajner explains, the memorial was the brainchild of Luis Alberto Lacalle,
Uruguay’s second democratically elected president after the brutal era
(he served from 1990 to 1995). A veteran politician from the center-right
herrerismo wing of the Partido Nacional or Blanco, one of the country’s two
traditional parties, Lacalle has always been close to the Jewish community
and a firm supporter of Jewish causes, from the fight for Soviet Jewry to
Israel’s right to exist. Lacalle attended the World Conference on Anti-
Semitism held in Brussels in 1992. And in 1994, the year of the memo-
rial’s inauguration and the year the terrorist bomb blew up the AMIA Jewish
center across the river in Argentina, he was the first Uruguayan chief of state
to take part in the March for Life, the symbol-filled pilgrimage between the
Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps. During the 2005 commemo-
rations of the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, he returned
to Montevideo especially to attend ceremonies at the memorial.
In defending Jewish rights, Lacalle was following a thread that has long
existed in Uruguay’s politics, most notably at the time of Israel’s founding.
Then, Enrique Rodríguez Fabregat, Uruguay’s representative on UNSCOP
(United Nations Special Committee on Palestine) lobbied energetically
together with Guatemala’s Jorge García Granados for the creation of a Jewish
state.17 In Uruguay itself, there was at the time a community of some forty
219
thousand Jews with Eastern and Central European and Sephardic immi-
grant roots. About fifteen to twenty thousand remain today after the political
and financial crises.
Having suffered persecution and jail under the dictatorship, Lacalle has
continually condemned genocide—the Holocaust, the Turkish massacre of
the Armenians, Stalin’s purges, “ethnic cleansing” in the Balkans; he has
unequivocally underlined his commitment to “para que no olvidemos” (lest
we forget) and “nunca más” (never again). The Memorial del Holocausto
del Pueblo Judío forms part of that commitment, but one may justifiably
ask—and I will—where is Uruguay on your list of lest-we-forgets? Or
to put it more bluntly en buen criollo, ¿Qué hay del Uruguay? What’s up
with Uruguay?
My question is a deliberate riff on the old self-congratulatory slogan,
“Como el Uruguay no hay,” which I’d like to translate as “There’s no high
like Uruguay.” The phrase once synthesized the buoyant belief in the small
republic’s exceptionality as the “Switzerland of South America,” but after
the dictatorship the jingle jangled. It had turned into a bitter commentary
on a country gone astray, but trying however fitfully to address its errors.
Lacalle’s advocacy for Uruguay as a “tierra de paz, de tolerancia, de
respecto y de libertad” (a land of tolerance, respect, and freedom), as he said
in his memorial dedication speech on November 10, 1994, mirrors a postdic-
tatorship stocktaking aimed at strengthening civil society and the democratic
process.18 During the early twentieth century, Teresa Porzecanski notes,
Uruguay welcomed immigrants of many ethnicities—Italians, Armenians,
Lebanese, and Jews—as the “motors of modernization.” But, in line with
the crisol de razas ideology prevailing in Uruguay and other Latin American
countries, it expected the greenhorns to jump unhesitatingly into the melt-
ing pot and lose their Old World quirks. Porzecanski labels this process “un
proceso cívico hiperintegrador,” the super-integration thought required to
create a modern state.19
After Uruguay’s fall from grace, so to speak, a new multicultural per-
spective emerged that allows citizens “greater freedom to be at once the
same and different in the eyes of others, and to exercise that freedom with-
out fear of stigma or discrimination” (“mayor libertad de aparecer al mismo
tiempo frente a otros, como un semejante y como un diferente, y de ejercer
esa diferencia sin las presiones del estigma o la exclusión”).20 Nation and
narration have changed, and with it the slot Jews occupy.
Instead of a single utopian tale of origin, a smooth and peaceful march for-
ward of the great and democratic Uruguayan people, the changed narration
220
Edna Aizenberg
includes multiple origins born of conquest, violence, slavery, dictatorship,
and genocide—most notably, the nineteenth-century extermination of the
Charrúa Indians. The annihilation of these indomitable native people has
become a kind of perverse piedra de toque, a foundational trauma that cannot
be washed away. Hugo Achugar’s powerful critique of the monument to the
last Charrúas, which I visited earlier in this essay, exemplifies the return of
the repressed at this particular juncture in Uruguay’s development. Skewing
Pierre Nora’s influential term, Achugar calls the monument a “realm of dis-
torted memory,” since it literally whitewashes the atrocities perpetrated in the
name of building a more “European” Uruguay.21
The fact that the massacre was carried out by the army at the order of a
general, Fructuoso Rivera, then Uruguay’s president, links past and pres-
ent, human rights violations then and now, acts of memory then and now,
Achugar writes. In Tomás de Mattos’s novel Bernabé, Bernabé!—a searing
historical re-creation of the killing campaign—the author explicitly relates
the Charrúas’ obliteration to the Nuremberg Trials and the recent Uruguayan
dictatorship.22 The novel opens exactly at the time of the Nuremberg Trials
in 1946, leaving no doubt about the parallelism.
To relate this changed narration, this new understanding of Uruguay
anness to my topic, I observe that today, Uruguay’s executive branch,
Parliament, and other private and public entities, in cooperation with the
shrinking Uruguayan-Jewish community, can erect then declare as a national
historic monument a memorial to a catastrophe until now considered very
little “Latin American.”23 A catastrophe that, despite repercussions in the
area, occurred far away from the River Plate to a numerically insignificant, if
symbolically potent, minority. Government-sponsored guided tours held on
El Día del Patrimonio, “Uruguayan Heritage Day,” now include the memo-
rial together with Montevideo’s most venerable museums, plazas, houses,
and parks.24 Uruguay has issued a stamp showing the memorial, and the
highest echelons of Uruguayan public life—government ministers, former
president Julio Sanguinetti (1985–1990), and members of the diplomatic
corps—attended its inauguration. Current president Tabaré Vázquez, then
Montevideo’s mayor, signed the decree ceding the land where the memo-
rial was built.
President Lacalle’s emotional address at the memorial’s opening under-
lined how starkly it brought the updated concept of Uruguayanness to the
seashore through the idiom of space and stone, how it appeared both alien
and allied, singular and same, to return to Porzecanski’s formulation. His
carefully calibrated grasp of architecture as a language that gives expression
221
to collective values was evident throughout, when he constantly shuttled
from the Jewish to the Uruguayan, from the Holocaust to all forms of intol-
erance, from openness to Jews to openness to all people.25
The sundered memorial, the chief executive said (and he emphasized
that it is a memorial) grew out of the great break of the Shoah (la Shoá) half
a century ago. Its voluminous walls, hewn out of the noble red granite so
typical of Uruguay, reference the Western Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem.
But the memorial also grew out of a greater concern—to sound a warning
against present-day intolerance and racism in many parts of the world. It
was a call to remember what happened and a reminder that such episodes
should not happen again.
Yet despite the split and hurt, if you look out from the rambla toward
the river, the two severed blocks suggest another symbolism: the Red Sea
parting, doors opening to a path of fulfillment and freedom—freedom for
the Jewish people after the terrible enslavement. And looking from the river
toward land, these gates symbolize still something else: a Uruguay welcom-
ing immigration from all corners of the globe, a land of peace, tolerance,
respect, and liberty. That is why this project has deep national roots and the
support of the entire Uruguayan collectivity, the president concluded.
He closed his speech dramatically with three references from the Jewish
canon. The reassuring verses of the “Shema Israel” (Hear, O Israel, the Lord
Your God is One). The warning, a kind of lest we forget, etched on the wall
in the Book of Daniel. And finally the miracle of the Hanukkah, when the
flames wavered, but when light, as always, triumphed over darkness.26
What President Lacalle did not mention was that such episodes had hap-
pened again, in none other than the tolerant land of Uruguay, and that the
entire Uruguayan collectivity was not united behind the cause of a memo-
rial remembering its own detained and disappeared.
That Wall Left Its Mark on Me Forever

One of the questions I posed at the beginning was how did the Memorial
del Holocausto del Pueblo Judío dialogue with better-known Holocaust
memorials and Jewish remembrance traditions? Put another way: what’s
the Jewishness that’s irrupting onto the new Uruguayanness? By bringing
the wall to Montevideo, architect Fernando Fabiano and his team activated
a formidable network of associations, an intertextual vision swirling with
multiple geographies. “I visited Jerusalem in 1980, and the impact of that
Wall remained with me forever,” Fabiano told me. “The memorial’s stone
222
Edna Aizenberg
wall is meant to evoke the Wailing Wall as well as the walls of the South
Boardwalk, integrating the two cultures.”27
The Western (Wailing) Wall, Ha-Kotel Ha-Maaravi, alludes to the absence
and presence of the Second Temple, Judaism’s holiest shrine and by extension
memorial to the destruction and redemption of the Jewish people. Because of
its iconic power it has been “reconstructed” in many places around the world.
One of the first, great monuments to the Holocaust, Nathan Rappaport’s
Memorial of the Heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto, erected on the Polish capital’s
Zamenhof Street in 1948, mimics the huge blocks of the ghetto’s segregat-
ing wall and the holy temple’s sacred stones. These doubly significant rocks
enclose the sculpted figures of the deported Jews and of the heroic ghetto
fighters against the Nazis. The Kotel’s fragmented rock imagery also pullu-
lates in the memorial wall to the assassinated Jews of Kazimierz, Poland, a
tragic patchwork basted out of the desecrated tombstones of the old Jewish
cemetery and cut in two by a jagged fissure. In a kind of recycling to the
second degree, Rappaport’s copy of the wall has been rebuilt in the home of
the original wall, Jerusalem. Israel officially opens Yom Hashoah, “Holocaust
Remembrance Day,” in front of this copy at Yad Vashem.
By bringing the meaning-filled wall to Montevideo, Fabiano and his
team connected their version to this compelling international itinerary of
Holocaust memory and to the objects of Jewish remembrance—the ancient,
sacred ruin at which we pray and leave kvitlach, little notes with petitions.
The holy fragment at which we pay homage to what was and might still
be. The jagged tombstones, markers of loss and connection, at which we
leave pebbles to note a visit. Paradoxically, Jewish history and the Jewish
emphasis on memory have provided a visual language more adequate to
Uruguay’s contemporary needs than the men-and-bronze heritage, giving
material substance to the saying from the Baal Shem Tov, etched on one of
the memorial’s tablets: “En el recordar está la redención” (Remembrance
brings redemption).
But even as the reproduction reactivates the original, it imbues it (and
transgresses) with other meanings, as Walter Benjamin, the eminent theo-
rizer of reproduction, reminds us.28 Warsaw’s Kotel isn’t Kazimierz’s or
Yad Vashem’s or Montevideo’s. “We all fill the wall with new content, our
own content, according to our knowledge, sensibility, and experience,”
Fabiano said, echoing Benjamin’s remark. In Uruguay, the new content
was the general antigenocidal “lest we forget” and “never again,” but I said
that I’d ask ¿Qué hay específicamente del Uruguay? What’s up specifically
with Uruguay?
223
Gerardo Caetano and José Rilla give an answer on the closing pages of
their history of the dictatorship: the end of the terror resulted in a much
more conservative and traditional panorama than had been expected. By
means of pacts, laws, and plebiscites (El Pacto del Club Naval, 1984; La Ley
de Caducidad, 1986; the referendum of 1989) the majority of the Uruguayans
opted for a general amnesty; the crimes of the barbarous years would be
pardoned in order to “turn over a new leaf.” The people’s decision shut
off public debate for many long years, including the presidential terms of
Lacalle and Sanguinetti. The subject only reappeared on the national agenda
in 2000 during the presidency of Jorge Batalle, with much opposition from
many sectors of society.29 Unsurprisingly, the Memorial to the Detained-
Disappeared was built in this more open period.
The Memorial del Holocausto can be seen as part of this “cautious”
approach to the great challenges of the postdictatorship era (I’m putting it
mildly). As Hugo Achugar caustically expressed it in a volume marking the
thirtieth anniversary of the coup: “La sociedad uruguaya o la modernidad
uruguaya es una modernidad en ralenti; es decir, ha tenido y tiene un ritmo
propio de ‘paso lento.’ Se cambia en ciclos de larga duración o se cambia
ma non troppo.”30 The memorial dealt with the challenges of the postdicta-
torship ma non troppo, its very design—an abstract blank wall—enshrining
the lingering obliqueness. The wall defied representational authoritarian
monumentality, but fostered indirection—the saying and unsaying of the
barbarous era. The wall’s abstractness in some ways also said and unsaid
the Shoah; as Fabiano himself suggested, it could be filled with new content
suited to Uruguay’s, not necessarily the Jewish people’s, experience.
The Good and Not So Good News

I’d like to circle to the beginning in order to sum up. First the good news.
Facing the river, surrounded by a sea of injured rocks, marked by the simple
elegance that the evocation of such a tragedy demanded, the Memorial del
Holocausto del Pueblo Judío forged new artistic and conceptual paths. A
decade later these dialogic paths facilitated the building of the Memorial
to the Detained-Disappeared, made of glass walls anchored in the bed-
rock, different yet related to its forebear.31 Jews participated on the second
memorial’s commission, and the Jewish community contributed monies
for its construction, in yet another dialogic gesture.32 The Memorial del
Holocausto likewise helped implant the contemporary concept of the memo-
rial in opposition to the traditional monument, substituting for congealed
224
Edna Aizenberg
triumphalism the austere but insistent call to active memory. It equally
helped “the Jewish” break out of its small communal spaces, inserting it
onto the nation’s most prominent public places and calendar of civic com-
memorations. Holocaust narration became bound to a new pluralistic and
democratic vision of the nation.33
As an innovative intervention, the memorial received international recog-
nition and was selected as one of the twenty best Latin American architectural
projects of the nineties by the Mies van der Rohe Foundation, but, as I said at
the outset, every dialogue born of memory is fraught with danger. And here
is the less good news. Voices in the Jewish community objected precisely to
the austere bareness so prized by the cognoscenti, the polyvalent stripped-
down abstraction, and demanded clearer figurative symbols more directly
tied to the Holocaust of the Jewish people. Hence the tablets with the inscrip-
tions, the train tracks, and the project to raise a giant menorah on the site,
none included in Fabiano’s original universalizing design. The dilemmas
of Holocaust appropriation so troubling in other latitudes weren’t entirely
absent in Uruguay. (Of course, when anti-Semitic fringe groups decided to
deface the memorial, most recently in June 2006, they had no problem with
Jewish specificity, abstractness or no abstractness.) Does the value of Jewish
“irruption” on the nation’s narrative diminish, then, if it means appealing to
the most horrendous massacre in Jewish history—a question I’d pose with
regard to other museums and memorials dedicated to the Shoah?
For all its lofty integrationist desires, the memorial’s emplacement also
raised problems, as I witnessed on my refreshing stroll along the rambla.
On the one hand the memorial forms part of Montevideo’s main public
pleasure boulevard, where people bike, jog, picnic, sip mate, frolic with their
dogs; on the other, it is a sober, even somber, place to commemorate geno-
cide. How do you mesh these two diametrically opposite purposes? Can you
mesh them? The architects tried to resolve the tension with their two-view
approach: smooth from the rambla out, jagged from the river in, but they
couldn’t completely overcome the aesthetic and ethical stresses. The pic-
nickers I met were obviously oblivious to the memorial’s chilling connota-
tions. Otherwise how could they be having fun there?
Partly based on these irreconcilable imperatives, the designers of the
Memorial to the Detained-Disappeared decided it to place it far away from
the boardwalk, in a specially carved out and elevated clearing surrounded by
a forest of trees, high up on the Cerro. You must climb up to this memorial,
this shrine to atrocity, separate yourself from the hubbub, and think about
what you’re seeing.34
225
When all is said and done, however, the Memorial del Holocausto del
Pueblo Judío marked a watershed moment in the rewriting of the nation:
bringing Jewish memory into the national memory, using Jewish iconog-
raphy, preparing the intellectual and artistic terrain for Uruguay’s arduous
march toward a memory site to its own history—most of all, mightily con-
tributing to a democratic recapturing of public space as a place where citi-
zens of all ethnicities can come together, find welcome, and dream. Dream
without fear that there will be more Holocaust or detained or disappeared.
226
Edna Aizenberg
Notes
1. See Raanan Rein, “New Approaches to Latin American Jewish Studies,” Jewish
History 18, no. 1 (2004): 1–5, and “Together yet Apart: Israel and Argentine
Jews,” Latin American Jewish Studies 24, nos. 1–2 (2004): 1–6.
2. On irruption see Alexander Wilde, “Irruptions of Memory: Expressive Politics
in Chile’s Transition to Democracy,” in Genocide, Violence, and Popular
Memory: The Politics of Remembering in the Twentieth Century, ed. David Lorey
and Willaim H. Beezley (Willmington, DE: SR Books, 2002), 3–29. On gen-
eral memory places, Elizabeth Jelin and Victoria Lanland, eds., Monumentos,
memoriales y marcas territoriales (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 2003).
3. Edna Aizenberg, Books and Bombs in Buenos Aires: Borges, Gerchunoff and
Argentine Jewish Writing (Hanover: University Press of New England, 2002),
2; see also Edna Aizenberg, “Hope and Contradiction Ten Years after the
AMIA Bombing,” Latin American Jewish Studies 24, nos. 1–2 (2004): 17–18,
“Las piedras de la memoria: Buenos Aires y los monumentos a las víctimas,”
Iberoamericana 1, no. 1 (2001): 121–32, and “Making Monuments in Argentina,
a Land Afraid of Its Past,” Chronicle of Higher Education, June 21, 2002,
B10–B11.
4. See James Young, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning
(New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1993); Homi K. Bahbha,
ed., Nation and Narration (London and New York: Routledge, 1990); and
Andreas Huyssen, Past Presents: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003).
5. Tom Hundley, “Giving Voice to the Lost,” www.chicagotribune.com, January 28,
2005, March 31, 2005, ad.doubleclick.net/adi/N339.tribuneinteractive.com
(emphasis added).
6. On the current understanding of cultural mestizaje, see Ricardo Feierstein,
Contraexilio y mestizaje (Buenos Aires: Milá, 1996).
7. See Servicio de paz y justicia. Uruguay. Nunca más. Human Rights Violations,
1972–1985, intro. Lawrence Weschler, trans. Elizabeth Hampsten
(Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1992). On Fascist-inspired
military schooling, see Gerardo Caetano and José Rilla, Breve historia de la
dictadura, 1973–1985, 2nd ed. (Montevideo: Banda Oriental, 1998).
8. See, on this era, Gerardo Caetano and José Rilla, Memoria para armar-uno:
Testimonios coordinados por el Taller de Género y Memoria ex-Presas Políticas
(Montevideo: Senda, 2001); and Aldo Marchesi, Vania Markarián, Alvaro
Rico, and Jaime Yaffe, eds., El presente de la dictadura (Montevideo: Ediciones
Trílice, 2003). The Uruguayan-Jewish author and former antigovernment
guerrilla leader Mauricio Rosencof chillingly relates of the Shoah and the dic-
tatorship in his fictional memoir Las cartas que no llegaron [Letters That Never
Arrived] (Montevideo: Alfaguara, 2000). Argentine-Jewish poet Juan Gelman
lost part of his family as disappeared in this maelstrom, in a case that made
news worldwide.
9. On Uruguay’s refugee policies in the war, see Daniela Bouret, Alvaro
Martínez, and David Telias, Entre la matzá y el mate: La inmigración judía
al Uruguay: Una historia en construcción (Montevideo: Banda Oriental,
1997); Clara Aldrighi, María Magdalena Camou, Miguel Feldman, and
227
Gabriel Abend, Antisemitismo en Uruguay: Raíces, discursos, imagenes, intro.
Teresa Porzecanski (Montevideo: Trílice, 2000); Haim Avni and Rosa Perla
Raicher, eds., Memorias del Uruguay: Holocausto y lucha por la fundación del
Estado de Israel (Jerusalem: Hebrew University–Institute for Contemporary
Judaism, 1986); Miguel Feldman, Tiempos difíciles: Inmigrantes judíos en
Uruguay, 1933–1945 (Montevideo: Universidad de la República, 2001); and
Teresa Porzecanski, ed., Historias de vida de inmigrantes judíos al Uruguay
(Montevideo: Comunidad Israelita del Uruguay, 1986).
10. On these issues see Teresa Basile, “Revisión de las narraciones de la nación
en la posdictadura uruguaya” (paper presented at the Latin American Studies
Association Conference, Dallas, 2003).
11. Juan Carlos Pedemonte, Montevideo: Hombres, bronce, mármol (Montevideo:
Barreiro y Ramos, 1971).
12. Cristina Peri Rossi, “The Hero” [El prócer] in Panic Signs, trans. Mercedes
Rowinsky-Geurts and Angelo A. Borrás (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier
University Press, 2002), 108.
13. Sally Morgan, “Guilt and Commemoration: Guerrilla Memorials and
Contested Memory” (unpublished paper).
14. Miguel Alvarez Montero, Juan Zorrilla de San Martín: Su obra y su taller
(Montevideo: Ediciones de la Plaza, 2001), 206.
15. See Isabela Cosse and Vania Markarián, 1975: Año de la orientalidad
(Montevideo: Trílice, 1996); Emilio Irigoyen, La patria en escena (Montevideo:
Trílice, 2000); Caetano and Rilla, 35, 169; and Estatuas y monumentos de
Montevideo (Montevideo: Intendencia Municipal de Montevideo, 1986).
16. Roberto Wajner, e-mail, October 28, 2002. I had further e-mail corre-
spondence from Wajner relevant to this article on November 11, 2002,
November 19, 2002, and March 10, 2005.
17. See Avni and Reicher, Memorias del Uruguay, and Granados’s memoir, Así
nació Israel (México: Novaro, 1986).
18. Luis Alberto Lacalle, Sí, soy el guardián de mi hermano (Montevideo: Tradinco,
1998), 32.
19. Teresa Porzecanski, “Indios, Africanos e inmigrantes europeos: La búsqueda
del orígen en los nuevos discursos del imaginario uruguayo,” in Como el
Uruguay no hay (Montevideo: Museo Municipal Juan Manuel Blanes, 2000),
98. On analogous processes in Argentina, see Edna Aizenberg, Parricide on
the Pampa? (Frankfurt: Vervuert; Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2002); on Brazil,
Jeffrey Lesser, Welcoming the Undesirables: Brazil and the Jewish Question
(Berkley: University of California Press, 1995); and on Latin America as
a whole, Judith Elkin, The Jews of Latin America (New York and London:
Holmes and Meier, 1998).
20. Porzecanski, “Indios,” 98.
21. Hugo Achugar, “Monuments, Commemoration and Exclusion: Politics of
Memory in the Construction of Uruguayan National Imaginary” (unpub-
lished paper, 2000). See also Pierre Nora, Realms of Memory, ed. Lawrence D.
Kritzman, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1996).
228
Edna Aizenberg
22. Tomás de Mattos, Bernabé, Bernabé! (Montevideo: Banda Oriental, 1988).
23. Montevideo has a bronze monument in homage to the Armenians mas-
sacred by the Turkish government in 1915, sculpted in the shape of a naked
woman raising her arms heavenward. It resulted from a private initiative
by Uruguay’s Armenian community and was inaugurated in 1975. Roberto
Wajner noted, “In difficult times for Uruguay it might have been easier to
get permission for certain things” (e-mail, November 19, 2002). Was this a
way for the dictatorship to shift attention away from its own (local) crimes?
24. See “No hay excusas,” El observador, September 12, 1998, 10.
25. On architecture as collective language, see Gustavo Remedi, “Los lenguajes de
la conciencia histórica: A propósito de una ciudad sin memoria,” in Memoria
colectiva y políticas de olvido: Argentina y Uruguay, 1970–1990, ed. Adriana J.
Bergero and Fernando Reati (Buenos Aires: Beatriz Viterbo, 1997), 345–69.
26. Memorial del Holocausto del Pueblo Judío: Febrero 1995 (Montevideo: Ministerio
de Educación y Cultura, 1995).
27. Fernando Fabiano, e-mail, November 20, 2002. Also essential for this essay
were the personal interview I had with Fabiano on August 6, 2002, as well
as his “Memoria explicativa del Memorial del Holocausto del Pueblo Judío”
(Montevideo, August 6, 2002), and the e-mail of August 10, 2004.
28. Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,”
in Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken,
1968), 217–51.
29. See Luis Alberto Lacalle, “Entrevista de Álvaro Barros-Lómez,” in Lacalle
(Montevideo: Monte Sexto, 1990); Claudio Paolillo, “¿Historia o presente?”
La democracia, April 24, 2003, webs.montevideo.com.uy/lademocracia/
paolillo.htm (accessed June 10, 2003); “Uruguay,” Freedom House: Freedom
in the World, July 9, 2002, www.freedomhouse.org . . . eworld/2002/coun-
tryratings/uruguay2.htm (accessed July 10, 2003); and “Uruguay, cerrando
heridas,” BBCMundo.com, June 7, 2000, www.bbc.co.uk/spanish/news/
news00076uruguay.shtml (accessed July 10, 2003).
30. Achugar, El presente de la dictadura, 212.
31. Hugo Alfaro, “Las cosas que veo, que veo, que veo,” Brecha, June 2, 1995, 2;
and Natali Scheck de Solari, “Un memorial por la paz,” El país, September 3,
2000, 8.
32. Daniel Kripper, e-mail, October 27, 2002. Rabbi Daniel Kripper served on
the Memorial to the Detained-Disappeared’s commission appointed by
Montevideo’s municipality. Kripper was active together with members of the
Catholic clergy, human rights organizations, and members of the victims’
families in calling for a full investigation of the dictatorship’s crimes. Rabbi
Kripper’s congregation, the Nueva Congregación Israelita (NCI), along with
other institutions, contributed funds for the memorial. This decision created
some controversy, as did the construction of the memorial itself (personal
interview with David Raij, president of the NCI, March 24, 2005).
33. See Marilla Russi Podestá, “Nuevos sueños urbanos,” El observador, June 5,
1997, 4.
229
34. On the memorial see Memorial de los Detenidos Desaparecidos, El futuro
es memoria / Disappeared Detained Citizens Memorial: The Future is Memory
(Montevideo: Comisión Memorial, 2000); Rubén Otero and Rubén and
Mario Sagradini, entrevista con Rosario Castellanos, “Memorial de los
Detenidos Desaparecidos: Fundamentos del proyecto premiado,” Radio
El Espectador Uruguay, February 22, 1999, www.Espectador.com/text/
clt02233.htm (accessed February 19, 2003); Marta Kohen, personal interview,
August 6, 2002; e-mail, October 31, 2002; and “Written in Stone: Memory
and Reconciliation Intersecting the Urban Biosphere,” Annals of the New York
Academy of Science 1023 (2004): 282–88.
230
Edna Aizenberg
chapter eleven
Singing for Social Change

Nostalgic Memory and the Struggle for Belonging
in a Buenos Aires Yiddish Chorus
natasha zaretsky
E Introduction
very Monday morning, for over ten years, Argentine citizens gathered
together in the Plaza Lavalle of Buenos Aires to face the high courts of
Argentina and demand justice for a bombing that killed eighty-five people
and wounded hundreds on July 18, 1994. On that day, a Monday, a car bomb
exploded in front of the AMIA (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina, or
the Argentine Jewish Mutual Aid Society) building in the center of Buenos
Aires. This attack destroyed the building that housed the AMIA and sev-
eral other Jewish community organizations and institutions, including a
library and community archives. In the aftermath, people came together
to mourn, to fight for justice, and to remember the victims. One of those
groups, Memoria Activa (Active Memory), began holding weekly protests in
front of the Palace of Justice, convoking the public to give their testimonies,
a form of reflection on the impunity of the bombing and its resonance in
their lives.
On Monday, August 25, 2003, over nine years had passed since the
bombing of the AMIA building. The winter morning was bright, and Reizl
Sztarker stood together with the rest of the supporters, members, and
onlookers of Memoria Activa. Reizl had been invited to give her testimony,
231
and as it was a cold day, she wore a long scarf that she wrapped several times
around her neck, trying to keep warm as she waited for the protest to begin.
As they did every week, a Memoria Activa member started by wishing every-
one good morning and then counting the number of weeks they had been
standing there. He then invited a man to stand in front of the crowd and
blow the shofar, a ram’s horn traditionally used in Jewish religious ceremo-
nies. The piercing sound rang out across the plaza, and a moment of silence
was observed in memory of the victims. Following this, Reizl was invited to
give her testimony at the microphone.
She approached the stand, an elderly woman of small stature who none-
theless had a powerful presence, and, as part of her testimony, spoke about
a Yiddish song, “Mein nisht,” which she described using words in Spanish,
translating for her primarily non-Yiddish-speaking audience:
Our great writer Yitskhok Leybush Peretz wrote a poem entitled,

“Do Not Think,” “Mein nisht”! “Do not think the world is a tavern
where you fill yourself eating and drinking while others look on with
weak eyes. . . . Do not think the world is a chaos—Everything is
measured, everything has weight. Do not think there is no law and
no justice.”
Reizl then went on to address her government:
Mister President, Ministers, Legislators, Judges: . . . Do not rest until

you identify and punish all of those responsible for the victims of the
Embassy [bombing], the AMIA [bombing], the 30,000 disappeared,
the hunger of our children and all of the problems plaguing our soci-
ety. Do not rest until your courageous and honest struggle allows us
to live in the nation of our dreams.
And this is how we will be able to tell our poet: you were right, in
Argentina there is law and there is justice.1
If one were to have been in the Plaza Lavalle that day and listened to
Reizl’s testimony, one may have wondered, what does a Yiddish song have
to do with justice in Argentina? That day at Memoria Activa, Reizl Sztarker
referred to the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in 1992, the bombing of the
AMIA in 1994, the thirty thousand Argentines “disappeared” and tortured
during the political repression of the Dirty War (1976–1983), and the pov-
erty that persists in Argentina—all complex events and social problems. Yet,
232
Natasha Zaretsky
for Reizl, the founding director of the Coro Judío Popular Mordje Guebirtig
(Mordechai Gebirtig Popular Jewish Chorus), and many chorus members,
Yiddish and their performance of Yiddish music intersects quite closely
with political activism, citizenship, and their sense of Jewish and Argentine
identity. Indeed, what Reizl Sztarker in her testimony and her work as a
choral director invites us to reflect upon is the possibility of Yiddish music
and nostalgic memory to become spaces for social change.
Experiences of violence and terror like the AMIA bombing fundamen-
tally challenge the “limits of representation” and threaten the fabric of order
and meaning that organizes human life.2 Yet, despite this challenge, memo-
ries of violence, along with other strategies, can become critical tools for
surviving such experiences, and rebuilding societies and selves.3 Indeed,
the responses of Jewish-Argentines to the AMIA bombing, often through
their use of memory, represent attempts to make sense of what happened
and to rebuild their community—a process that involved renegotiating their
relationship to the state, society, and each other.
The 1994 bombing of the AMIA building in Buenos Aires fundamentally
transformed Jewish life in Argentina. In addition to the death of eighty-five
people and the destruction of a central community building, the bomb-
ing generated a crisis of belonging that forced many Jewish-Argentines to
question their place in the Argentine nation and the possibility of safe Jewish
practice in Argentina. In the aftermath, two significant changes developed
in Jewish life: new Argentine social movements formed to fight for memory
and justice, including the group Memoria Activa,4 and heightened security
measures, such as cement barricades, were installed at the vast majority of
Jewish institutions in Buenos Aires. While the social movements and secu-
rity measures represent responses to the immediate concerns for justice
and safety, respectively, these changes in Jewish life also represent com-
mentaries on belonging and the struggle to rebuild the social sphere and
redefine the meaning of citizenship.
The Coro Guebirtig, like Memoria Activa, also formed after the bomb-
ing, in response to its violence and destruction. This article examines this
Yiddish chorus as a different cultural space from which to explore the way
a community responds to destruction. I argue that the Coro Guebirtig’s
practices reveal a different dimension to the complex struggles for citizen-
ship experienced by Jewish-Argentines and, further, expand the concept of
social change and demonstrate the transformation of traditional genres and
personal memories for new uses. Following the work of Sandra Deutsch,
I ask, what can such a focus on a nontraditional space of social change reveal
233
about the complexities of resistance in the Jewish community of Argentina
after the AMIA bombing?5 How does this “change the landscape” of how we
understand contemporary Jewish-Argentine life?6 Finally, how might the
Coro Guebirtig speak to the broader issue of the very possibility of plurality
in Argentina?7
Although the Coro Guebirtig cannot be understood to fight for justice
in the same way as social movements like Memoria Activa, in this article I
argue that this group can also be a vehicle for social change that plays a role
in rebuilding a plural, inclusive social sphere in Buenos Aires. Indeed, the
relationship of Jewish-Argentines to the Argentine state has long been com-
plicated, and the Coro Guebirtig’s practices represent part of this historical
struggle to define their place as Jews and Argentines in the nation and can
thus be interpreted within the framework of a more nuanced understand-
ing of how ethnicity functions in the aftermath of violence.
Jewish-Argentine Belonging
In many ways, Jews have long occupied a shifting position within Argentina’s
national imaginary. The first major wave of Jews migrated to Argentina
beginning in the late nineteenth century to flee the pogroms under way
in eastern Europe and czarist Russia. They arrived during what became
known as the alluvial era (1880–1930), when approximately four million
European immigrants settled in Argentina.8
Yet Jews were not the immigrants from Europe envisioned by Argentine
elites and intellectuals, who imagined immigration as the road to progress
and modernization for their new nation. The nineteenth-century climate of
positivism and scientific racism helped generate beliefs that white, and pref-
erably northern, Europeans would be vehicles of civilization for the native
nonelites.9 Indeed, Alberdi, an intellectual from the Generation of 1837, was
originally a strong proponent of mass European immigration as a solution to
Argentina’s problems and famously stated that “to govern is to populate”—
specifically, to populate with a white European civilizing force.10
Although the majority of these immigrants were not those originally
sought, the Argentine elite accepted the labor of these southern and eastern
Europeans, mostly Italians and Spaniards, and benefited from the economic
prosperity their work produced. That elite, however, was less prepared for
the rise of labor movements and radicalism in the early 1900s among this
new immigrant population, which then led to an increase in nationalism
and anti-Semitism in the early twentieth century.11
234
Natasha Zaretsky
Despite the initial anti-immigrant sentiment, the Italian and Spanish
immigrants eventually became incorporated into the national fabric of Argen
tina. The position of Jews, on the other hand, remained ambiguous through-
out their history. They did enjoy periods of growth in their social, cultural, and
religious institutions—including the Yiddish press, theater, Jewish schools,
and synagogues. But they also remained vulnerable to surges in anti-Semitism
throughout their history, stemming from other members of Argentine society
and from the state.
One of the earliest instances of anti-Jewish violence occurred in 1919,
in what came to be known as the Semana Trágica (Tragic Week) in Buenos
Aires, when what began as labor unrest ultimately led to series of violent acts
directed against Jews in the city.12 In the late 1950s and 1960s, Jews were also
vulnerable to attacks and anti-Semitic propaganda.13 The abduction of the
Nazi Adolf Eichmann further exacerbated these attacks and led to the 1962
kidnapping and torture of Graciela Sirota, a young Jewish student on her way
to the University of Buenos Aires.14
In addition to these violent acts, many state policies were unfavorable
toward Jews, if not overtly anti-Semitic. In the first half of the twentieth cen-
tury, official state policies toward Jewish immigration reflected ambivalence
at best, and indeed, many European Jews looking for a refuge after World
War II were forced to enter Argentina using false names and papers, unable
to enter legally as Jews.15 During the 1940s and 1950s, Catholic religious edu-
cation was provided in state schools, leading to incidents of Jewish students
being effectively excluded from one part of the public sphere.16
But perhaps the most extreme instances of anti-Semitism occurred
during the political repression of the Dirty War (1976–1983). Although the
military dictatorship did not target Jews as such, a disproportionately large
number were disappeared (some estimates put Jews as 10 percent of the dis-
appeared, much greater than their percentage of the population).17 Even if it
was not an official state policy, according to many sources, there was a clear
anti-Semitic dimension to the military dictatorship and the treatment and
repression of Jews.18
During this period, many argue that the DAIA (Delegación de Asociaciones
Israelitas Argentinas, or Delegation of Jewish Argentine Associations)—the
political umbrella organization of the Jewish community whose mission
includes defending the community from anti-Semitism—failed to effectively
advocate for Jewish victims of the political repression.19 In response, the group
Movimiento Judío por Derechos Humanos (Jewish Movement for Human
Rights) formed, under the leadership of the journalist Herman Schiller and
235
Rabbi Marshall Meyer.20 This moment is significant in that one sector of the
Jewish community branched outside of the formal institutional leadership
(the DAIA) in order to fight for their cause; this would come to pass again in
the aftermath of the AMIA bombing.
Thus, while in many ways Jews in Argentina thrived culturally, pro-
fessionally, and economically, anti-Semitism persisted throughout their
history, both in state policies and in incidents of anti-Jewish violence, espe-
cially during the Dirty War.21 The experience of Jewish-Argentines alter-
nated between acceptance and tolerance in a multicultural society on the
one hand, and discrimination, exclusion, and violence on the other—lend-
ing a persistent ambiguity to their place in society. Rather than a binary
notion of Jewish or Argentine identity, their experience would be better
described as a tension between their Jewish ethnicity and their relationship
to the Argentine state and non-Jewish-Argentine society, a tension they had
to negotiate in different ways throughout their history, but one that did fun-
damentally frame their experience.
The AMIA Bombing

The ambiguity that characterized Jewish life in Argentina throughout their
history continued to define the early 1990s, when Buenos Aires experienced
two anti-Jewish terrorist attacks. The 1994 bombing in particular became a
critical turning point for Jews in Argentina, as well as their place in public
consciousness and politics.22 On July 21, 1994, just three days after the
bombing, Argentine citizens of all backgrounds showed their solidarity in
a protest that became known as the Tarde de las Paraguas (Afternoon of
the Umbrellas) in the Plaza of the Two Congresses of Buenos Aires. While
many showed their support during this time, others distanced themselves
from Jews, refusing to play opposite Jewish soccer teams and no longer
desiring Jewish institutions as their neighbors.23 And even some displays
of support in themselves were complex.
For instance, during that protest in the Plaza of the Two Congresses, a
sign “Todos Somos Judíos” (We Are All Jews) may have been intended as
support and solidarity but could also be interpreted as suggesting that this
attack ultimately was a Jewish problem and was not perpetrated against all
Argentine citizens.
The state’s response to the bombing only exacerbated the sense of dis-
location experienced by Argentine Jews as citizens after the bombing. Most
Argentines perceived both the 1992 Israeli embassy bombing and the 1994
236
Natasha Zaretsky
AMIA bombing as part of the Middle East conflict, originating from abroad.24
Many Jewish-Argentines, however, felt their own state shared responsibil-
ity in investigating the attacks and held its officials accountable. Ultimately,
the failure of the state to adequately investigate the AMIA bombing and its
apparent complicity in obstructing justice contributed to an overwhelming
feeling of impunity associated with this bombing—lending a sense of inse-
curity to the place of Jews in society.25
After the attack, family members of the victims and their supporters
joined together to remember their loved ones and to fight against the impu-
nity surrounding the attack. The group Memoria Activa has been at the
forefront of efforts to hold the state accountable and protest the lack of
justice in this case.26 For over ten years (from 1994 to 2004), the members
met every Monday morning (the day and time of the bombing), in front of
the high courts, to protest and demand justice.27 They have been extremely
vocal in their criticism of the state and, later, of the Jewish community
leadership for its failure to denounce the state in its failed investigation of
the bombing.28
In 1999, with the support of CELS (Center for Legal and Social Studies)
and later, CEJIL (Center for Justice and International Law), Memoria Activa
brought a petition against the Argentine state before the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States in
Washington, D.C. Their case was temporarily put on hold pending the results
of a trial that began in Argentina starting in September 2001. However this
trial did not yield any significant new information and concluded in 2004,
with no convictions or further clarification of what occurred and who was
responsible. In March 2005, the Argentine state accepted responsibility
before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for its failure to
prevent the 1994 attack, its failure to adequately investigate the bombing,
and in effect, its denial of justice in this case.29
Yiddish and Politics in Buenos Aires

Memoria Activa’s principal objectives were political in nature, yet the group’s
weekly protests also came to serve an important social function. Protesting
in a highly symbolic public place on a weekly basis positioned them squarely
within other traditions of social protest in Argentina, most notably, the
Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who march every Thursday in the central
plaza of Argentina to protest the disappearance of their children during the
political repression of Argentina’s Dirty War. By engaging public space in
237
figure 9.
Memoria Activa protest in Plaza Lavalle.
© Photographed by Natasha Zaretsky.
the same way, Memoria Activa actively placed their cause within a broader
history of impunity in Argentina, inviting other Argentines to include the
AMIA bombing within the national imaginary (figure 9).30
In addition, the members of Memoria Activa also incorporated Jewish
traditions into their protests. Every morning, they would begin by blow-
ing the shofar to convoke the people to listen and remember the victims;
also, in the beginning of their movement, a rabbi (Rabbi Sergio Bergman)
actively and quite visibly participated in their protests. They thus incor-
porated Jewish religious practices and symbols into the public sphere of
Argentina, including other Argentines in their political struggles, and essen-
tially arguing that they be included as Jews and Argentines in the national
body. In this way, Memoria Activa positioned their own struggle with impu-
nity within a longer history in Argentina and also introduced one dimen-
sion of Jewish practice into the public sphere, accessible to everyone, in
effect inviting them to imagine the Jewish as Argentine as well, refusing a
simple binary.
238
Natasha Zaretsky
While political activism occupied a central dimension of the response of
Jewish-Argentines to the bombing, many also turned to the arts to respond
to the crisis of belonging and the destruction. Their work included fiction
and nonfiction, art and sculpture, theater, and the construction of memori-
als and monuments in honor of the victims (most notably, Yaacov Agam’s
monument in front of the newly reconstructed AMIA building and Mirta
Kupferminc’s monument in the Plaza Lavalle, where Memoria Activa gath-
ered for its protests).31
During the period following the attack, the Coro Guebirtig also began to
meet, as an attempt to respond to the loss and destruction of the bombing
with music.32 They officially formed in 1995, named for Mordechai Gebirtig,
a Polish-Jewish poet killed in the Kraków ghetto. What distinguishes this
chorus from many others in Buenos Aires is its affiliation with the ICUF
(Idisher Cultur Farband, or Federation of Yiddish Cultures)33—a progres-
sive Jewish institution that separated from the formal organized Jewish
community (the AMIA and the DAIA) in the early 1950s, or from the per-
spective of the rest of the community was expelled.34
Some, though not all, ICUF members were also members of the Com
munist Party, and many defended the actions of the Soviet Union during
the years of the infamous Doctors’ Trial and the murder of Soviet-Jewish
writers. The relationship of the ICUF to the Soviet Union became one of
the key points of tension between the ICUF and the rest of the Jewish com-
munity.35 Their separation from the rest of the community also stemmed
from significant ideological differences relating to the ICUF’s position on
the State of Israel, the Soviet Union, the Prague trials targeting Zionists,
and the role of Yiddish in Jewish life.36
The ICUF maintained a Jewish and progressive identity—integrating
progressive ideals with a secular, traditionalist, and nonreligious notion of
Jewish identity and culture. For them, being Jewish centered heavily on
Yiddish identity and culture, which became a central part of their ideol-
ogy and their secular Jewish education.37 When the majority of Jewish-
Argentine schools elected to teach Hebrew instead of Yiddish, following
the lead of the State of the Israel in their choice of national language, the
ICUF set itself apart by continuing to teach Yiddish.38
Yiddish was also an essential cornerstone of Jewish life in Argentina
more broadly. For many years, Yiddish language, literature, and the-
ater thrived in Buenos Aires. The majority of immigrants arriving from
Europe from the late 1800s through the early 1950s spoke Yiddish as their
main language. This period also saw the flourishing of the Yiddish press
239
and theater.39 Spanish, however, soon overtook Yiddish as the main spoken
language for the children of these immigrants.40 Yet, Argentine-Jewish
schools did teach Yiddish until Hebrew was adopted as the national lan-
guage of Israel, after which many schools stopped teaching Yiddish in favor
of Hebrew.41
As Yiddish declined in the daily life of much of the community, the ICUF
schools continued to teach it to their students—a choice certainly linked
to their ideological position on the place of Jews in society and the role of
Yiddish in their Jewish identity. Significantly, they believed Jews should
become integral members of their own states, rather than claim allegiance
to the State of Israel. This position against Hebrew coupled together with the
secular nature of their Jewish identity, which many of my informants defined
as “cultural” or “traditional,” created the context for Yiddish to become such
an important part of their identity as Jews.
By the late 1960s, the ICUF schools began to close, but during their
existence, they did play an important role in the transmission and preserva-
tion of Yiddish.42 In addition to Yiddish newspapers, theater, and the IWO
(Jewish Research Institute), the ICUF schools actively sustained Yiddish in
Argentina. Later, the Coro Guebirtig, many of whose founders were teach-
ers in those ICUF schools, continued that role.43
The Coro Guebirtig

Reizl Sztarker, the founding director of the Coro Guebirtig, lived in the
neighborhood “Once” in Buenos Aires for many years.44 Once, one of the
iconic Jewish neighborhoods in the city, was home to the first immigrants,
their stores, synagogues, and social institutions. Like many other immi-
grants in Argentina, Ashkenazi Jews (primarily those of Eastern European
and Russian descent) united to form a mutual aid society in order to assist
each other through the difficulties of adjusting to a new land and to help
each other maintain those customs important to them.45
The AMIA originated as a burial society formed by Ashkenazi Jews
in 1894 and later expanded to include other services and became a com-
munity center, dedicated to education, assistance with jobs, and culture,
among other activities. In 1945 the AMIA moved to its current location
at 633 Pasteur Street, in the heart of the Once neighborhood where Reizl
and many other Jews lived. The building came to house other important
Jewish organizations like the DAIA and the IWO, along with its library
and archives.
240
Natasha Zaretsky
Reizl lived just around the corner from the AMIA and watched the street
and the fabric of the everyday destroyed below her balcony. For a month, she
wasn’t able to walk by the ruins, until the one day when her husband told
her that she couldn’t go on like that anymore and took her by the hand to
lead her down the street where the bombing occurred.
“When we walked down the street, the fighting spirit rose up in me, and
I said to myself, ‘How can we respond to this? Why in the world don’t I have
a chorus in this moment to respond to this?’ To death, [we respond] with
life. To evil, [we respond] with song.”46
Reizl’s question resonated throughout Buenos Aires in the aftermath of
the attack. How can one respond to the senseless violence and destruction
of the bombing? To answer that question, we can look to the social move-
ments that are still fighting for memory and justice; the Jewish schools and
clubs that continued to operate despite fears of another attack; the security
measures installed and the barricades that have transformed so profoundly
the landscape of the city and Jewish life within it; and the many memorials
and commemorative ceremonies. They all represent attempts to grapple
with the violence of the bombing and find a way to move on. Reizl chose
to do so through a chorus because of her own history and training—for
over twenty years, she taught music at the Zhitlovsky School (part of the
ICUF), also directing a children’s chorus there as well as a chorus at the IFT
Theater in Buenos Aires.
Jaique Till—another founding member of the Coro Guebirtig and one
of its main coordinators—also spent many years as a teacher in the ICUF
schools, before they closed in the 1970s.47 In the ensuing years, the lererkes
(“teachers,” in Yiddish) from these schools continued to see each other
socially and later formed a group, the Grupo Encuentro (Encounter Group),
which would meet once a week for cultural and political activities.48 Even
before the bombing, several would gather to sing for the father of Pece
Corman (another woman who was also a founding member of the Coro
Guebirtig), and there they first brought up the idea of forming a chorus.49
Yet the AMIA bombing came to be the critical factor in the actual for-
mation of this chorus. As Jaique tells it, after the bombing there was a need
for Yiddishkeit, for returning to one’s roots. “It seems that all of us had
the need to feel more Jewish in some way, no? As a reaction to what hap-
pened.”50 In her view, this need for Jewishness after the bombing made it
an ideal time to form a Yiddish chorus; she admits that if they attempted
such a thing today, it probably wouldn’t be as successful as in the wake of
the bombing. Jaique then turned to Reizl with the idea of a chorus, and
241
Reizl, of course, strongly affected by the bombing, had already been think-
ing the same thing.
At first, about fifteen to twenty former ICUF lererkes met in Reizl’s
home to sing the Yiddish songs they all remembered. Although this started
as an exercise in their own personal nostalgia, as the group grew, they
decided to see if perhaps others would be interested in singing in Yiddish
as well. Reizl’s only condition, according to Jaique, was “If we want to make
a chorus, it has to be in the ICUF, because I am part of the ICUF.”51 And
so, in 1995, Jaique proposed they place an advertisement in Página/12, a
progressive daily newspaper in Argentina, which called to those who would
be interested in singing in Yiddish.52 About eighty people responded to the
Página/12 advertisement, and together with word of mouth, the chorus soon
grew to an average of 150 members. They moved from singing in Reizl’s
living room to larger venues, such as the IFT Theater and the Sarmiento
School.53 Eventually, every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evening, mem-
bers of the Coro Guebirtig convened to sing Yiddish songs together in a
small, nondescript building on Rocamora Street in Buenos Aires, home to
the ICUF, where they still met as of the present writing.
Eventually, the Coro Guebirtig grew to become a chorus of 150 mem-
bers, with the majority being elderly women. As of 2004, approximately
10 to 15 percent were men, and although most members were in their sev-
enties and eighties, about 20 percent were under the age of sixty-five, the
youngest member being forty-four. In terms of national origins, almost all
traced their roots to Eastern Europe, some to Poland, some to Russia. Yet
while some were born in Europe, and there were also Holocaust survivors
among the group, most were born in Argentina, but spoke or heard Yiddish
in their homes. Finally, while many were progressive in political orientation
or members of the ICUF, the chorus was a heterogeneous political space
and also included members of the community who identified as Zionist,
although many chose to express their Jewish identity in what they called a
secular or traditionalist, as opposed to a religious, way.54
Although originating as a Yiddish chorus, over the years, they have also
incorporated some Hebrew, Spanish, Ladino, and Russian songs. They
performed this repertoire throughout Buenos Aires—at commemorative
events, like the annual commemoration of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, at
AMIA functions, at geriatric centers, at synagogues, at Jewish schools, as
well as other spaces outside of the Jewish community, like Centenario Park
and the Obelisk, which occupies a central place in downtown Buenos Aires
(figure 10).
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Natasha Zaretsky
figure 10.
Coro performance at Obelisk, August 2003. © Photographed by Laura Ponte.
Four Women’s Stories

Many of my informants joined the chorus for personal reasons—and cer-
tainly not all of them intended this as a form of activism or social change.
But all did come in the wake of the bombing, in pursuit of a space where they
can collectively remember and express their Jewish identity through Yiddish.
Below, I will focus on four of the women in this chorus as a point of depar-
ture for exploring the chorus as a space for social change.55 Specifically,
their stories present an opportunity to reflect upon how these lives and
histories articulate with the larger issue of how a minority group negotiates
their belonging and identity in the aftermath of violence. As such, following
biographical details, I will emphasize the impact of the AMIA bombing on
their lives and their participation in the Coro Guebirtig.
clara
Clara Feinsod was an original founding member of the Coro Guebirtig and
worked for nineteen years as a Yiddish teacher in several ICUF schools—
in the Peretz School of Villa Lynch, in Sarmiento, and in Ringelblum of
Patricios Park.56
243
Clara was born in 1942 in Buenos Aires to parents who immigrated to
Argentina from Poland in the early 1930s. She grew up in Villa Lynch,
where her parents worked in the textile industry. Although Clara’s par-
ents were not religious, they always respected her grandmother’s religious
beliefs. Her parents sustained what she described as a cultural vision of
Jewish identity, as opposed to a religious one, and throughout our inter-
view, Clara defended the legitimacy of a Jewish identity not based in reli-
gious practice, resisting the notion that religion represented a primary way
of being Jewish.
Clara’s household identified as very progressive, and she remembers
her family collecting money for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War.
She remembers her family mourning the killing of the Rosenbergs in the
United States. She remembers sending financial assistance to a kibbutz
of progressive Jews in Israel. She also found there to be an important link
between these progressive activities and Yiddish—for she also remembers
the era of workers’ strikes in Villa Lynch and noted in our interview that the
first acts of the textile union were written in Yiddish because of the many
workers who were Polish and Russian Jews. Indeed, Yiddish came to be an
important part of Clara’s life and experience as a progressive Jew, and later,
she was able to transmit the importance of Yiddish to her children. She
sent them to shule (school) and made sure they learned Yiddish cultural and
literary history. However, they did not grow up speaking or understanding
Yiddish in the way that Clara did.
Clara continued to have a progressive orientation throughout her life—
working for many years in the ICUF schools as a lererke and later becom-
ing a founding member and organizer of the Coro Guebirtig. Yet the nature
of her politics did change. After Perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet
Union, she and many others learned the truth of what happened during
the Communist years, including the truth of the murders of the Soviet-
Jewish writers by Stalin, and she communicated the devastation she felt in
that moment.
When I asked her about the AMIA bombing, Clara began speaking about
Israel. She and her husband were on a trip to visit family there, and on the
plane ride home, Clara was inspired by what she saw of Palestinians and
Jews in schools together. Her plane arrived in Buenos Aires’ Ezeiza Airport
at 7:00 a.m. on July 18, 1994—three hours before the AMIA bombing.
“It was terrible for me. . . . I said, this cannot be possible when over there
[in Israel] there are Palestinians and Arabs and Israelis all together. Why?
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Natasha Zaretsky
Why? . . . I had no answer to the massacre that occurred there. And it was
then that the chorus was born.”
Clara was one of the first who formed this chorus—starting as a group
who simply came together to remember the songs they used to sing in the
shules or the songs of their parents. Later, as more people wanted to join,
they moved from Reizl’s home to larger spaces, eventually moving to the
ICUF itself.
By singing these songs now, Clara believes that they are “slowing down”
the disappearance of Yiddish as a language and that it is something that
“we still carry inside of us.” Most importantly, however, for her is the cul-
tural and ideological role she sees the chorus members playing within the
community, especially in the wake of the 1990s bombings:
The AMIA and the Israeli Embassy [bombings] saddened many

people, and we feel that our activity shows that we are strong, that
we know why we are singing and that song plays an important
positive role within and outside the community. Because there are
people who get to know . . . the community because we go out to the
streets to sing.
Furthermore, this plurality and openness (specifically, in regards to

political differences within the chorus) are characteristics that Clara believes
might serve as a model for others:
With this chorus that a very small group of teachers created, we offer
an example to the entire community, or to various communities,
because we found a way to unite, rather than divide. [We are able]
to see the positive of one side and the other. . . . I think the chorus
opened another history in the cultural life of the Jewish community
in Argentina.
Despite the strong institutional connection between the Coro Guebirtig

and the ICUF, many members joined simply because they wanted to sing
in Yiddish and felt the need to reaffirm their Jewish identity after the AMIA
bombing. Indeed, the Coro Guebirtig has become a space open to many dif-
ferent ideologies—many are progressive and affiliated with ICUF; others
are Zionists, religious, or more conservative in their politics. Yet, this space
is not always harmonious, and conflicts and differences did arise while
245
I was there based on leadership issues (something that can occur in any
group) and political differences.57
The ideological openness and plurality of the Coro Guebirtig also ex
tended to the songs in their repertoire (which include Hebrew songs and
Spanish songs), as well as their choice to celebrate important Jewish hol-
idays together, like Passover and Rosh Hashanah. In fact, most of their
performances took place at Jewish institutions unaffiliated with the ICUF,
in spaces where the ICUF previously may not have been welcome, due to
its complex history with the rest of the Jewish community (related to the
ICUF’s position toward Israel and their support of the Soviet Union).
Despite differences among the members, and occasional conflicts, the
chorus has been able to sustain itself as a 150-person group and find a way
to respect each other’s differences for over ten years. In this way, one might
consider the chorus and its contribution to the possibility of a more plural
and inclusive space for Jews in Argentina.58
diana
Diana Wang, a psychologist and author who lives in a northern suburb
of Buenos Aires, joined the Coro Guebirtig after the AMIA bombing.59
Diana was born in Poland, near Kraków, in August 1945. Her parents
both survived the Shoah (or Holocaust) and, following Diana’s birth,
immigrated to South America in 1947 with a Paraguayan visa. After a brief
detour in Uruguay, they settled in Buenos Aires to join what remained of
their family.
Although many of her parents’ friends were also Polish Jews, Diana did
not grow up in a “Jewish environment,” as she put it, or with a strong sense
of Jewish identity. Being Jewish remained a point of tension and ambiva-
lence within her family—largely due to her parents’ desire to protect their
children, in light of their experiences during the Shoah. Furthermore,
everything that had to do with her parents’ past—being Jewish, their expe-
riences in Europe, the Shoah—held no interest for Diana, and, in her
words, all of it remained “latent.”
The 1994 AMIA bombing became her turning point. On that day, she
told me that her mother telephoned her, desperate and weeping: “I’m
sorry. I’m so sorry for bringing you here. They have come for us again.
They won’t leave us alone. They want to kill us.”
Diana’s mother had brought her to Argentina to protect her from vio-
lence, to be in a place where they couldn’t be killed for being Jewish, and
because of the bombing, she felt that in Argentina, that was no longer true.
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Natasha Zaretsky
For her, the AMIA bombing resonated with her own history of anti-Jewish
violence, the Shoah.
After the bombing, Diana experienced a profound change in her sense
of being Jewish. She started regularly attending the Monday morning pro-
tests held by Memoria Activa. She tried to learn more about her own history,
and being a child of survivors of the Shoah became central to her identity.
She became interested in activities related to the Shoah, such as the March
of the Living, and later went on to write about survivors and lead a group
of child survivors of the Holocaust and children of survivors, now united
under the group Generations of the Shoah.60
Although Diana “became Jewish” in a different way after the bombing,
being Jewish did not involve religious practice for her (although it did for
some other Jewish-Argentines). Instead, she turned to her past, and her
father’s love of Yiddish songs, as a place to explore her identity. She began
to study Yiddish with a teacher, in order to be able to read a small book of
songs her father used to have, songs written by Mordechai Gebirtig. When
she learned that a Yiddish chorus had formed bearing the same name, she
felt compelled to see it for herself.
My first times there, I could barely sing. My eyes just filled up with
tears, the way they are filling up now. I couldn’t believe I was there
with this group of people, singing some of the songs that my dad
used to sing. . . . I wasn’t familiar with everything they sang—because
I didn’t go to a Jewish school. . . . But every time a song came up that
was one of my dad’s songs, I couldn’t sing. I knew it from memory. . . .
But I [ just] couldn’t believe that this existed outside of the world of
my family. I thought it was only in my house, and all of a sudden, I
had that feeling of belonging to a community that was so large. . . .
There is this feeling of an invisible grid upon which one is standing,
a place where one stands more comfortably [than when alone]—it’s
difficult to explain. I felt more comfortable.
What Diana felt upon joining the chorus—a tangible sense of belong-
ing—hinged on her nostalgia for the Yiddish songs her father used to sing
before he passed away. She was not alone—many who joined the chorus
felt the same way when hearing these songs for the first time. They felt
overwhelmed by hearing songs that they knew from childhood, and hear-
ing them sung not just in their own homes but in unison, together. For
Diana, then, joining the chorus became a part of a greater revitalization
247
in her own life of being Jewish, as well as a chance to return to memories
of her own childhood. Yet, can nostalgia involve more than just revisiting
one’s own past?
elena
Elena Pavlotzky, a dentist who lives in the Villa Crespo neighborhood of
Buenos Aires, another Jewish area of the city, is perhaps one of the young-
est members of the chorus, although she did not even know of its existence
until several years after the AMIA bombing.61
Elena was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1950 to a family who had
originally emigrated from Poland and Russia in the early 1930s. Although
she described her family as being Jewish, she said they were not religious,
only celebrating Passover and Rosh Hashanah at home. Her family did
speak Yiddish, but Spanish was the main language spoken in her home. The
Yiddish she learned was in the Zhitlovsky School of the ICUF in Uruguay,
an institution of which her parents were members. All of her Jewish friends
were from the Zhitlovsky School and the ICUF, and she did not have much
contact with the rest of the Jewish community in Uruguay.
Elena came to live in Buenos Aires in 1993. Yet, despite her progressive
orientation and her history of affiliation with the ICUF in Uruguay, she did
not participate or have much contact with the ICUF in Buenos Aires and
did not know anything about the chorus. One day, a friend called to invite
her to listen to a Yiddish chorus perform in Centenario Park in the city: “I
went to listen to them [sing] and I became so overwhelmed with emotion,
I cried that entire day . . . because they were singing songs I had learned in
the shule, songs my grandmother used to sing.”
When the Coro Guebirtig finished their performance, she asked where
they were from, and only then did she find out they belonged to the ICUF.
Elena joined the chorus in 1999, even though, according to her, she
has a “horrible voice” and can’t sing well at all. What moves her most
about being in the chorus is the Yiddish, the songs, and the powerful emo-
tional resonance they carry for her. Yet even when she sings to non-Jewish
friends, who do not understand a word of Yiddish, Elena still believes they
can feel the power and emotion of the songs—which transcend the lan-
guage barrier.
It seems to me that music isn’t something that travels through lan-

guage. You can listen to songs and sing songs you don’t understand
and you will feel the emotions just the same. I don’t know Russian
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Natasha Zaretsky
and yet the first times we sang songs in Russian, I couldn’t sing
because I would almost cry—these were songs that my grandmother
Pavlotzky used to sing. . . . I was twenty-three when my grandparents
died and my grandmother used to sing in Russian and for me, it
was so powerful to sing “Kalinka.” . . . I was overwhelmed, I couldn’t
sing, the first times in the rehearsals—it was too much.
Elena was already living in Buenos Aires on the day of the AMIA bomb-
ing, a moment whose destruction and utter violence profoundly affected
her. Yet, Elena’s story in the Coro Guebirtig, like many others, did not
hinge on the bombing as such. For her, the Coro Guebirtig is not so much
about social change in the aftermath of the bombing, or about revitalizing
Yiddish more broadly in the Jewish community—instead, being in the Coro
Guebirtig is more about her personal memories and finding a space where
she can remember and sing those songs her family used to sing, with others
feeling the same way (forming a new collectivity based on memory). And
throughout her interview, she emphasized the way the power of what they
do transcends language, in effect, suggesting the possibility of a space open-
ing between Jews and non-Jews during their performances.
celina
Celina Fuks, an actress and retired office worker who lives in the Once
neighborhood, joined the chorus as soon as she read the 1995 advertise-
ment in Página/12 summoning those who wanted to sing in Yiddish.62
She was born in 1929 in Buenos Aires, to parents who immigrated to
Argentina from the Ukraine in the early 1920s, on the heels of the Russian
Revolution. Her family did celebrate and respect the Jewish holidays, yet
they were not a religious family and did not go to temple. Her parents were
quite active in community life. Celina’s father worked for the ICUF, the IFT
Theater, and a community library. Both of her parents also fought against
Nazism and anti-Semitism during World War II and organized humanitar-
ian aid for the Jewish victims of that war. Celina herself remembers their
activism during the Spanish Civil War—even the children collected the foil
from cigarette wrappings and chocolates, told they were going to be sent to
Spain to make bullets.
In the 1950s, Celina also recalls the division of the community, as a
result of differing positions on Stalin’s murder of Jewish writers. Her father,
despite his active involvement, could not tolerate that such a division had
taken place and ended his community activities after that. Celina herself
249
was sent to a Jewish school and received a Jewish education but was never
affiliated with any institution, except for joining the Hebraica Club (a cul-
tural and educational Jewish institution) as a young adult.
Celina remembers the AMIA bombing very clearly—she was at the
Channel 13 television station in Buenos Aires, waiting to sign some paper-
work for a small role she would be playing in a soap opera. While she was
waiting, someone told her a bomb had exploded in a building in the city,
and when they told her it was the AMIA, she just broke down and started
to cry.
They [the others in the station] said to me, “What’s wrong? What,
did you have relatives there?” And I said, “You also had relatives, if
your relatives were passing by on that street, the same thing [would
have] happened to them, no?” So then I ran out of there, took a taxi,
and was desperate because my brother works in Once, my sister-in-
law works in Once . . . and I take a taxi, and . . . I get in and I was
crying. The driver says to me, “What’s wrong?” I said, “Nothing—
didn’t you see they put a bomb in the AMIA?” Then—the driver must
have been an Evangelist because he says to me, “Oh, madam. What a
shame. But,” he says, “as long as our brothers and sisters the Jews do
not ask for forgiveness, these things will [continue to] happen.” . . .
I was overcome by anger, and screamed, “I am getting out! I am get-
ting out!!!”63
Despite the clear impact the AMIA bombing had on her personally,
Celina did not cite it as a reason for joining the chorus. She told me she was
attracted by the Yiddish and, like many others, overtaken by the emotion
every time they would sing a song her father used to sing. Like so many
others, she wanted to sing in Yiddish and discovered a place of belong-
ing there.
The Coro as a Space for Social Change

From the stories above, we can see the intricacies of four women’s lives and
the different paths they took to join the Coro Guebirtig. They all shared a
love for Yiddish and the desire to sing it in a group—to engage their mem-
ories collectively. Some, like Clara, Elena, and Celina, had a progressive
upbringing and activism had always been integrated with Jewish culture
in their families’ lives. The bombing also figured quite importantly in the
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Natasha Zaretsky
decisions of Diana, Clara, and Reizl (the director) to join the chorus. Yet,
Elena and Celina, despite the impact of the bombing on their lives, did not
relate that experience to their decision to join the chorus.
The questions that I will pursue below, based on these narratives, hinge
on the possibilities of this Yiddish chorus, a nostalgic space by definition,
to also be a force for social change in the aftermath of violence. I have
chosen to highlight the following dimensions of that greater question:
(1) Can nostalgia itself be seen as a tool of resistance? (2) What can this chorus
tell us about divisions within the Jewish community, between progressive
and Zionist Jews and changes in the community after the bombing?64 and,
(3) What role does this chorus serve in expanding the public sphere and
opening Jewish practice to the rest of society (in marked contrast to the mes-
sage sent by the security barricades)?
Nostalgic Acts of Memory

On most rehearsal nights I observed during my fieldwork, the Coro
Guebirtig’s room in the ICUF was filled with older women, sitting elbow
to elbow on white plastic chairs. On the surface, they might appear to be a
group of elderly who need to find a way to spend their time, yearning to remi-
nisce and share their memories with each other. One might be hard-pressed
to discover the dimension of social change at work here. Indeed, nostalgia is
often cast as something other than a constructive form of memory, as a way
of escaping the present to return to a “safer” and more glorified past and
relinquishing the possibility for agency or change in the present.65
But in this case, although nostalgia did motivate the majority of the
members to originally join, many also did so as a way of responding to
the bombing. Furthermore, their continued presence in the chorus, and its
continued existence, at this writing, for over ten years, represents a form
of response and resistance to the bombing’s violence directed at Jewish
community life. In Diana’s case, singing in Yiddish (together with going
to Memoria Activa and her activities related to the Shoah) involved choos-
ing to be Jewish—transforming what is an identity imposed from with-
out to something she elected to express. Although the ability to choose
to “be Jewish” is certainly open to greater debate, deciding to engage in
Jewish practices publicly after two anti-Jewish bombings in Buenos Aires
represents a powerful form of response—whether it be through a Yiddish
chorus, attending a synagogue service, or continuing to attend a Jewish
school or play at a Jewish club.
251
In effect, the Coro Guebirtig has transformed singing Yiddish songs into
such everyday moments of resistance to that destruction. The members have
also discovered a renewed relevance for the words sung in the ghettos during
World War II, applying them to their current situations and dilemmas as
Jews in Argentina.66 The work of the Coro Guebirtig, along with many pro-
grams under way in the IWO, can be seen as elements of a revitalization,
albeit limited, of Yiddish in the Jewish-Argentine community.67
Instead of viewing the Coro Guebirtig as a passive exercise in nostal-
gia, I propose that it be considered more in the line of Leo Spitzer’s work
on Bolivia, where he describes the nostalgic memory of Austrian-Jewish
refugees as being a “creative tool of adjustment” and as something that can
be read as a resource for survival.68 And indeed, the Coro Guebirtig has
taken the members’ European-Jewish past and Yiddish language and trans-
formed it, creatively, to adapt to their current struggles, making it a force
for social change.69
Progressive Politics within the Jewish Community

Nostalgia did motivate many to join the chorus—yet Reizl, as the director,
did not allow this to be just a space for remembering pleasant songs, even
if those songs can also be interpreted as tools for change (see above). The
chorus does sing many songs that are joyful and light in tone, yet a great part
of their repertoire involves songs that address progressive social issues, such
as poverty, hunger, peace, and justice.70 According to Reizl, for the first four
or five years of the chorus, they always began their performances with a song
to remember the massacre of the AMIA bombing. However, as time went on,
and the political situation in the country changed, they went on to sing songs
relevant to the worsening economic and political situation of the country.71
The chorus also dedicated many of its performances to remembering
violence and loss in their past—they sang at the inauguration of the newly
rebuilt AMIA building in 1999; they also perform regularly at events for
Shoah survivors and in honor of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a commemo-
rative activity that also figures prominently in the Jewish secular practices of
ICUF members.72 Thus, in addition to the progressive orientation of some
of its members (like Reizl, Jaique, Clara, Celina, and Elena), as a chorus,
they were also dedicated to progressive values, issues of contemporary con-
cern, and activism in their choice of songs and performances.73
Yet, the very nature of what it means to be progressive changed over
the history of the chorus. Many of my informants used the term progresista
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Natasha Zaretsky
(progressive) to describe themselves, linking it to ideals such as fighting
against poverty and hunger, fighting for peace and justice, and for workers’
rights. However, they also use this term as a way of identifying themselves
in opposition to the category sionista (Zionist), which they use to refer to the
remainder of the Jewish community. The progressive/Zionist opposition of
course tells a greater story of one of the main reasons for the split between
the ICUF and the rest of the Jewish community in the 1950s—their position
toward the State of Israel and belief that Jews should be focused on integrat-
ing into the nations in which they reside, rather than orienting themselves
toward Israel.74 This tension between progressive and Zionist marked the
split between the ICUF and the rest of the Jewish community in the 1950s
and indicates the significant role Zionism plays in intracommunity rela-
tions for Jewish-Argentines.
Despite this complex history, the Coro Guebirtig performed at the fifti-
eth anniversary of the State of Israel and has incorporated Hebrew into its
repertoire—suggesting a change for many progressive members.75 In addi-
tion, the migration of some Coro Guebirtig members to Israel in response
to the economic decline of the 1990s has also transformed the role of Israel
in their own lives and imaginaries. Thus, the very nature of being progres-
sive for many Coro Guebirtig members has changed over time and should
not be viewed as a static category.
Their progressive ideals have also led them to engage in partnerships with
the rest of the Jewish community, such as the social welfare and donation
programs organized by the Joint Distribution Committee. The ICUF, like
many other Jewish institutions, formed part of this larger coalition, and the
Coro Guebirtig regularly requested food donations at their performances.76
Despite the progressive (and formerly nonreligious) orientation of its
founders and many members, they also performed at synagogues and
have come to celebrate Jewish holidays in the chorus, out of respect for
those members who are more religious. While this does not mean that
conflicts and political tension did not also exist, the chorus has sustained
itself despite these differences and found a way to tolerate and respect each
other—in effect, becoming one possible model for plurality.
As seen earlier, nostalgia can also be a force for social change—and
indeed, there is an important element of social change at work in the Coro
Guebirtig’s performances as they revitalize Yiddish and transform it to
adapt to new problems and concerns. Yet, another form of social change
can be seen at work within the community—through their inclusive mem-
bership (open to various political and religious leanings) and performances
253
at Zionist (as opposed to progressive) Jewish community institutions, the
chorus is also building bridges across old divides, between progressives
and Zionists, both institutionally and interpersonally, thereby renegotiating
Jewish belonging within the community itself.
Expanding the Public Sphere

The Coro Guebirtig’s performances for Jewish audiences are one dimen-
sion of their work. Yet they are also invited to perform at non-Jewish spaces,
like public schools, churches, and the Annual Music Festival at Centenario
Park.77 Many of my informants described singing Yiddish to those who do
not understand as perhaps being almost more valuable than singing it to
those who do. Although they may not understand the words, Reizl tried to
find a way to explain the meaning of each song and to include the audience.
The chorus also accomplished this by including several songs in Spanish
and performing traditional Argentine tangos with Yiddish lyrics, in effect,
making the Yiddish recognizable.
Opening Jewish practice to non-Jewish audiences and bringing Yiddish
to them may be one of the most important functions of the chorus. By
doing so, they began to create a dialogue with non-Jewish-Argentines as lis-
teners, and shifted the distance between each other. In the framework of
trauma and violence, the listener and the audience are critical for narrative
to emerge and as an act of recognition—all necessary for someone who has
lived through violence to begin reconstructing social ties.78 If we look at the
Coro Guebirtig in this way, we can consider what it means for a non-Jewish
audience to listen to and recognize this chorus, to listen to and recognize
Yiddish songs, or Jewishness, and even if for only that moment, to include
that recognition within their imaginary. Thus, like Memoria Activa blowing
the shofar on Monday mornings in front of the high courts of Argentina, the
Coro Guebirtig takes Jewish practice and opens it to others, introducing it to
society at large and renegotiating its place in the public sphere. More broadly,
their work suggests the multiple ways in which a minority group harnesses
what might be a tension between their Jewish and Argentine identities as a
creative tool in the aftermath of violence.
Conclusion
The Coro Guebirtig represents an attempt to respond to the destruction
and loss perpetuated by the 1994 bombing of the principal Jewish center
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Natasha Zaretsky
of Buenos Aires. Their performances and the community they’ve formed
invite us to consider them as both attempts to give meaning to violence and
as fundamentally social acts that rebuild the public sphere and reimagine it
as an open and plural space. Through their performances of Yiddish songs,
the Coro Guebirtig creates an ongoing commentary about the possibility of
a place for Jewish culture in Argentine society.
Like Memoria Activa, they respond to the crisis of belonging that arose
after the AMIA bombing. Yet not all responses from the Jewish community
indicated a desire to belong in the face of the failure of the nation and certain
sectors of society to accept and defend them. A counterpoint to Memoria
Activa and to the Coro Guebirtig can be found in the extensive security mea-
sures and cement barricades put into place after the bombing in front of
almost all Jewish institutions, with very few exceptions. These measures
present a powerful commentary on the failures of the Argentine state in
protecting them as citizens but also suggest that the Jewish community no
longer needs the state in the same way as before (a much different response
to the crisis of belonging than a demand for inclusion).79
In contrast, Memoria Activa and the Coro Guebirtig represent a model
of openness and plurality.80 Although I am arguing here that the Coro
Guebirtig can be viewed as a vehicle for social change, I do not mean that
they could, through singing in Yiddish, accomplish the goals of justice and
memory central to groups like Memoria Activa. Instead, I am suggesting
that their work serves to effect social change in a different way.
The openness of their performances to non-Jewish groups shifts, and
perhaps opens, the boundary between Jewish and non-Jewish-Argentine,
introducing Jewish culture to the rest of society and working to rebuild
a plural social sphere and the fabric of the Argentine “we” threatened by
the bombing. They thus respond to the crisis of belonging and represent a
model for plurality threatened by the attack.81
Furthermore, the chorus members play a role in transforming the ambi-
guity that has historically characterized the Jewish experience in Argentina
into a creative tool of adaptation—indeed, using their flexibility as citizens
with multiple cultural repertoires to respond to the violence of the bomb-
ing.82 Thus, looking at their ethnicity on a spectrum, rather than as a binary,
suggests that their agency in engaging these multiple repertoires of ethnic-
ity and experience serves an important role in rebuilding their community
and society in the aftermath of violence.
255
The song that Reizl chose to discuss that August 2003 morning at Memoria
Activa, “Mein nisht,” was being rehearsed at the time by the chorus.83 Unlike
some of the more light-hearted and almost delightfully nostalgic pieces available
in the songbook, this powerful song was set to an almost funereal, thundering
march—a difficult piece of music to perform. Indeed, some chorus members
during rehearsals complained about it and did not enjoy singing it in the same
way they did some other songs. But they valued its importance, and Reizl per-
sisted, asking them, “Who will sing this, if we don’t sing it?”84 The words of
Peretz, proclaiming that there is indeed law and justice in the world, continued
to bear significance for Reizl and other Jewish-Argentines, and Reizl argued, in
her testimony in Memoria Activa, that they also were relevant to non-Jewish-
Argentines in their struggle for justice.
Scholars of trauma find that narrative or narration is critical after violence,
because it is both an attempt to find meaning and give order to the experience
and a fundamentally social act, requiring dialogue with a listener that allows one
to begin reconstructing personal ties, the self, and the social sphere.85 Certainly,
social movements like Memoria Activa that formed to fight for memory and
justice represent such attempts to fight for justice and to imagine and rebuild
a more just and fair Argentine society that includes them fully as Jews and
Argentines. In a different way, the Coro Guebirtig can also be considered as an
attempt at coherence in the face of the senselessness of violence and loss, as an
attempt to find meaning, and to rebuild the social and renegotiate belonging and
the place of the Jewish in Argentine society.
Yet, despite their efforts, meaning and justice may not be attainable after all.
The true perpetrators of the bombings of the 1990s, of the tortures and disap-
pearances of the Dirty War, may never be fully brought to justice. The violence
will never make sense. And the power and reach of a Yiddish song or a Yiddish
chorus are, of course, limited.86 Yet, if justice and meaning are not accessible,
the other function of narration and the other strategies adopted after violence—
the rebuilding of the social sphere, in this case, as open and plural—may be one
of the greatest contributions offered by the work of the chorus, alongside the
work of other social movements formed after the bombings.
When the Coro Guebirtig sings in Yiddish to a non-Jewish audience, when
Reizl creates a conversation between Peretz and the Argentine government,87
perhaps for a moment, the boundary between self and other, between Jew and
Argentine, might collapse or shift. This shift might then allow there to be a point
of mutual identification—a moment of imagining a common “we”—that is criti-
cal to the quest for memory and justice that organizes groups like Memoria Activa
and to addressing the crisis of belonging generated by the AMIA bombing.
256
Natasha Zaretsky
Acknowledgments
This essay originated as a paper presented at the Latin American Jewish
Studies Association Twelfth International Research Conference, “Inherited
Memories: Latin American Jewish Experience across Generations,” Dart
mouth College, 2004. It is based on seventeen months of dissertation
research carried out in Buenos Aires in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004,
which would not have been possible without the generous support of a
Fulbright award and grants from the Princeton University Graduate
School, Program in Latin American Studies, Program in Judaic Studies,
and Council on Regional Studies. My thanks go to Annette Levine, Eugene
Raikhel, and Oliver Schietinger for their comments, although I, of course,
take full responsibility for any errors or omissions. I would also like to
thank the anonymous reviewers whose suggestions were extremely useful
for the development of the ideas in this essay. I am also grateful to Silvia
Schenkolewski-Kroll, Alejandro Dujovne, Sandra McGee Deutsch, and Ana
Weinstein for pointing me to several sources I found useful in preparing
this essay. Finally, I would like to thank Reizl Sztarker, Diana Wang, Jaique
Till, Clara Feinsod, Celina Fuks, Elena Pavlotzky, and Susana Grushka, and
all of the members of the Coro Guebirtig for their generosity in sharing
their lives with me.
Notes
1. Excerpt from Reizl Sztarker, testimony at Memoria Activa in Buenos Aires,
August 25, 2003, www.memoriaactiva.com/anteriores2003.htm. In her testi-
mony, Reizl Sztarker had translated the Yiddish into Spanish; the translation
from Spanish into English is mine.
2. For a discussion of the “limits of representation,” see Saul Friedlander, ed.
Probing the Limits of Representation: Nazism and the Final Solution (Cambridge,
MA, and London: Harvard University Press, 1992). For an exploration of
trauma and the challenge traumatic experience poses to representation, see
Cathy Caruth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History (Baltimore,
MD, and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996). For anthropological
accounts that address the same question, see Antonius C. G. M. Robben and
Carolyn Nordstrom, eds., Fieldwork under Fire: Contemporary Studies of Violence
and Survival (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).
3. See Elizabeth Jelin and Susana G. Kaufman, “Layers of Memories: Twenty
Years after in Argentina,” in The Politics of War Memory and Commemoration,
ed. T. G. Ashplant, Graham Dawson, and Michael Roper (London and New
York: Routledge, 2000), 89–110; Elizabeth Jelin, State Repression and the
Labors of Memory, trans. Judy Rein and Marcial Godoy-Anativia (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2003); Veena Das, Arthur Kleinman, Margaret
257
Lock, Mamphela Ramphele, and Pamela Reynolds, eds., Remaking a World:
Violence, Social Suffering, and Recovery (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2001).
4. The three primary groups of family members of the victims existing as of
this writing are Memoria Activa (Active Memory), Familiares y Amigos de
las Víctimas (Family Members and Friends of the Victims), and APEMIA
(Association for the Clarification of the Unpunished Massacre of the AMIA
Bombing). They include both family members of victims of the bombing
and their supporters but have important differences when it comes to their
relationship to Jewish community leaders and the state. For an overview of
these differences, see Beatriz Gurevich, “After the AMIA Bombing: A Critical
Analysis of Two Parallel Discourses,” in The Jewish Diaspora in Latin America
and the Caribbean: Fragments of Memory, ed. Kristin Ruggiero, 86–111 (Brighton
and Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press, 2005), 90–92.
5. Sandra McGee Deutsch, “Changing the Landscape: The Study of Argentine
Jewish Women and New Historical Vistas” Jewish History 18 (2004): 49–73.
6. Ibid., 50.
7. For further details about the way in which the study of Latin American Jews
might reveal broader issues of concern in Latin America, see Raanan Rein,
“Introduction: New Approaches to Latin American Jewish Studies,” Jewish
History 18 (2004): 1–5, esp. 4.
8. See page 129 in Nicolás Sánchez-Albornoz, “The Population of Latin
America, 1850–1930,” in The Cambridge History of Latin America. Volume IV,
c. 1870–1930, ed. Leslie Bethell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1986), 121–52.
9. For a review of this intellectual history, see Charles A. Hale, “Political and
Social Ideas in Latin America, 1870–1930,” in The Cambridge History of Latin
America. Volume IV, c. 1870–1930, ed. Leslie Bethell (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1986), 367–441.
10. See Nicolas Shumway, The Invention of Argentina (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1991), 146–47. For an overview of the development of immi-
gration policy on the part of elites, see Donald S. Castro, The Development and
Politics of Argentine Immigration Policy, 1852–1914: To Govern Is to Populate (San
Francisco: Mellen Research University Press, 1991), and also Tulio Halperin
Donghi, “¿Para qué la inmigración? Ideología y política inmigratoria y aceler-
ación del proceso modernizador: El caso argentino, 1810–1914,” Jahrbuch für
Geschichte von Staat, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Lateinamerikas 13 (1976): 437–89.
11. See David Rock, Politics in Argentina, 1890–1930: The Rise and Fall of
Radicalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975); Carl Solberg,
Immigration and Nationalism: Argentina and Chile, 1890–1914 (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1970).
12. For further information about the Semana Trágica, as well as the relationship
between nationalism in Argentina and anti-Semitism, see Sandra McGee
Deutsch, “The Argentine Right and the Jews, 1919–1933,” Journal of Latin
American Studies 18 (1986): 113–34. For an analysis of the Semana Trágica, see
also Rock, Politics in Argentina, 157–79, and Haim Avni, Argentina and the Jews:
258
Natasha Zaretsky
A History of Jewish Immigration, trans. Gila Brand (Tuscaloosa and London:
University of Alabama Press, 1991), 100–101.
13. Judith Laikin Elkin, The Jews of Latin America, rev. ed. (New York and London:
Holmes & Meier, 1998), 265–68, and Edna Aizenberg, Books and Bombs in
Buenos Aires: Borges, Gerchunoff, and Argentine-Jewish Writing (Hanover and
London: University Press of New England/Brandeis University Press, 2002),
252–57.
14. See Elkin, The Jews of Latin America, 254–55; Raanan Rein, “Argentine Jews
and the Accusation of ‘Dual Loyalty,’ 1960–1962,” in The Jewish Diaspora in
Latin America and the Caribbean: Fragments of Memory, ed. Kristin Ruggiero
(Brighton and Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press, 2005), 86–111.
15. See Avni, Argentina and the Jews.
16. Raanan Rein, “Nationalism, Education, and Identity: Argentine Jews and
Catholic Religious Instruction, 1943–1955,” in Memory, Oblivion, and Jewish
Culture in Latin America, ed. Marjorie Agosín (Austin: University of Texas
Press, 2005), 163–76.
17. Elkin, The Jews of Latin America, 258.
18. See Edy Kaufman and Beatriz Cymberknopf, “La dimensión judía en la
represión durante el gobierno militar en la Argentina (1976–1983),” in El
antisemitismo en la Argentina, ed. Leonardo Senkman, 2nd ed. (Buenos
Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1989), 235–73; Elkin, The Jews of
Latin America, 257–63; Jacobo Timerman, Prisoner without a Name, Cell
without a Number, trans. Toby Talbot (New York: Vintage Books, 1981);
CONADEP, Nunca más: Informe de la comisión nacional sobre la desaparición
de personas (1985; repr., Buenos Aires: Eudeba, 2003), 69–75; Marisa Braylan,
Daniel Feierstein, Miguel Galante, and Adrián Jmelnizky, Report on the
Situation of the Jewish Detainees-Disappeared during the Genocide Perpetrated in
Argentina (Buenos Aires: Social Research Center of DAIA, Argentine Jewish
Community Centers Association, 2000); Javier Simonovich, “Desaparecidos
y antisemitismo en la Argentina, 1976–1983. Las respuestas de la comunidad
judía,” in El antisemitismo en la Argentina, ed. Leonardo Senkman, 2nd ed.
(Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1989), 310–28, esp. 312, 317;
David Sheinin, “Deconstructing Anti-Semitism in Argentina,” in The Jewish
Diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean: Fragments of Memory, ed. Kristin
Ruggiero (Brighton and Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press, 2005), 72–85.
19. Ignacio Klich, “Política comunitaria durante las juntas militares argentinas:
La DAIA durante el proceso de reorganización nacional,” in El antisemitismo
en la Argentina, ed. Leonardo Senkman, 2nd ed. (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor
de América Latina, 1989), 274–309, esp. 300; Simonovich, “Desaparecidos y
antisemitismo en la Argentina,” 315; Sheinin, “Deconstructing Anti-Semitism
in Argentina.”
20. Simonovich, “Desaparecidos y antisemitismo en la Argentina,” 315–16.
21. Feierstein has described it as “two Argentinas,” one being pluralist and multi-
cultural, with the other as anti-Semitic. See Ricardo Feierstein, Historia de los
Judíos argentinos (1993; repr., Rosario and Buenos Aires: Ameghino Editora,
1999), 428. See also Ricardo Feierstein, La logia del umbral (Buenos Aires:
Galerna, 2001).
259
22. Beatriz Gurevich, “After the AMIA Bombing: A Critical Analysis of Two
Parallel Discourses,” in The Jewish Diaspora in Latin America and the
Caribbean: Fragments of Memory (Brighton and Portland, OR: Sussex
Academic Press, 2005), 90.
23. For a discussion of the contrasting responses in Argentine society to the
AMIA bombing, see Elkin, The Jews of Latin America, 265–68, and Aizenberg,
Books and Bombs in Buenos Aires, 7–13.
24. These attacks have been attributed to the group Hezbollah by many of the
organizations of family members of the victims and Jewish community lead-
ers. However, Hezbollah has not claimed responsibility for the 1994 bomb-
ing, as of this writing. See Gurevich, “After the AMIA Bombing.”
25. Ibid., 90.
26. For further discussion of the significance of Memoria Activa, see Aizenberg,
Books and Bombs in Buenos Aires, 11–13. See also Annette Prekker, “Memoria y
Justicia: Separate Places for Separate Spaces,” Modernity 2 (2000), www.eiu.
edu/~modernity/prekker.html.
27. The final weekly Monday protest of Memoria Activa took place on December 27,
2004, although the organization continues its work in other ways. A small
group of supporters also continued to convene every Monday morning in the
plaza facing the high courts, to stand in memory of the victims, and did so as of
this writing. This speaks to the significant social space Memoria Activa has cre-
ated through its protests, in addition to the political dimension to their work.
28. For a comprehensive overview of the politics and relationship between
Memoria Activa, the community leadership, and other groups of family mem-
bers of the victims, see Gurevich, “After the AMIA Bombing,” 90–92 and
102. Gurevich also argues that the failure of the DAIA in this case has led to
a “crisis of representation” (102) in the community, with the DAIA no longer
being the only voice or representative of the community before the state.
29. See Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Organization of
American States, “ACHR Expresses Satisfaction at the Argentine State’s
Acknowledgment of Liability in the AMIA Case,” Press release, no. 5/05
(2005), www.cidh.org/Comunicados/English/2005/5.05eng.htm.
30. This effort has also been pursued by other groups of family members
of the victims, such as APEMIA (Association for the Clarification of the
Unpunished Massacre of the AMIA Bombing), led by Laura Ginsberg, who
has fought for the AMIA bombing to become a part of the struggles against
terrorist impunity by the left-wing political groups and organizations with
which she is affiliated (interviews with Laura Ginsberg held by author in
Buenos Aires, July 2004, August 2006).
31. See Stephen A. Sadow, “Lamentations for the AMIA: Literary Responses to
Communal Trauma,” in Memory, Oblivion, and Jewish Culture in Latin America,
ed. Marjorie Agosín (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005), 149–62.
32. The material in this article about the Coro Guebirtig is based on seventeen
months of fieldwork I conducted in Buenos Aires from 2001 to 2004. During
that time, I joined the Coro Guebirtig for their weekly rehearsals; I observed
their performances; I participated in their holiday parties and other social
events; and I interviewed their members.
260
Natasha Zaretsky
33. In some publications, the ICUF is spelled IKUF. For instance, see Efraim
Zadoff, “The Status of Yiddish in Jewish Educational Systems in Argentina
and Mexico,” in Yiddish and the Left, ed. Gennady Estraikh and Mikhail
Krutikov (Oxford: Legenda, European Humanities Research Centre,
University of Oxford, Studies in Yiddish 3, 2001), 280–98.
34. See Efraim Zadoff, Historia de la educación judía en Buenos Aires (1935–1957)
(Buenos Aires: Editorial Milá, 1994), 405–16. Also see Zadoff, “The Status of
Yiddish in Jewish Educational Systems,” 286, and Feierstein, Historia de los
Judíos argentinos.
35. Interviews with Clara Feinsod, Jaique Till, and Susana Grushka. For more
information about Jewish women, the Communist Party, and the ICUF, see
McGee Deutsch, “Changing the Landscape,” 60–62.
36. See Zadoff, “The Status of Yiddish in Jewish Educational Systems,” 286,
and Zadoff, Historia de la educación judía en Buenos Aires. Also, Jaique (Clara
Frida Ochman de) Till, interview by author in Buenos Aires, July 30, 2003;
Clara Feinsod, interview by author in Buenos Aires, August 5, 2003; Susana
Grushka, interview by author in Buenos Aires, August 13, 2003; Reizl (Rosa
Kafenbaum de) Sztarker, interview by author in Buenos Aires, August 11,
2003. For an overview of the ICUF in Latin America, see Dina Lida Kinoshita,
“O ICUF como uma rede de intelectuais,” Revista Universum 15 (2000):
377–98. For further information on the relationship of the Communist
Party in Argentina to Moscow, see Silvia Schenkolewski-Kroll, “El Partido
Comunista en la Argentina ante Moscú: Deberes y realidades, 1930–1941,”
Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe (University of Tel Aviv)
2 (1999): 91–107.
37. Zadoff, Historia de la educación judía en Buenos Aires, 405–16.
38. See Zadoff, “The Status of Yiddish in Jewish Educational Systems.”
39. See Ana E. Weinstein and Eliahu Toker, La letra ídish en tierra argentina:
Biobibliografía de sus autores literarios (Buenos Aires: Editorial Milá, 2004).
40. See Zadoff, “The Status of Yiddish in Jewish Educational Systems.”
41. Ibid., 283–84.
42. Ibid., 288–89. For an analysis of one of the ICUF schools, the I. L. Peretz in
Lanus, see Nerina Visacovsky, “La educación judía en Argentina, una mul-
tiplicidad de significados en movimiento. Del I.L. Peretz de Lanús a Jabad
Lubavitch,” in Anuario de la sociedad argentina de historia en educación (Buenos
Aires: Prometeo, 2005), 129–70.
43. Indeed, it is interesting to note how the separation of the ICUF from the
community has been reflected in the literature as well, in that there is a lack
of sustained scholarship on the ICUF in the work on the Jewish-Argentine
community. While this may stem from a perception of its relative significance
in community life, its relative absence also supports the call to expand the
frames of what is considered to be Jewish experience. Notable exceptions to
this include Efraim Zadoff’s work on education noted above (Zadoff, “The
Status of Yiddish in Jewish Educational Systems,” and Zadoff, Historia de
la educación judía en Buenos Aires), and Silvia Schenkolewski-Kroll’s work
on Jewish Communists (Schenkolewski-Kroll, “El Partido Comunista en la
Argentina”). In addition, new scholarship emerging in Argentina includes the
261
work of Alejandro Dujovne on the ICUF organization of Córdoba, Argentina
(known as ACIC), see Alejandro Dujovne, “Hay que ganar la calle judía:
Diáspora y política en la izquierda judía Argentina” (MA thesis, Universidad
Nacional de Córdoba, 2006). See also Ariel Swarch, “Las camaradas de la
Kehilá” (paper presented at Programa Nuevas Voces para una Nueva Tribú,
10 Encuentro de Jóvenes Intelectuales, Buenos Aires, 2006), and Visacovsky,
“La educación judía en Argentina.”
44. Reizl’s full Spanish name is Rosa Kafenbaum de Sztarker. Reizl is her Yiddish
name and how she is known in the chorus.
45. The historian Samuel Baily suggests that in the case of Italian mutual aid
societies, for instance, these ethnic institutions were mediators between
immigrants and society. He concludes that they ultimately prevented the
absorption of immigrants into the host society, fostering cultural pluralism.
See Samuel L. Baily, “Las sociedades de ayuda mutua y el desarrollo de una
comunidad italiana en Buenos Aires, 1858–1918,” Desarrollo Económico 21
(1982): 485–514.
46. Interview with Reizl Sztarker, held by author in Buenos Aires, August 11,
2003. All interviews by author were conducted in Spanish. Translations to
English also by author.
47. Jaique’s full Spanish name is Clara Frida Ochman de Till. Jaique is her
Yiddish name and how she was known in the chorus.
48. I have left certain Yiddish words, like “lererke,” in their original because that
is how they have been used by my informants.
49. Interview with Jaique (Clara Frida Ochman de) Till, held by author in Buenos
Aires, July 30, 2003. Pece Corman, according to Jaique Till, left the Coro
Guebirtig in 1998 as a result of an internal conflict, taking about twenty mem-
bers with her.
50. Interview with Jaique Till, held by author in Buenos Aires, July 30, 2003.
51. Ibid. See below for further discussion of the relationship between the
ICUF and the Coro Guebirtig, as well as the progressive nature of the Coro
Guebirtig.
52. Although she stated it was because she had found a class on Jewish literature
through that newspaper, it is also an appropriate place to target progressive-
minded Jews. Also, the ICUF paid for this advertisement—300 pesos at the
time, which they didn’t have, according to Jaique Till, and so the link between
the Coro Guebirtig and the ICUF grew.
2003; interview with Jaique Till, held by author in Buenos Aires, July 30,
2003; interview with Clara Feinsod, held by author in Buenos Aires,
August 5, 2003.
54. Some of this information derives from an unpublished survey conducted by
members of the Coro Popular Judío Mordje Guebirtig in 2003 in the interests
of better understanding their own composition. A total of 120 members out
of the 150 responded. The remainder is based on fieldwork conducted by the
author with the Coro Guebirtig in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004.
55. As noted above, men do participate in this chorus (comprising 10 to 15 percent
of its membership) and were also subjects of my research. However, women
262
Natasha Zaretsky
figure prominently in this space, both as members and leaders, and in this
article, I have chosen to highlight their experience. For further analysis on
the role of women in the Coro Guebirtig and in Memoria Activa, see Natasha
Zaretsky, “Women in Between: Jewish/Argentine Social Change in the
Aftermath of Violence” (paper presented at the 36th Annual Association for
Jewish Studies Conference, Chicago, December 19–21, 2004).
56. This section is based on fieldwork and interviews with Clara Feinsod con-
ducted by author in 2003.
57. One example of this occurred during a rehearsal of the Coro Guebirtig on
August 12, 2002, on the anniversary of Stalin’s murder of Soviet-Jewish
writers.
58. As noted, Reizl Sztarker resigned from the chorus, and new directors took
her place in 2004. Although the new directors are not ICUF-istas, like Reizl,
the Coro Guebirtig continues to meet in the center of the ICUF in Buenos
Aires, as of this writing.
59. This section is based on fieldwork with the chorus and interviews with Diana
Wang conducted by the author in 2003 (Diana Wang, interviews by author in
Florida [suburb of Buenos Aires], June 6, 2003, and November 17, 2003).
60. Diana Wang, El silencio de los aparecidos: ¿Por qué a mi? Los sobrevivientes del
Holocausto y sus hijos (Buenos Aires: Acervo Cultural, 1998); Diana Wang, Los
niños escondidos. Del Holocausto a Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires: Marea Editorial,
2004).
61. This section is based on fieldwork with the chorus and an interview with
Elena Pavlotzky conducted by the author in 2003, and Elena Pavlotzky, inter-
view by author in Buenos Aires, August 9, 2003.
62. This section is based on fieldwork with the chorus and an interview with
Celina Fuks (Celina Fuks, interview by author in Buenos Aires, August 20,
2003).
63. Celina’s shock at her taxi driver’s comments resonates with other informants’
encounters with what they termed a more subtle form of anti-Semitism,
which they felt after the bombing. It can also be seen in comments that were
reported to have been made after the bombing, such as “‘not just Jews but
innocent people’ had been killed” (Elkin, The Jews of Latin America, 265).
64. The opposition between progressive and Zionist exists for those who self-
identify as progressives and often, those who were in the ICUF. For those
they consider to be Zionists, for instance, this may not even operate as a
central opposition or distinction in their lives.
65. For instance, see Raymond Williams, The Country and the City (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1974), as cited on page 91 of Leo Spitzer, “Back
through the Future: Nostalgic Memory and Critical Memory in a Refuge
from Nazism,” in Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the Present, ed. Mieke
Bal, Jonathan Crewe, and Leo Spitzer (Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College/
University Press of New England, 1999), 87–104.
66. Although clearly, many differences exist between their experiences and that
of Jews in ghettos, that is notably the metaphor and idiom in which my infor-
mants chose to understand their own experience.
263
67. Indeed, in September 2006, a series of activities devoted to Yiddish, “Buenos
Aires Yiddish,” were held in the National Library of Buenos Aires. Importantly,
Yiddish also plays a role in a different segment of Jewish life in Argentina,
among ultra-Orthodox Jews, whose numbers have increased with the rise of
the Chabad Lubavich movement in Buenos Aires in the last decade.
68. Spitzer, “Back through the Future,” 92; also Leo Spitzer, Hotel Bolivia: The
Culture of Memory in a Refuge from Nazism (New York: Hill and Wang, 1998).
69. In Bal’s review of Spitzer’s work, she writes, “Nostalgia can also be empow-
ering and productive if critically tempered and historically informed.” See
page xi of Mieke Bal, “Introduction,” in Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in
the Present, ed. Mieke Bal, Jonathan Crewe, and Leo Spitzer (Hanover, NH:
Dartmouth College/University Press of New England, 1999), vii–xvii.
70. To view the Coro Guebirtig within the larger context of Yiddish and its
relationship to progressive politics for ICUF members is also interesting.
See Kinoshita, “O ICUF como uma rede de intelectuais,” 389–90.
2003.
72. For an analysis of the significance of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising commemo-
ration for the ICUF organization (known as ACIC) in Córdoba, Argentina, see
Alejandro Dujovne’s presentation at the LAJSA meetings in June 2004.
73. These observations are based on eighteen months of fieldwork with
the chorus, conducted from 2001 to 2004, which consisted of intensive
participant-observation and in-depth life history interviews with chorus mem-
bers. Since my fieldwork, the chorus has undergone several changes, including
the resignation of Reizl Sztarker as its director in 2004 and what some infor-
mants have described as a greater professionalization of its musical perfor-
mances. Two new directors now lead the chorus, and while some members
have left, it continues to have over one hundred members and to operate from
the ICUF, although it is difficult to assess what direction the chorus will take
in terms of political awareness in the future.
74. See Kinoshita,“O ICUF como uma rede de intelectuais”; also Visacovsky,
“La educación judía en Argentina,” 141.
75. Interview with Jaique Till, held by author in Buenos Aires, July 30, 2003.
76. Fieldnotes of author, 2003.
77. They were not able to perform in Centenario Park for the first time in 2003
for a combination of reasons: striking park workers obliged them to change
locations to Rivadavia Park, and the DAIA recommended they not sing there
due to the anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi activities associated with that park
(fieldnotes with chorus, November 2003).
78. Caruth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History; Dori Laub,
“Bearing Witness, or the Vicissitudes of Listening,” in Testimony: Crises of
Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History, ed. Shoshana Felman
and Dori Laub (New York and London: Routledge, 1992), 57–74.
79. I should note that the Jewish community did not act entirely on its own in
installing these measures. They did rely on support from North American
Jewish philanthropic organizations and the State of Israel. Furthermore, the
Argentine state is also present in the form of police and gendarmes stationed
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Natasha Zaretsky
at the doors. For further analysis of the security measures installed in Jewish
institutions in Buenos Aires, see Natasha Zaretsky, “Miedo y seguridad en la
Buenos Aires Judía después de la AMIA,” in Miedos y memorias en las socie-
dades contemporáneas (Córdoba: Centro de Estudios Avanzados, Universidad
Nacional de Córdoba, Comunic-arte Editorial, 2006), 46–56; Natasha
Zaretsky, “Walls of Memory: Security and Violence in Jewish Buenos Aires”
(paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Ethnological Society,
Atlanta, April 22–25, 2004).
80. I should note that this openness to non-Jews does not mean that these groups
are not inflexible in other ways.
81. See also Aizenberg, Books and Bombs in Buenos Aires, 7.
82. “Flexibility” as a term for describing the way individuals adapt is borrowed
from Aihwa Ong’s work on flexible citizenship and transnationalism. See
Aihwa Ong, Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality
83. For a description of another instance when the Coro Guebirtig sang at
Memoria Activa, see Annette Prekker, “Yiddish Voices Soar above the
Rubble,” JUF News 30 (September 2000): 50–51.
84. From fieldnotes on a chorus rehearsal, July 2, 2003.
85. See Susan J. Brison, “Trauma Narratives and the Remaking of the Self,” in
Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the Present, ed. Mieke Bal, Jonathan Crewe,
and Leo Spitzer (Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College/University Press of New
England, 1999), 39–54; Cathy Caruth, “Introduction,” in Trauma: Explorations
in Memory, ed. Cathy Caruth (Baltimore, MD, and London: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1995), 3–12; Caruth, Unclaimed Experience; Laub, “Bearing
Witness, or the Vicissitudes of Listening”; Dori Laub, “An Event without a
Witness: Truth, Testimony, and Survival,” in Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in
Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History, ed. Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub
(New York and London: Routledge, 1992), 75–92; Dori Laub, “Truth and
Testimony: The Process and the Struggle,” in Trauma: Explorations in Memory,
ed. Cathy Caruth (Baltimore, MD, and London: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1995), 61–75.
86. For further information about the inability of the ICUF to foster continuity
across generations, see also Zadoff, Historia de la educación judía en Buenos
Aires, 415–16.
87. Reizl Sztarker retired from the chorus in 2004, after I completed the majority
of my fieldwork. As of this writing, the Coro Guebirtig continues to perform
and rehearse with two new directors.
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chapter twelve

!
judah m. cohen
I begin with three examples:

In 1977 several of Israel’s major recording artists banded together to
create an episode of the radio show Do-re-u’mi od (Do, Re, and Who Else?)
entitled “Eretz tropit yafa” (A Beautiful Tropical Land). Songwriter Ehud
Manor, arranger Matti Caspi, and singer Yehudit Ravitz filled the show with
songs translated into Hebrew from the Brazilian popular charts and folk
repertoire; Jorge Ben (Jor)’s 1966 hit “País tropical” was given the title track.
Issued as an album shortly afterward, Eretz tropit yafa sold over twenty
thousand copies and has been credited as one of the major forces behind
the emergence of a late 1970s “Brazilian music” craze in Israel.1 The song
“Eretz tropit yafa” itself, meanwhile, became a part of Israeli and Jewish cul-
ture: it has been played frequently on the radio, choreographed as an Israeli
folk dance, and taken out of context to refer to Israel itself. In the mid-
1990s, Pizmon, the Jewish a cappella group of Columbia University and
the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, successfully brought it
into their repertoire.2
In 1989 a group named Atraf formed in Israel, headed by Peruvian-
born musicians Victor Azuz and Ruben Salamon (stage name Rubens)
266
and Israeli-born guitarist Aharoni Ben-Ari. Originally intending to hone a
socially conscious commercial jazz style in the manner of Sting, the group
quickly shifted emphasis to a Latin (in Israeli terms, Latin/Brazilian) sound
when its first single, the Latin-tinged “Shula,” took off.3 Though one journal-
istic article on the group described its sound as a hybrid of numerous “influ-
ences” (standard fare for introducing new musical artists), it particularly
fingered Azuz and Rubens—both seasoned musicians—as contributors of
a “Latin/Brazilian taste,” probably by dint of their backgrounds.4 Over the
next decade, the group released three full albums of material plus a retro-
spective; their recorded repertoire, which included material in the “rock”
genre, hinged on the group’s Latin identity and covered everything from
Hebrew versions of “La bamba,” “Guantanamera,” and works by other Latin
American musicians, to a heavy-Latin reconsideration of Eric Clapton’s
“Cocaine,” to explorations of ethnicity and identity in songs such as “Latini
ivri latini” (Latino Hebrew Latino).5 Latin dance instructors in Israel, more-
over, began using Atraf’s music for classes alongside the likes of Tito Puente
and Oscar D’León.6 Around 2000, after more than a decade of activity, Atraf
went dormant.
In late fall 2001, after the attacks on New York’s World Trade Center,
a group called the Hip Hop Hoodíos formed in New York, taking as its
self-described mission the reassertion of Latino-Jewish identity into a hege-
monic American-Jewish culture. The Hoodíos comprised three Americans
who had claimed Latino backgrounds: Joshua Norek, a future law student
who had worked for a couple years with a multinational recording company
in Buenos Aires, claimed Colombian-Jewish descent and performed under
the stage name Josue Noriega; Abraham Velez, a Wesleyan University grad-
uate who had family roots in Puerto Rico; and drummer Federico Fong,
whose public status of “honorary Jew” came through his participation in
the group and his Jewish sister-in-law. Sporting machismo-heavy songs in
an Alterlatino style, and stereotype-subverting Jewish imagery, the group
became known for such selections as “Dicks and Noses” (“You like our
dicks and you like our noses / You see a Jewish guy and you forget where
your clothes is / Venga mami, take a little sip from my ladle / Take you
back to my room and you can play with my dreidel”), a radical recasting of
Flory Jagoda’s reconstructed Hanukkah song “Ocho kandelikas,”7 and an
alternate chronicle of Jewish-Latin American history entitled “1492” (“Well
here’s some words that’ll hit you with a thud / Millions of Latinos, they got
Jewish blood”). The Hoodíos’ independently marketed 2002 extended-play
recording Raza hoodía (the “Jewish Race,” roughly translated) sold over five
267
thousand copies. Their January 2005 album, Agua pa’ la gente, incorpo-
rated a Puerto Rican flag on the cover and included as guests members of
the Latin alternative music groups Jaguares and Orixa, as well as down-
town Jewish trumpeter and Klezmatics member Frank London. Norek,
meanwhile, completed his law school training, and when not performing
with the Hoodíos, served as a major voice and promoter in the American
Alterlatino scene.8
These three examples, which portray only part of a much larger if
scattered phenomenon, seem to turn on its head the concept of ethnicity
described in this book.9 While each artist credits parts of Latin America as a
basis for their ethnic sounds or representations, they all make their homes
in Israel and the United States (but then, so do many of the contributors to
this volume). The musical languages these artists use address contexts that
promote the image of Judeo- or Israelo-Latinidad in markets where such
perceptions indicate difference, and sometimes exoticism. In the United
States, moreover, the use of Latino rap to address broader issues of Jewish
identity invites a further level of dissonance and curiosity, novelty, and mar-
ketability (the Hoodíos, for instance, headlined New York City’s Salute to
Israel Parade in 2005). What’s more, these three examples also treat the
question of diaspora in a manner that reverses conventional ways of think-
ing about Latin American Jewry: placing Latin America at the center of a
diaspora, as an exporter of culture and ethnicity that rejuvenates forms of
Jewish expression rather than attenuates them.
I present these examples as a complement to the case studies outlined
in this volume, in the hope that they help broaden the discussion of Latin
American-Jewish ethnicity laid out by Lesser and Rein. Even as such musi-
cal activities take place outside Latin America, artists such as Fortuna are
exploring their own ideas of Jewish heritage within Argentina and Brazil
by trolling an iconic Sephardic repertoire, while Shimon Lavie and the
Coro Judío Popular Mordje Guebirtig (as Zaretsky points out) use Yiddish
and Eastern European ethnic markers as the basis for their sonic explora-
tions and declarations of Jewishness.10 Juxtaposed, all these performers
bring up several important points about the questions of ethnicity: First,
the concept of ethnicity is a slippery, slithery form of identification, which
people can treat as either fixed or constantly in flux depending upon the
situation. Second, a sense of Judeolatinidad not only exists outside of Latin
America, but also can be seen as dialoging with the forms of ethnicity pro-
duced in Latin America—even to the point of challenging and negotiating
geographically based senses of identity. And last, ethnicity itself can be a
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Judah M. Cohen
major factor in creating a sense of communal depth and heritage; while
memory is an important part of much writing on Latin America, it’s also
only one route toward achieving a sense of identity. Thus, it’s possible to
ask the question: Just what does it mean to hold or negotiate an ethnic iden-
tity in the vast and complex variety of contexts in which Latin America and
Judaism intersect? What can we see as ethnicity, what as nationality? What
as race, what as stereotype, and what as culture? Moreover, asking the ques-
tion of whether each of these case studies offers qualitative forms of Latin
American–Jewish ethnicity might perhaps be less important than asking
what is at stake in doing so.
Approaches to Jewish-Latin American Ethnicity

As Lesser and Rein state in their introduction, the structure of the “old”
ethnic studies takes its cue from deeply held notions of Latin Americanness
combined with Israel’s equally strong historical/social science paradigm
focusing almost obsessively around its own “ethnic” communities. Fre
quently, the differences between communities have, at their basis, a tempo-
ral quality: despite compound migrations, researchers and politicians alike
tend to group both Jews and “Latin Americans” according to some place
of origin: Morocco, Yemen, Bukhara, and so forth in the former case; and
Italy, Japan, and so on in the latter case. Both attempts at categorization,
moreover, appeared initially to be conducted with at least some eye to social
engineering. Israel funded scholarly work on its ethnic groups in large part
to figure out how best to make them useful components of a broader Israeli
society.11 Latin American discussions of ethnicity, meanwhile, can them-
selves be seen as descended from positivism; while the concept may well
have become a thing of the past, the academic terms in which proponents
couched its different formulations still appear freely in political and social
discourse. In contrast, American and European Jewish studies in the 1990s
and 2000s tend to skirt the term and concept of ethnicity in favor of “iden-
tity” and “culture” among Jewish populations. Key theoretical texts such as
Biale, Galchinsky, and Heschel’s 1997 edited collection Insider/Outsider only
give ethnicity a passing glance, and American-Jewish ethnographic works
from the late 1980s onward slowly move away from the concept, becoming
increasingly uncomfortable in the context of hegemonizing ethnic studies
agendas.12 Jews and ethnicity have come together somewhat more effec-
tively in recent studies of Eastern Europe, where organizational schemas of
communal populations continue to hold a significant status in government
269
and academic affairs. The tendency for recent studies of American and
European populations to seek alternate routes for exploring how Judaism
manifests itself, however, provides a powerful indication of “ethnicity’s”
own ethnocentric leanings.
The elephant in this book thus becomes the question, what makes eth-
nicity? I pose this question not only for broad, majesterial escapism, but
also for the sake of critique, of trying to gain a better insight into the motiva-
tions for using the “Jewish” card within Latin American society and culture.
Ethnicity itself, after all, changes in both concept and meaning depending
upon how scholars approach and contextualize it, as these essays show. For
the most part, the authors here rarely even imply the problematic means for
constructing even a baseline concept of “Judaism.” Rather, they generally
move straight to explorations of Judaism’s less centrally located discourses in
order to spur fruitful discussion: whether tied to a sense of Japaneseness, as
Lesser points out; equated with progressive ideologies, as Sitman describes;
or profiled in passing in nationalized musical styles, as Zivin discusses. In
all cases, the Jew is simply there, floating in the ether, ready for inclusion
(or, gemologically, as an inclusion) in the political, social, cultural, rhetori-
cal, or historical fabric of an argument—whether by forces present in each
scholar’s period and place of study, or by the academic demands placed on
them today.
Even the nomenclature associated with Jews in Latin America produces
multiple layers of linguistic and ethnic meaning. At several different points
in time, according to the scholarship, Jews received and created for them-
selves “code word” designations, funneling their identities through specific
national group labels: whether “Portuguese” in seventeenth-century Dutch
colonial lands, “Polacos” among pimps and prostitutes at the turn of the
twentieth century, “Rusos” in early twentieth-century civic and political life,
or “Turcos” to describe a subgroup of their own. Aside from raising the stan-
dard methodological problems of coordinating labels with ancestry, such
designations offer important chains of reference that speak as much to not
identifying Jews openly as to pinpointing them implicitly. For Moya, whose
exhaustive searches and compelling interpretations shed light on the activi-
ties of Jews within the anarchist movements of Buenos Aires, a deep nuanc-
ing of the “Ruso” label has the potential to open the door into understanding
who was and who was not Jewish in these groups—designations that help
gauge a Jewish “presence” in terms of immigration, socialization, and activ-
ism. But Moya starts, justifiably, with an assumption that Jews must exist
qua Jews in order for the investigation to bear fruit. Would the search have
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Judah M. Cohen
changed if, instead of trying to find and magnify Jews, Moya explored the
rhetorical approaches toward indicating Jews in these contexts? Or, to take
this argument to absurdity, but with a point: What does it matter that a
person whose last name ends in -sky, who comes from Russia, who lives in
the “Jewish” area of town, and whose parents identify as Jews may or may
not be “Jewish” himself? What if, after all this evidence, a document arises,
written in this person’s hand, disavowing any association with Judaism?
How might it be possible to interpret this denial/assertion of identity? And
what does this situation say about the thresholds for Jewish ethnicity?
Such moments, or their inverse (i.e., individuals without accepted “Jew
ish” characteristics asserting their Jewishness), have occurred with some
frequency in the landscape of Latin American and Caribbean Jewish his-
tory. Inquisitional records work on the principle of implication (whether
or not divisive or unfair), forcing modern researchers seeking to identify
Jews during this period to combine faithfully researched corroborating evi-
dence with a good dose of faith and mutual agreement. In my own work
on St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, I documented a longtime member of
the synagogue who entered into a spat with the congregation’s board over
taxes in the early 1860s; he ended the argument by declaring himself a
Unitarian—a designation the island government tacitly accepted over the
synagogue’s protests.13 Likewise worthy of inclusion is the modern emer-
gence of crypto-Jews/anusim throughout the Americas: many of whom, in
the absence of a documented family background, rely on their own senses
of identity and communality, scholarly recontextualization of their symbols,
and support of sympathetic religious leaders to access Jewish identification.
Combine the above instances with the low correlation between anti-Jewish
rhetoric and anti-Jewish attacks in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Latin
American history, and the divide between the physical Jew and the imag-
ined Jew becomes an important point of consideration. Where, then, does
the designation of Judaism end and the physical presence of the Jew begin?
The open-endedness of this issue makes it particularly rich: proposed sche-
mas can change depending upon the individual(s) examined, community
discourses, government politics, scholarly orientation, expected audience,
and many other factors (including, frankly, the time of day). Moya, Lesser,
Sitman, Guy, and others in this volume take pains to incorporate alternate or
competing viewpoints of Jewish ethnicity in their work, and they do so with
great sensitivity. Yet throughout, a temptation remains to fall back on precon-
ceived notions of what the Jew is or does, if only to promote a sense of unity
within the collected evidence; thus the physical Jew and the metaphysical Jew
271
remain neatly bound together. Moving beyond, and starting with the uneasy
postulate that it may be easier to discuss a Jew than to assume what defines
one, will continue to broaden the scope of Jewish studies within the Latin
American context.
Explorations of ethnicity also promote patterns of expectation among
those writing histories, leading to narratives that can be misleading, or
only partially understood. As Cytrynowicz astutely and often humorously
describes, for example, the seemingly lachrymose 1990s accounts of the
Jews in Brazil under Vargas during the darkest years of European-Jewish
history wither easily upon perusal of the documentary evidence. Instead,
a witty game of ethnic snakes and ladders emerges, with recognized
Jewishness and Zionism sliding along a political knife’s edge through
rhetorical and linguistic shifts—technically satisfying a succession of gov-
ernment nationalizing decrees. As an organizing factor for making such
adjustments, ethnicity gains status as a display of power, attained through
successful dialogue with the ruling forces and constant attempts to create
the framework for moving to a higher, more amenable ground. Especially
at a time when similar attempts at morphing Judaism from outside the
country often failed to unlock the country’s borders, such ethnic negotia-
tion inside Brazil communicated security rather than vulnerability, even
for refugees whose German/Austrian nationalities proved a disadvantage.
From the perspective of the 1990s, however, the same Jewish identifica-
tion empowered a different view: namely the narrative of a shameful anti-
Semitic Brazilian past. While these two uses of ethnicity could hardly be
more different, they nonetheless highlight a similar rhetorical strategy for
self-identified “insiders” to communicate with those who place themselves
outside the circle of Judaism, whether in the political, communal, or aca-
demic arenas. As the significant number of essays in Latin American stud-
ies covering the European Nazi period show, moreover, the ethnic contrasts
invoked during these eras have come to serve a paradigmatic role in illus-
trating more broadly the negotiations of the Jewish/non-Jewish line—both
back then and in our own studies today.
Yet Jews are not the only ones who have to negotiate such Judaized ethnic
borders. Israel Levis, the fictional Cuban Zarzuela composer who inhabits
Oscar Hijuelos’s novel A Simple Habana Melody, brings up still other issues
of nation and narration that bridge to Aizenberg’s contribution.14 A devout
Catholic with an exuberant, stout figure, Levis eventually flees Cuba’s
increasingly oppressive Machado government for occupied Paris, where he
becomes involved with a Jewish woman; while Levis eventually provides
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Judah M. Cohen
the woman with the means to escape the oncoming Nazi threat, however,
he is himself apprehended and imprisoned in Buchenwald because of his
“Jewish” name and circumcision. After the war, Levis returns to a retiring
existence in Havana, slowly fading out while merely implying his intern-
ment experiences through a changed character and a rising sense of world-
weariness.15 Hijuelos’s somewhat incongruous inclusion of Holocaust
memory in his novel—based, notably, on the real life experiences of Cuban
composer Moisés Simons—offers an intriguing site for exploring Jewish
ethnic identification, as well as an interesting thematic association with
Uruguay’s decision to inscribe Holocaust memory into its own landscape.16
Both Aizenberg and Hijuelos explore a sense of imposed Jewishness that in
the end serves as an escape valve for crises of conscience. For Uruguay and
Montevideo, as Aizenberg describes, this imposition appears to pave the way
for a more intense form of national public soul-searching, offering a subtext
for memorializing and facing the locally oppressive era to come. Hijuelos,
in contrast, leaves any overt Jewish identification for Levis in Europe; yet,
writing in 2002, he also returns Levis to Cuba with a psychological profile
strikingly similar to those of Holocaust survivors seared into perceptions of
postwar Jewish identity.17 Neither one of these cases actually needs physi-
cal beings to invoke Jewishness: rather, Jewishness here becomes almost
pure metaphor, yet one that deeply and (from the authors’/creators’ perspec-
tives) intentionally impacts the personal and national identity narratives
of others. In essence, Jewishness takes a role as a facilitating ethnicity, its
otherness employed as an instrument of contrast and surrogacy in address-
ing the dominant culture’s concerns.
Aizenberg’s account also offers a peek into the vast and mostly unex-
plored possibilities for exploring Jewish-Latin American ethnicity outside
the standard methodologies of verbal and written documents. Of all forms
of creative production, all of which hold deep implications for understand-
ing ideas of ethnic production, only literature (including poetry, fiction, and
autobiography) has really gained a foothold in the field thus far. Individual
scholars have made inroads into foodways, film, visual art, dance, and
music, though much of that work has received little attention, been sub-
sumed into larger and broader studies, been written by the artists or cre-
ators themselves as companion-style pieces to their own work, or been
excluded from central discussions through weak excuses about how such
analyses can only be done by “specialists.”18 (I ask the reader if I, a trained
musicologist, would be able to recuse myself from exploring history or
literature as easily.) Zivin and Zaretsky, thankfully, make inroads into the
273
musical aspects of Jewish-Latin American identity by asking what it means
for people to use sound to perform Jewishness—both as portrayed within
the soundscapes of non-Jews (Zivin) and within self-described Jews’ own
public musical productions (Zaretsky). Technically, neither essay actually
incorporates the music into its central analysis, making each example at
best illuminating but incomplete. Nonetheless, each plays at the discur-
sive borders of sound, laying a bold framework for exploring ethnicity
through media that have always accompanied the other activities men-
tioned throughout the book, but have all too frequently been hidden from
view. We must remember that history has a soundtrack; it has images;
it has gestures and foodways and crafts. And fortunately, Jewish-Latin
American life is one of those areas where mediation (i.e., media) can suc-
cessfully be made a part of the story—photography had been around since
the 1840s; moving pictures came into the region in the 1890s; and a record-
ing industry was beginning to flourish by the mid-1900s—if only those
who write on it will allow themselves the option.19 Admittedly, attempting
to do so requires scholars to develop techniques for contextualizing record-
ings, recipes, artwork, and other nonstandard materials into their purviews
and involves developing a few more tools for understanding and analyz-
ing those materials (perhaps, as is happening, through collaborations with
those who are skilled experts). Yet just as Lesser, in his contribution to this
volume, urges scholars not to isolate Judaism within the context of the
ethnic spectrum in Latin America, so would I urge scholars in this field not
to limit their studies to written documents and interviews—particularly
when the world in which the documents’ creators lived was, like today’s, a
multisensory one.
Lesser’s urgings to avoid too narrow a lens when exploring Jewish-Latin
American ethnicity also opens up an interesting perspective on gender
issues. On one hand, as Deutsch points out, the presence of women has
been sorely lacking in historical discussions of Judeolatinidad, with cover-
age limited largely to prostitution. A look at the ethnographic literature
on Jewish-Latin Americans, however, as well as the gender makeup of
scholars studying Jewish life in Latin America, offers a significantly differ-
ent picture—and Latin American studies more generally has become an
important area for those wishing to study gender, sexuality, or other subal-
tern studies. How, then, to bring an ever present yet neglected population
back into balance in Jewish-Latin American historical studies? Deutsch,
Guy, and Sitman (more obliquely) attempt different strategies correspond-
ing to now classic methods for bringing women into the narrative. Deutsch
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Judah M. Cohen
attempts to reclaim spaces for women’s roles in Jewish-Latin American soci-
ety as a counterbalance to the male discourses already established. Guy and
Sitman, meanwhile, incorporate the actions of women into their broader
discussions, pointing out to a greater or lesser extent the significance of
doing so. Deutsch’s approach has been employed throughout the academic
landscape to add new voices to the discourse, particularly when establish-
ing ethnic studies within the American university system: by consciously
asserting undescribed realms of female activity as a critique of the extant
literature, such works tend to aim to tip the scales the other way in order
to effect a sort of equilibrium. With this approach, however, also comes
the standard danger that the resultant claiming of male versus female
domains may become overly competitive and artificial. Guy’s and Sitman’s
approaches, which effectively rewrite the literature with less fanfare, pres-
ent a somewhat subtler method that focuses more on the subjects covered
than the role and place of women per se. Both provide valuable perspectives
in pointing to new areas of discussion and deepening the discussion that
already exists. At the same time, gender described in this fashion presents
a challenging dimension to the question of ethnicity: How does gender
effect identification within the context of the family, the community, and
the organization? What does it mean when men and women who claim to
be part of the same community produce different images of “Jewishness”?
And, as such scholars as Lynn Davidman, Shelly Tenenbaum, and Susan
Starr Sered in the Jewish realm, and Michelle Rosaldo, Louise Lamphere,
and Micaela di Leonardo in the broader realm, have pointed out, how can
we look at “Jewish” ethnicity when such ethnic identity is often constructed
based on gender?20 There is much to be done here.
Deutsch’s contribution also points out the significance of exploring
ethnicity as the borderland between two mutually identified groupings of
people. Zivin appears to see this approach as well, through the elegant con-
struction she calls “the scene of the transaction.” Setting aside the nega-
tive connotations she offers to accompany this idea, the rhetorical space
Zivin details also involves an important sense of exchange that requires
crossing from one grouping to another and the concomitant assumptions,
behaviors, and reactions that result. Here, whether in the imagination or
in what the imaginary perceives to be real, both sides must claim to know
the other in order to describe the other. Thus is ethnicity negotiated. While
Zivin focuses on fictional situations, actual exchanges could offer significant
opportunity as well, since they likewise require an intimate knowledge of
ethnic difference to effect.
275
Last, these essays illustrate the significantly divergent roles different
research methods offer in generating ideas about ethnic identity. Thus far,
as in other fields, the subfield of Jewish-Latin American studies faces the
challenge of bringing together several theoretical languages. Researchers
trained in historical methods most often rely on the collection and inter-
pretation of documents in order to ground and construct their arguments;
always attempting to put together pieces of a puzzle, historians frequently
view the very concept of ethnicity as a contemporary challenge posed to
recast and revise previous interpretations—or simply to provide new per-
spectives. Researchers trained in social science methods tend to specialize
in obtaining their data in the “present” (i.e., whenever the ethnographer
conducts research) through interactions with a chosen population. Focusing
on observed or self-reported behavior, social science scholars tend even to
see recollections of memory (through interviews and similar instruments)
as contingent cultural performances reflecting currently held values at least
as much as actual history; to anthropologists, sociologists, and folklorists,
moreover, questions of identity, culture, race, and ethnicity have served as
generative issues constantly reshaping the field and its discourses. Such pri-
oritization sometimes places history as a secondary concern within social
science and often leads to intimate discussions of the way people fit into
and generate their senses of self—including distilling and questioning the
very documentary bases used for historical research and narrative. Similar
questions face literary scholars, though mainly as focused around a limited
population of considerable local and international significance (i.e., writers).
As Aizenberg’s entry shows, however, such methods can move easily from
actual text to metaphorical text (such as a Holocaust memorial), thanks in
part to a flexible and theory-heavy supporting literature. Creative artists,
meanwhile, may use historical and ethnographic methods for conduct-
ing research but tend to frame their projects as vessels for deep reflection,
personal expression, and meaningful commentary. Particularly in Latin
American studies, these different methodologies hardly exist exclusively of
one another: Ruth Behar, to name but one example, has approached her topic
as anthropologist, poet, novelist, and documentary filmmaker. Nonetheless,
the founding of the field as a largely historical (and to some extent literary)
pursuit still creates tension, particularly along the lines of ethnic identity.
Methodological differences have created passionate controversies surround-
ing the research on crypto-Jewish communities, for instance, with histori-
ans and ethnographers accusing each other of misrepresentation based on
inadequate, uninformed, or irresponsible means of investigation.21 Such
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Judah M. Cohen
concerns come up in this collection as well, though mainly through exclu-
sion. Although ethnographic approaches have become increasingly well
represented in Jewish-Latin-American-centered dissertations, for example,
with the exception of Zaretsky’s essay there is little such engagement here.
Bringing the field to examine ethnicity within Jewish-Latin American stud-
ies thus requires more than just incorporating a different supporting litera-
ture and asking different questions: it also means actively acknowledging
other disciplinary approaches to the same topic and engaging with scholars
trained in those approaches—even if doing so may first seem to threaten or
water down the scholarship that already exists. Only through such (some-
times contentious) dialogue and trust can a truly fitting literature on Jewish-
Latin American ethnicity gain strong foundations, using all the tools that
could befit the richness of Judeolatinidad itself.
Ethnicity, then, appears to fall into two major themes in these essays:
First, as an imposed “groupness” (arbitrarily) applied by politicians, organi-
zations, and scholars to highlight certain behaviors, define borders between
one collective and the next, provide sensible limits to research topics, and fit
into disciplinary frameworks. Yet (and second), ethnicity comes also from
within, a self-defined commodity that not only shapes individuals’ identi-
ties, but also serves as a guide for navigating the situations and decisions
they face in their everyday lives. In both these themes, however, and follow-
ing from anthropologist Walter Zenner, ethnicity also is a point of meet-
ing or agreement between peoples as they struggle to maintain a sense of
equilibrium in the unstable, ever changing, dynamic world around them.22
At those meeting points ethnicity exists at its most pragmatic: operating
across the most feasible, useful, or significant channels of discourse at any
given time.
The Futures of Jewish-Latin American Ethnicity

This fine collection of essays, then, represents a good first step into explor-
ing the breadth and depth of Judeolatinidad in its many manifestations.
How can future studies continue expanding and challenging the theoretical
base forged here? I close with a few central questions.
Jewish discussions in Latin America appear to start with a central real-
ity—that a group of people exists that can reliably be called “Jewish.” What
would happen, however, if an author reversed the argument? What if a dis-
cussion started by determining the margins of Judaism, exploring the limi-
nal border regions where the non-Jew ends and the Jew begins? Such an
277
approach would hardly win adherents from scholars who see studies of
Jews as an affirmation of and contribution to Jewish survival and continuity.
Upon closer inspection, after all, the very idea of exploring Judaism inward
from its margins tends to highlight the vulnerability of such endeavors,
leading to profiles of ethnically slippery figures and communities that can
contradict nearly every supposedly concrete indicator of Jewish tradition
(see, for example, Ariel Segal Freilich’s dissertation on the “Mestizo Jews”
of Iquitos, Peru).23 What we see in most studies associated with Jewish-
Latin Americans, as here, are the “centers”; for can we truly call the mar-
gins Jewish studies? Yet a willingness to troll the borders of Judaism will
likely reveal the most interesting, and most telling, sites of negotiation for
Jewish ethnicity. Without constantly challenging the boundaries of what can
be called Jewish—and, in conjunction with Jewishness, what we call Latin
Americanness—scholarship neglects some of the most fundamental ques-
tions about Jewish identity. And complacency and ethnicity hardly make
compatible bedfellows.
The issue here is hardly simple. As much as researchers want to place
neat boundaries around the groups they study, they also must recognize
and discuss the messiness with which they make those borders. All too fre-
quently such struggles, while a crucial part of the research process, never
make it to print: instead, they become a kind of badge of familiarity, rarely
exposed to academic scrutiny. In matters of ethnicity, however, such deci-
sions can become central to the project at hand. Minority groups are con-
stantly aiming to redefine themselves as situations change; likewise the
forces in power are always in the process of redefining how these groups
should be defined and how they should function in relation to the cultures
around them. Academics and their work, whether published in English,
Spanish, or Portuguese, contribute to these dialogues. Being more forth-
right about how they define their subjects should bring scholars into fruit-
ful dialogue not just about what Jews did, but about how those Jews came to
exist in the public eye in the first place. Commendably, this volume begins
to allow such issues to come to the surface, but there is much more to do.
While these essays, and the field in general, provide a surfeit of infor-
mation on political leftist and secularist movements, they also highlight
a broader neglect in the literature of studies on Jewish-Latin American
religious life (Shari Seider’s study on Haredi Jews in Buenos Aires is one
notable exception).24 Such topic choices likely reflect the preferences of
researchers—and the trends of Latin American studies more broadly—
rather than a lack of material. Yet the paucity of religiously framed studies
278
Judah M. Cohen
leaves a gaping lacuna in a particularly crucial area of Jewish ethnic life
and discourse. How have institutions such as Marshall Meyer’s Seminario
Rabínico Latinoamericano recast the relationship between religion and eth-
nicity in Latin America (and the United States)? What does it mean for a
Liberal congregation in San Jose, Costa Rica, to sing American liturgical
composer Debbie Friedman’s prayer of healing—in English—at its Friday
night services?25 Admittedly, religious studies always face the possibility
of becoming overly insular in their agendas and advocacy, and studies of
particularly tightly knit religious organizations and communities bring up
their own potentially thorny ethical issues. Nonetheless, as studies in the
United States, Europe, and elsewhere amply show, the realm of religious
belief and practice plays an important role in Jewish life, culture, and ethnic
identity—even more so in a region that for years used religion as a factor for
ethnic division and regulation.
Also missing here are studies of smaller Jewish populations. Even as
Lesser and Rein encourage researchers to explore outside of the major, rec-
ognized Jewish centers of Latin America in the introduction, no scholar in
this collection takes up that mantle. Aside from the obvious consideration
that large communities tend to be the first to appear on the demographic
radar, there may also be a connection with the largely history-oriented
methodology (a tendency also found in Jewish studies) that has dominated
studies in this field. Historians, particularly of religious or ethnic subpopu-
lations, frequently focus their attention on sites with the largest numbers of
such groups as areas where the most evidence and diversity exist, perhaps
with the expectation that the most significant insights can be gained by de
facto focusing on those places that have the most people. Small commu-
nities frequently receive attention as little more than allegories of larger
populations, unless they have the privilege of serving as home commu-
nities to specific writers or scholars (such as Santiago, Chile, to Marjorie
Agosín). Thus, Argentina, Brazil, and to a lesser extent Mexico and Uruguay
(Argentina’s immunocompromised little sister, as Aizenberg notes) receive
the lion’s share of scholarly attention—which all too often leads researchers
to impose the “models” of Jewish identity or ethnicity they derive from such
work onto Latin America in general.26
From an ethnographic perspective, which frequently gauges a commu-
nity’s significance less on size than on theoretical interest, smaller groups
gain particular attention, especially with matters of ethnicity on the table.
Larger minority populations can band together, stabilize their identities to a
certain extent, and negotiate concepts of what “Jews” do with those outside
279
the Jewish circle. Without such a critical mass, where assertions of identity
become significantly more tenuous, the negotiations of ethnicity might be
especially lively and interesting. Such places can reveal a completely differ-
ent dynamic between Jew and other, one that might contradict the processes
described in a larger community or illuminate processes of identity asser-
tion that are less noticeable in more numerous populations.
Such has been the case in my own work in the U.S. Virgin Islands,
studying a Jewish community on the island of St. Thomas that likely did
not exceed six hundred souls until the 1960s. By the 1920s, when fewer
than fifty Jews lived on the island, a number of the Jewish girls, seeing few
other options, married non-Jewish men. Despite both public and limited
scholarly suggestions that such instances of “intermarriage” would hold
ominous signs for Jewish life on the island, just the opposite happened.
The men became active participants in the synagogue; the children of the
couples received upbringings as identifying Jews; and the congregation
maintained its numbers until a new raft of American Jews began settling
on the island in the 1950s. As of early 2006, moreover, the congregation’s
president was a fifth-generation St. Thomian, from a family that had served
as a pillar of the congregation for over 120 years—and she represented the
third generation of intermarried women in her family. It would be no exag-
geration, then, to view intermarriage as a possible strategy for ethnic sur-
vival on St. Thomas, offering a fresh interpretation of a paradigm viewed
negatively when examined on a larger scale. Smaller populations can thus
offer surprising and valuable insights into the meaning and variable nature
of ethnic labels, histories, identities, and ideologies.
My final concern brings up the issue of borders and movement, and
it occurs on two fronts. First, how can we explore Jewish-Latin American
ethnicity from a diasporic perspective, taking into account the tensions
inherent in stitching together identities cultivated in several sites and politi-
cal experiences over time? Most of the portrayals of “Jewish communities”
described in these essays actually focus on populations that had them-
selves recently moved, whether from Russia, the JCA colonies, or another
Latin American country, and after the events described, many of the Jews
discussed would move on to the United States, Israel, or other locations.
(Memoirs by Ilan Stavans and Ariel Dorfman, as well as several Jewish-
Latin American novels, have brought the issue of multilocale identity to
the forefront; yet the personal experiences and emotions described in these
works have not yet found their way into broader academic discussions of
Jewish-Latin American ethnicity.)27 Israelis, meanwhile, have viewed Latin
280
Judah M. Cohen
America as a site for their post–army service Wanderjahr (it has become
common to travel following mandatory military service) for decades. How
can the theoretical concerns associated with these forms of transit incorpo-
rate themselves into future studies of ethnicity in the region?
Second is the classic disciplinary problem: where are Caribbean stud-
ies in all this? Although the Caribbean often appears in the same rubric as
Latin America, scholars tend to see the region (especially the non-Spanish-
speaking islands) as a completely different polity. To an extent, these schol-
ars have a point. And yet . . . Latin America does not end at its physical
borders. Rather, the defined borders serve as moments of transition, and
at those borders some of the most interesting and compelling cases of
Judeolatinidad call out. How do we deal with the shifting Jewish population
that oscillated between recently liberated Venezuela and Dutch Curaçao in
the first half of the nineteenth century? What happened to the Jews from
St. Thomas who left to make their home in Panama between 1870 and 1910?
And how does the recently established Union of Jewish Congregations of
Latin America and the Caribbean affect the ethnic identity of Jews in each
location?28 Little sparks of connection come together occasionally, through
the inclusion of an essay on Martinique in Kristin Ruggiero’s edited volume
or Bernardini and Fiering’s considerable inclusion of the Caribbean in the
context of sixteenth- through eighteenth-century European expansion to the
Western hemisphere.29 But more needs to be done to continue these con-
versations and incorporate the Caribbean as more than a token within an
already complex and multivalent disciplinary rubric.
I introduce these issues as a challenge, both to the scholars included
here, and to those scholars approaching issues of ethnic Jewish identity in
Latin America in the future. This volume breathes life into a beautifully
complex, deeply nuanced area that thrives on its own complexity, variety,
inner contradictions, and ever changing frames of reference. Yet the essays
here only scratch the surface: vast areas still remain to explore in under-
standing, and mediating, the processes by which Judaism can appear in
Latin American life.
281
Notes
1. Ehud Manor, Matti Caspi, et al., Eretz tropit yafa—Shirim mi Brazil/pais
tropical—Songs from Brazil, compact disc (NMC 82756–2, 1992/1989/1978);
“Israeli Fills a Need for Songs of Spain,” New York Times, February 8, 1984,
C17. Notably, Caspi released a follow-up album in 1983 called Eretz tropit
mishaga’at (A Crazy Tropical Land), which included “Eretz tropit yafa” as the
final selection. “Brazilian music,” in this context, came to include any musical
sounds indexing Latin America.
2. Pizmon, Pizmon 3: Greensleeves, compact disc (1996).
3. Pamela Kidron, “Songs of Social Woes,” Jerusalem Post, July 21, 1989, 9.
Kidron’s article highlights what appears to be an early performance of the
group by citing the lyrics from songs about unemployment and exploited
Arab labor. “Atraf,” derived from a Hebrew word for insanity, claimed it
performed what it called “rock shafui” or “sane rock music.”
4. David Brinn, “Atraf: Not Too Fast,” Jerusalem Post Entertainment Magazine,
January 11, 1991, 3. Significantly, Rubens (according to his brother) had moved
to Israel in 1965, at around the age of twelve, www.salamon.net/salamon.htm
(accessed January 6, 2006).
5. Atraf 2: The First Album (NMC 1009–2, 1990); Conga (NMC 20032–2, 1992);
Latini ivri latini (Hed Artzi 15778, 1995); Atraf: The Collection (NMC 20273–2,
1997).
6. Penny Starr, “Dancing the Night Away: Salsa and Ballet. Latin Beat That
Tempts Israeli Feet,” Jerusalem Post, November 13, 1992, 3B.
7. “Ocho kandelikas,” Jagoda’s recent composition in a Sephardic song “style,”
had become nearly ubiquitous in American Hanukkah songbooks by the
early 2000s. For more on this song, see “La nona kanta” hosted by Sara
Ivry, December 10, 2007, www.nextbook.org/cultural/feature.html?id=747
(accessed January 1, 2008).
8. Hip Hop Hoodíos, Raza hoodía EP (2002); Hip Hop Hoodíos, Agua pa’ la
gente (Jazzheads Records, 2005); Hip Hop Hoodíos website: www.hoodios.
com; Bob Grossweiner and Jane Cohen, “Industry Profile: Josh Norek,”
Celebrity Access Industry Profiles, July 5, 2002, www.celebrityaccess.com/
news/profile.html?id=99 (accessed January 23, 2006).
9. Among many other examples, one can cite the impact Rabbis Marshall
Meyer, Marcelo Bronstein, and J. Rolando Matalon have had on New York
City’s Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, which a number of congregants have
attributed to the qualities of especially the latter two rabbis’ South American
backgrounds (see, for example, Ayala Fader, “The Language of Spirituality:
A Study of Religious Semiotics at B’nai Jeshurun Synagogue in NYC” [paper
presented at the annual conference of the Association for Jewish Studies,
Toronto, 2007]; Fader’s paper reflects conversations I have had with Mark
Kligman, Fader’s research collaborator on the B’nai Jeshurun project); or
Argentinean cantor and scholar Ramón Tasat’s efforts to promote Sephardic
music in the United States; or the work of Uruguay-born ethnomusicologist
Edwin Seroussi, Mizimrat Qedem: The Life and Music of R. Isaac Algazi from
Turkey (Jerusalem: Renanot, 1989). Josh Kun has also covered the issue of
Latin music in the Catskills during the 1950s (Josh Kun, “Bagels, Bongos,
282
Judah M. Cohen
and Yiddishe Mambos, or the Other History of Jews in America,” Shofar
23, no. 4 [Summer 2005]: 50–68). These examples only provide a glimpse
into the extent to which such discussions have taken place in Israeli and
American-Jewish society.
10. See hrmusic.com/discos/fdisc.html (accessed January 28, 2006); Shimon
Lavie, Festa judaica (MCD World, 2000).
11. See, for example, Moshe Shokeid, “Max Gluckman and the Making of Israeli
Anthropology,” Ethnos 69, no. 3 (2004): 363–86.
12. David Biale, Michael Galchinsky, and Susannah Heschel, eds., Insider/
Outsider: American Jews and Multiculturalism (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1997).
13. Judah M. Cohen, Through the Sands of Time: A History of the Jewish Community
of St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands (Hanover: Brandeis University Press, 2004),
105–6.
14. I acknowledge here Sander Gilman’s analysis of A Simple Habana Melody,
which while similar in content moves in a different and decidedly more physi-
cally centered direction. Sander Gilman, “‘We’re Not Jews’: Imagining Jewish
History and Jewish Bodies in Contemporary Multicultural Literature,” Modern
Judaism 23, no. 2 (2003): 147–50.
15. Oscar Hijuelos, A Simple Habana Melody: From When the World Was Good
(New York: HarperCollins, 2002).
16. “A Simple Habana Melody,” Oscar Hijuelos interview with Ray Suarez,
NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, August 29, 2002, transcript at www.pbs.org/
newshour/conversation/july-dec02/hijuelos_8–29.html (accessed January 6,
2006).
17. See, for example, Alan Mintz, “From Silence to Salience,” in The
Americanization of the Holocaust (Seattle: University of Washington Press,
2001), 3–35; Peter Novick, The Holocaust in American Life (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1999).
18. Adriana Brodsky, “Tasting Food, Tasting Identity: Sephardic Women and the
Domestic Aspects of Nationalism, Ethnicity and Gender” (paper presented at
the annual conference of the Association for Jewish Studies, Chicago, 2004);
Ilene Goldman, “To Be(come) Jewish and Argentine: Cinematic Views of a
Changing Nation,” Estudios Interdisciplinarios de America Latina y el Caribe
10, no. 2 (1999): 151–57; Ruth Behar, “While Waiting for the Ferry to Cuba:
Afterthoughts about Adio Kerida,” Michigan Quarterly Review 41, no. 4 (Fall
2002): 651–67; Raquel Partnoy, “Surviving Genocide,” in The Jewish Diaspora
in Latin America and the Caribbean, ed. Kristin Ruggiero (Portland, OR:
Sussex Academic Press, 2005), 209–33; Julie Taylor, Paper Tangos (Durham,
NC: Duke University Press, 1998). See also Zachary M. Baker, “Jevel Katz,
Bard of Moisesville” (paper presented at the annual conference of the
Association for Jewish Studies, Washington, D.C., 2005).
19. Michael Chanan, “Cinema in Latin America,” in The Oxford History of World
Cinema, ed. Geoffrey Nowell-Smith (New York: Oxford University Press,
1996), 427–35; Pekka Gronow and Ilpo Saunio, An International History of
the Recording Industry, trans. Christopher Moseley (New York: Cassell, 1998),
30–31.
283
20. Lynn Davidman and Shelley Tenenbaum, eds., Feminist Perspectives on Jewish
Studies (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994); Susan Starr Sered,
“‘She Perceives Her Work to Be Rewarding’: Jewish Women in a Cross-
Cultural Perspective,” in Feminist Perspectives on Jewish Studies, ed. Lynn
Davidman and Shelley Tenenbaum (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1994), 169–90; Michelle Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere, eds., Woman, Culture,
and Society (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1974); Micaela di
Leonardo, ed., Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge: Feminist Anthropology in
the Postmodern Era (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), especially
the introduction: 1–48.
21. The most vivid of these exchanges, in written form, takes up nearly the entire
issue of Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Review 18, nos. 1–2 (1996); many books
and articles have been written since, generally elaborating on the arguments
presented in this source.
22. Walter Zenner, ed., Persistence and Flexibility: Anthropological Perspectives on
the American Jewish Experience (Albany: State University of New York Press,
1989), 39.
23. Ariel Segal Freilich, “Self-Exiled in Earthly Paradise: One Hundred Years
of Solitude for the ‘Jewish Mestizos’ of Iquitos, 1890–1990” (PhD diss.,
University of Miami, 1997).
24. Shari Rose Seider, “Looking Forward to the Past: The Ultra-Orthodox
Community of Buenos Aires, Argentina” (PhD diss., Stanford University,
1999).
25. Personal observation, Temple B’nai Israel, San Jose, Costa Rica, Friday,
April 19, 2002.
26. Lee Shai Weissbach has compellingly pointed out similar issues in his work
on small Jewish populations in the United States in his important study
Jewish Life in Small-Town America: A History (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 2005).
27. Ilan Stavans, On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language (New York: Viking,
2001); Ariel Dorfman, Heading South, Looking North: A Bilingual Journey
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998).
28. See www.ujcl.org.
29. William F. S. Miles, “Caribbean Hybridity and the Jews of Martinique,” in
The Jewish Diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean, ed. Kristin Ruggiero
(Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press, 2005), 139–62; Paolo Bernardini
and Norman Fiering, eds., The Jews and the Expansion of Europe to the West,
1450–1800 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2001). See also Oscar Lansen,
“Victimas de las circunstancias: Judíos, súbditos enemigos in las Antillas
Holandesas, 1938–1947,” in Entre la aceptación y el rechazo: América Latina
y los refugiados Judíos del Nazismo, ed. Avraham Milgram (Jerusalem: Yad
Vashem, 2003).
284
Judah M. Cohen
Editors
Jeffrey Lesser is Winship Distinguished Research Professor of the Human
ities and director of the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies at Emory University.
He is the author of, most recently, A Discontented Diaspora: Japanese-Brazilians
and the Meanings of Ethnic Militancy, 1960–1980 (2007), as well as two prize-
winning books, Negotiating National Identity: Immigrants, Minorities and the
Struggle for Ethnicity in Brazil (1999), and Welcoming the Undesirables: Brazil
and the Jewish Question (1994).
Raanan Rein is professor of Latin American and Spanish History and vice
rector of Tel Aviv University. He is the editor of the journal Estudios Inter
disciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe. Rein’s many publications include
The Franco-Perón Alliance: Relations between Spain and Argentina, 1946–1955
(1993), Argentina, Israel and the Jews: Perón, the Eichmann Capture and After
(2003), and In the Shadow of Perón: Juan Atilio Bramuglia and the Second Line
of Argentina’s Populist Movement (2008).
Contributors
Edna Aizenberg is professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at
Marymount Manhattan College of New York. She has been a visiting pro-
fessor at Princeton University and the Jewish Theological Seminary where
she inaugurated courses on Latin American Jewish literature. Her numer-
ous publications have focused on contemporary Latin American literature
as well as African narrative and postcolonial criticism. She is a specialist on
Borges and one of the pioneers in the field of Latin American Jewish studies.
Her books include Borges and His Successors (1990), Borges, el tejedor del Aleph
y otros ensayos (1997), and Books and Bombs in Buenos Aires: Borges, Gerchunoff
and Argentine-Jewish Writing (2002).
Judah M. Cohen is the Lou and Sybil Mervis Professor of Jewish Culture
and assistant professor of Jewish Studies and Folklore and Ethnomusicology
285
at Indiana University. He is the author of Through the Sands of Time: A
History of the Jewish Community of St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands (2004),
and the forthcoming The Making of a Reform Jewish Cantor: Musical Authority,
Cultural Investment, as well as several articles on music in Jewish life.
Roney Cytrynowicz, has a PhD from the Department of History at the

Universidade de São Paulo. He is the director of Editora Narrativa Um—
Projetos e Pesquisas de História and head of the document section of the
Arquivo Histórico Judaico Brasileiro. He is the author of Guerra sem guerra.
A mobilização e o cotidiano em São Paulo durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial
(2000), and Memória da barbárie. A história do genocídio dos Judeus na Segunda
Guerra Mundial (1990).
Sandra McGee Deutsch is a professor of History at the University

of Texas at El Paso. She is the author of Counterrevolution in Argentina,
1900–1932: The Argentine Patriotic League (1984), and Las Derechas: The
Extreme Right in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, 1890–1939 (1999). She also has
coedited a collection on Argentine rightist movements and authored articles
on gender and women in Latin America. Her current project is a history of
Argentine-Jewish women.
Donna J. Guy is Distinguished Professor of Humanities at the Ohio State

University. She is the author of Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution,
Family and Nation in Argentina. Her current project, Performing Charity,
Creating Rights in Argentina (forthcoming), examines the role of female
philanthropists and feminists in the formation of child welfare policies
in Argentina.
José C. Moya is professor of History at UCLA and Barnard College,

Columbia University, and director of the Barnard Forum on Migration and
of Columbia’s Institute of Latin American Studies. His book Cousins and
Strangers: Spanish Immigrants in Buenos Aires, 1850–1930 (1998) received five
awards, and the journal Historical Methods published a forum on its theoreti-
cal and methodological contributions to the field of migration studies. Moya
has been a Burkhardt Fellow in Italy, a Fulbright Scholar in Argentina on
three occasions, and has taught at the University of Paris VII.
Rosalie Sitman is a researcher at the Institute for Latin American History and
Culture and coordinator of Spanish in the Department of Foreign Languages
286
at Tel Aviv University. She is coeditor of Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América
Latina y el Caribe and has published numerous articles on Argentine cul-
tural history. She is the author of Victoria Ocampo y Sur: Entre Europa y
América (2003), and coeditor, with Raanan Rein, of El primer Peronismo: De
regreso a los comienzos (2005).
Natasha Zaretsky is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University and

teaches in the Department of Anthropology. The title of her doctoral dis-
sertation was “Walls of Memory: Violence, Belonging, and Citizenship in
Jewish Buenos Aires.” Zaretsky is the author of several forthcoming articles
based on her research on memory, violence, and social change in the Jewish
community of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Erin Graff Zivin is assistant professor of Hispanic Languages and

Literatures at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research focuses on liter-
ary representations of “Jews” and “Jewishness” in the Hispanic world. Her
book The Wandering Signifier: Rhetoric of “Jewishness” in the Latin American
Imaginary is about to be published. She has published articles in the Journal
of Spanish Cultural Studies, Chasqui: Revista de Literatura Latinoamericana,
Modern Jewish Studies, and La Jornada Literaria.
287
Index
Ação Integralista Brasileira, 91, 92 Peronism; Tragic Week; World War

affiliated Jews, 19; limits of (Jewish II; Zionism
affiliation), 19; myths about, 5, 25; Artigas, José, 215–16, 217–18
research focus on, 10, 25, 31–32, 180; Ashkenazic Jews: as an ethnic group, 10,
unaffiliated, 25, 31–32, 39n32, 239, 34, 56, 58, 162, 168, 180, 181n4; as
250. See also Jewishness, criteria for different from Sephardic Jews, 5,
determining 77, 168–69, 170, 191, 199; commu-
Africanness, 50; African descent, 14, 18, nity organizations, 189, 191, 240;
50, 124; Afro-Brazilian, 45–46, 48, research focus on, 5, 34; women
114; blackness, 23, 41–42, 43, 48, 51, organizations, 167–68, 169, 176, 180
92, 113–14 Atraf, 266–67, 282n3
Alberdi, Juan Bautista, 8, 234
Alberti, Rafael, 142, 145–46, 147
Barroso, Gustavo, 92, 103n7
AMIA (Asociación Mutual Israelita
Benjamin, Walter, 111–12, 116, 128n21, 223
Argentina), 27, 239, 240, 242;
bombing, 212, 219, 231–65 Borges, Jorge Luis, 30, 106, 107, 139, 141,
anarchism, 55–88, 165, 172, 175, 270 148, 156n28, 159n71, 159n75
anti-Semitism/anti-Jewish, 19, 33, 271; Brazil, 13–19, 39n37, 41–54, 89–105,
overemphasis of, 2–5, 8, 27, 32; 106–31, 272. See also anti-Semitism/
in Argentina, 6, 13, 61, 65, 133, anti-Jewish, in Brazil; educa-
135–36, 150, 234–37, 246–47, 250; tion, Brazilian Jewish; Estado
in Argentina, overemphasis of, 12, Novo; Fascism/anti-Fascism, in
70, 73, 162, 164, 180, 194, 202; in Brazil; Jewishness, and nation;
Argentina, redefining of, 55, 73, Nationalist(s), Brazil; World War II,
75, 78, 79, 201–2; in Argentina, Brazil; Zionism, in Brazil
struggle against, 62, 136, 139–40,
148, 150, 151, 153n7, 173, 249, 251–52, Cardoso, Fernando Henrique, 46, 49
255, 263n63; in Brazil, 17, 19, 91–93, Caribbean, 23, 271, 281
97, 101, 103nn2–3, 103n7, 272; in Catholic Church/Catholicism: as part of
Brazil, overemphasis of, 39n37, 90, the elite, 13, 134, 135, 202; as right-
92–94, 98, 101–2; in Brazil, struggle
wing, 133, 137, 140, 144, 147, 150–51,
against, 98; in Europe, 62, 81n7, 95,
153nn6–8, 154n13, 158n64, 160n82;
110, 148; propaganda, 12–13, 135, 139,
as the majority religion, 23, 48, 163,
144, 147, 159n72, 235; in Uruguay,
235; as xenophobic, 11, 12, 52n1, 134;
216, 218, 225. See also Fascism/
charity work, 165, 180, 188, 192, 193,
anti-Fascism; Junta de la Victoria;
pogroms; Tragic Week 194, 204n16; expectation of conver-
sion, 9, 193; openness toward non-
Argentina, 2–4, 5, 6–13, 27, 30, 31, 55–88,
Catholics, 9, 32, 140–41, 142–43, 176,
132–60, 161–86, 187–206, 231–65,
270–71. See also anti-Semitism/ 229n32, 272
anti-Jewish; detained/disappeared; Chacel, Rosa, 142, 149
education; Fascism/anti-Fascism; Charrúa Indians, 215, 216, 221
Jewishness; Nationalist(s); Chinatown, San Francisco, 44
288
CIP (Congregação Israelita Paulista), 270, 271, 275–77, 279; nativist, 73;
100–101 of the elite, 17, 42–43, 91, 95
Communism/Communist, 12, 86n63, Dreyfus affair, 61–62, 84n33
136, 138, 144, 147, 165, 180; participa- Dumbrowski, Saul, 44
tion of Jews, 9, 69, 139, 164, 179,
244. See also Communist Party; education, 9; Argentinean Catholic,
Fascism/anti-Fascism; Socialism/ 154n13, 192, 194, 235; Argentinean
Socialist Jewish, 108, 235, 239–40, 241,
Communist Party, 97, 174, 184n46; 243–44, 250, 261n43; Argentinean
anti-Fascist, 137, 145, 175–76, 177; Jewish orphans, 187, 192, 193–94,
Di idische froi, 173; ICUF (Idischer 195–96, 200, 201; Argentinean
Cultur Farband), 172–73, 184n42, Jewish women, 162–66, 172–73, 179,
239–42, 243–46, 248, 249, 251, 187, 188, 193–94, 195–96, 197, 201;
252–53, 261n33, 261n36, 261n41, as social indicator, 43, 169; Brazilian
261n43, 262n52, 263n64, 264n70, Jewish, 16, 89, 90, 92, 95–98,
264n72, 265n86; participation 104n14; pluralist state, 9, 89, 145,
of Jews, 162, 172–74, 180, 239, 164, 177, 254; sectarian schools,
248, 261n35, 261n43; women, 162, 46, 64, 173; Uruguay, 248. See also
164–65, 172–74, 179–80, 244–46, women, as teachers
248–53. See also Communism/ Eichmann, Adolf, 6, 235
Communist; Fascism/anti-Fascism; elites, 137; Argentinean social, 9, 11,
Socialism/Socialist 61, 77, 162, 192, 193, 234, 258n10;
conversos/Marranos/New Christians/ Brazilian social, 17, 42, 48, 49,
crypto-Jews, 10, 14, 46, 49, 126, 50, 92, 93, 102, 113–14, 117, 122–24;
271, 276 Jewish, 190, 193–94, 200, 202
Coro Judío Popular Mordje Guebirtig, Eretz tropit yafa, 266, 282n1
233, 268 Estado Novo, 89–105
Criterio, 133, 135, 137, 138, 150, 155n20 ethnic borders/criteria: academic scru-
tiny of, 23, 107, 268–70; crossing,
DAIA (Delegación de Asociaciones 2, 71, 126, 255, 267–68; exception-
Israelitas Argentinas), 235–36, 239, alism, 30, 38n29, 74–76, 101, 162,
240, 260n28, 264n77 164, 180, 184n41; pragmatic, 45, 46,
democracy/liberal democrats, 20, 137, 268; problem in defining, 19, 25,
269 (see also under Jewishness). See
140, 213; anti-Conservatism, 133, 135,
also ethnicity; identity; Jewishness
137, 149, 150; anti-Peronism, 174, 175,
177–78, 179; Argentina, 13, 73, 133, ethnicity, 23–40, 266–84; and social
136, 138, 139, 142, 143, 144, 164, 175, engineering, 9, 18, 117, 163, 169–71,
180; Uruguay, 214, 218–20, 225, 226 220–21, 269, 278; as a contested
category, 1–2, 4, 24–26, 33–34,
deportations, 59–60, 63, 64, 74, 85n53
41–54, 79–80, 162, 180; defined
detained/disappeared: Argentina, from outside, 13, 24, 33, 49, 55, 74,
227n8, 232, 235, 237, 256; Uruguay, 79–80, 92, 106–31, 165, 192–93,
213, 214, 218, 222, 224, 225, 226, 277 (see also stereotypes); defined
229n32 from within, 5, 10, 169, 171–72,
Diaspora/s, (research on), 1, 5, 23–40, 42, 238, 267–68, 277 (see also under
79, 268, 280. See also respective com- Jewishness); jokes about, 44,
munities; homeland 267–68; myths about, 5, 12, 19,
discourse/s: anarchist, 63; anti-Fascist, 32–33, 46–48, 50, 80, 101 (see also
134, 138, 143, 148; anti-Semitic/racist, race, racial democracy); semantic
13, 19, 32–33, 91–92, 93–94, 110, strategies of, 90, 93, 96–102, 193,
114, 133; competing, 4, 45, 50, 90, 268, 272; xenophobia, 4, 9, 11, 12, 13,
96–97, 101, 120, 121, 123–25, 269, 61, 89, 96–97, 101–2, 135, 151, 218 (see
289
Index
also anti-Semitism/anti-Jewish). women; education, Argentinean
See also Ashkenazic Jews; Jewish women; Junta de la Victoria;
ethnic borders/criteria; identity; philanthropy, female; prostitution;
Jewishness; Sephardic Jews Sephardic Jews, women; women
eugenics, 49, 124, 131n64–65. See also
ethnicity, and social engineering Herzl, Theodor, 8
exiles: anarchists, 63, 64; Jewish, 110; Hijuelos, Oscar, 272–73
Spanish Republican, 11, 133, 134, 137, Hip Hop Hoodíos, 267–68
141, 145–46, 149, 156n42, 178. See Hirsch, Maurice de, 8, 15, 163
also deportations; Montevideo, as
Hispanophile, 133, 134, 151
a place of exile
Hollywood, 33
Holocaust: commemoration, 149,
Fabregat, Enrique Rodríguez, 219
207–14, 216, 218, 220, 222–26,
Fascism/anti-Fascism: in Argentina, 227n8, 247, 251, 252, 273, 276;
134, 135–40, 143–51, 152n4, 159n71, denial, 19; escape from, 12, 92;
173, 175, 179, 180; in Brazil, 89–92; survival, 98, 162, 242, 246–47
Uruguay, 216. See also Junta de la
homeland, 169; Diasporic, 8, 24,
Victoria; Nazi/Nazism; Spain
267–69; imagined, 13, 30–31, 143,
Fondane, Benjamin, 137, 146, 149, 154n18 184n41. See also Diaspora/s
forced baptism, 192 Hourani, Albert, 42
foundlings, 194, 195 humanism/humanist, 133, 142, 144, 151,
France: as a liberal model, 9, 61; cultural 190–91
influence, 58, 122, 128n19, 129n43,
147, 176; immigrants from, 57, 60,
identity, 121–22, 268–69, 278; construct-
83, 88n90; intellectuals, 46, 62,
ing national, 2, 42, 89–105, 106–31,
70, 81n5, 133, 137, 142, 146, 157n44,
135, 137, 216–18, 226, 236; hybridity,
159n71, 160n85; international rela-
29, 37n20, 107, 108, 114, 116, 117, 121,
tions, 12, 69, 74, 143; occupied by
122, 125, 212, 213, 267; hyphenated
Germany, 145, 146, 149; position on
identity, 10, 24–25, 43, 102, 108,
refugees, 12, 141, 143
267–69, 276, 280; negotiating, 1,
Franceschi, Gustavo, 136, 137–38, 139,
268–69, 272, 275, 278, 279–80;
155n20
negotiating, in Argentina, 233, 236,
Franco(ist): anti-Franco, 134, 138, 139, 243, 254, 256; negotiating, in Brazil,
141, 147, 149, 150, 178; fleeing from, 45, 90–91, 93, 108, 110, 114, 120, 125.
11, 144; support in Argentina, 135, See also ethnic borders/criteria;
137–38, 139, 149, 150, 156n31, 156n42. ethnicity; Jewishness
See also Fascism/anti-Fascism,
IFT (Idische Folks Teater), 172–73, 241,
Spain
242, 249
Frank, Waldo, 136–37, 147–48, 154n16
immigration/immigrants, 1, 5, 25–26,
Freund, Gisèle, 146
29, 30, 32, 41–42, 45, 110; to
Freyre, Gilberto, 113, 117 Argentina, 75, 77–80, 133–37, 139,
Fujimori, Alberto, 33 148–49, 187, 196, 197–98, 234–35,
Fukuhara, Hachiro, 47 262n45; to Argentina, Jews, 8–13,
56–58, 61, 65, 68, 71, 74, 162–63,
gender, 71–72, 81n2, 84n47, 133, 168, 177, 169, 172, 190–92, 198, 201–2,
180, 242; absence from ethnicity 239–40, 270; to Brazil, 49–50,
studies, 33, 161–63, 165–67, 180, 188, 90–93, 95–96, 115; to Brazil, Asian,
274–75; as negotiated within societ- 48; to Brazil, German, 93; to Brazil,
ies, 114, 164, 166–67, 179, 194, 195. Japanese, 46, 47, 90–91, 93; to
See also Ashkenazic Jews, women Brazil, Jews, 14–19, 90–92, 100, 101,
organizations; Communist Party, 114, 125–26; from Latin America,
290
Index
10, 19–20, 20, 67, 253, 268; to 275; explorations at the borders of
Uruguay, 219–20, 222 Jewish identity, 32, 107–8, 119, 126,
Inquisition, 14, 46, 126, 212, 271 254, 255, 277–78; meaning of, 28,
intellectuals: and ethnicity, 26, 28, 42, 111–12, 126, 270; physical embodi-
46, 50, 76, 107, 113, 120, 189; and ment, 2–4, 218, 222, 225, 232,
xenophobia, 9, 17, 42, 234, 258n9; 238–39, 241–43, 254, 267; portrayed
political activism, 8, 132–60, 173, in sound, 239, 241, 245, 247, 254,
175, 176, 226 268; portrayed within literature,
Internet sites, 20, 44 106–31, 272–73; religion as deter-
Israel/is, 10, 19–20, 65, 171, 201–2; mining, 10, 19, 25, 32, 44, 119, 172,
dialog with, 30–31, 32, 168, 179, 192, 195, 201, 242, 244; Uruguay,
213, 222–23, 239–40, 244–45, 253, 212, 222, 225; Yiddish culture as
266–67, 268, 280–81; affecting determining, 239–40, 244–45, 247.
political stands of the community, See also Ashkenazic Jews; ethnic
4–5, 6, 12, 13, 98, 108, 170, 196, borders/criteria; ethnicity; identity;
200, 201, 213, 219, 231–32, 235, 236; Sephardic Jews
ethnically egocentric, 24, 26–27, 28, Jews: as Arabs, 34, 42, 44, 45, 46, 50;
30–31, 269. See also Zionism as Chinese, 44, 52n8; as European,
IWO/YIVO (Jewish Research Institute, 45, 46; as Indians, 46–47, 50; as
Yiddisher Wissenschaftlekher Japanese, 42, 44–45, 48–51, 270;
Institut), 240, 252 as Korean, 44–45, 48, 49, 50. See
also anti-Semitism/anti-Jewish;
Ashkenazic Jews; ethnicity; identity,
Jewish agricultural colonies/settlements,
hyphenated identity; Jewishness;
1, 8, 280; Argentina, 10–11, 57, 66;
prostitution, and Jews; Sephardic
Argentine women in, 163–67, 168,
Jews; stereotypes
175, 179, 189; Brazil, 15
Jorge, Salomão, 46
Jewish colonies. See Jewish agricultural
Judaizantes, 139
colonies/settlements
Junta de la Victoria, 144–45, 161–62,
Jewish Colonization Association (JCA),
175–79, 180
280; Argentina, 11, 66, 163, 166–67,
168, 179; Brazil, 15. See also agricul- Justo, Agustín, P., 137, 138
tural colonies/settlements
Jewish community: in Buenos Aires, Kahn, Máximo José, 148–149, 160n78
2, 6–13, 55–88, 132–60, 165, 167–71, Kent, Victoria, 149, 160n82
187–206, 231–65; in Montevideo, King Solomon, 46
218–19, 221, 224; in São Paulo, Koyama, Rokuro, 47
16–17, 46, 89–105 (see also São
Paulo) Lacalle, Luis Alberto, 208, 218–20, 221,
Jewish community organizations, 25, 222, 224
30, 66, 89–105, 161, 166, 169–71, Lafer, Celso, 33
187–207, 218–19, 239, 246, 253–54. Latin American Jewish Studies
See also respective organizations; Association (LAJSA), 28–29, 36n14
affiliated Jews
“latinidade,” 46
Jewishness, 23–40, 266–84; affirm-
Ludmer, Josefina, 107, 111, 112–13, 120, 124,
ing, 13, 20, 98, 101, 192, 225, 232,
128n25
238–39, 241, 247, 251, 255, 267–68;
and Argentina, 8, 9, 10, 79–80, 176,
189–90, 193–94, 231–40, 244–45, Malamud, Samuel, 98
253–56; and nation, 30–31, 110, 167, Maritain, Jacques, 133, 138, 140, 155n20
171, 266–67; Brazil, 91–102, 114, marriage, 43, 194; endogamy, 193, 195;
115, 122; criteria for determining, exogamy, 10, 14, 19, 31, 32, 280
25, 32, 248, 249–50, 268–69, 271, mate, 1–2, 208, 210, 212, 225
291
Index
Mediterranean, 34, 162, 168–72, 179 112, 272–73; Uruguayan Holocaust,
Memoria Activa, 231–34, 237–39, 247, 212–14, 221, 225; Uruguayan politi-
251, 254–56, 258n4, 260nn26–28, cal, 220–21
262n55 Nationalist(s), 108; Argentina, 9, 11, 13,
memorials, 207–30, 239, 241, 243, 273, 55, 79, 80, 133, 134–35, 136, 138–40,
276 142–43, 144, 148, 150–51, 174, 175, 177,
memory, 276; historical memory, 1, 34, 179, 180, 234; Brazil, 16, 17, 89–105,
90, 101, 161–62, 201, 212–30, 272–73; 114; Uruguay, 217–18
Jewish, 27, 32, 212, 226, 243–52, Nazi/Nazism, 110; “hiding” in Latin
255–56; national memory, 208, 212, America, 2, 6, 12, 264n77; influence
231–34, 236–39, 241 (see also identity, on right-wing discourse, 12, 17, 90,
constructing national) 91, 101, 135, 144, 147, 235; protest
Menem, Carlos Saúl, 33 against, 138–40, 144, 147–48, 149,
methodology, 5, 29–34, 269–70; alter- 159n72, 175–78, 212, 249; refuge
native sources, 273–74, 276–77; from, 32, 92, 100, 144, 146, 162, 272;
oral history, 161–62, 181n2, 218–19, remembrance, 212–13, 223, 273
243–50, 276 neighborhoods, ethnic, 13, 45, 46, 59,
Middle East: and Latin American ethnic- 85n56, 91, 93, 107; Belgrano, 170;
ity, 5, 16, 17, 18, 23, 24, 26, 28, 32–33, Bom Retiro, 45, 48; Caxias do
34, 43, 49, 50; and the Arab-Israeli Sul, 45; Flores, 197; Gramado, 45;
conflict, 19, 237; Jews from, 5, 34, La Boca, 65; Lapa, 94, 104n14;
56, 162, 168 Liberdade, 45; Once, 61, 65, 66,
71, 240, 249, 250; Palermo, 190;
minorities, 5, 19, 33; and majority
La Paternal, 172; Plaza Lavalle, 64,
society, 20, 24, 48, 75, 80, 102,
65, 68, 83n18, 231, 232, 239; Villa
152n2, 221; in Argentina, 9, 13, 75,
Crespo, 172, 248; Villa Domínguez,
80, 134, 152n2, 243, 254; in Brazil,
Entre Ríos, 165, 166, 167, 176; Villa
48, 90–91, 92, 93, 96, 99, 102; in
Lynch, 172, 243–44
research, 5, 24, 26, 28–30, 33, 42,
45–46, 52n8, 90–91, 278, 279; in Nikkei, 34, 44, 47
Uruguay, 221
modernity, 17; Argentina, 8, 62, Ocampo, Victoria, 132–34, 137, 138–39,
234; Brazil, 14, 108–12, 119–25, 141–43, 144–47, 150–51, 152n1, 154n14,
129nn43–44; Uruguay, 220, 224 157n47, 159n69, 160n84
Moisesville, 11, 15 orphanages, 170, 187–97, 200, 201,
Montevideo, 170, 248, 273; as a place of 204n16–17
exile, 63, 64, 74, 84n40; memorials Ortiz, Roberto, 142, 156n42, 157n44
in, 207–8, 212–16, 219, 221, 222–23,
225, 229n23 Parnasianists, 124
mulatas/mulatos, 49, 113–16 Peri Rossi, Cristina, 215–16, 217
music, 20, 32, 215, 266–70, 273–74, Perón, Eva, 174, 188, 197
282n1, 282n3, 282n7, 282n9; Perón, Juan Domingo, 12, 39n38, 148,
Argentina, 66, 81n3, 166, 178, 149, 174, 176, 178–79, 188, 200,
231–65; Brazil, 53n20, 94, 98, 201–2
108, 113–17, 127n2; Latin American Peronism: and anti-Semites, 12, 196,
influence in Israel, 266–67, 282n1, 201–2; and left-wing organiza-
282n3. See also Noel Rosa; samba tions, 174, 188; protest against, 140,
160n84, 177, 178; social activities,
narration, 274, 276; Argentinean politi- 165, 174, 179, 196–97, 200–201
cal, 174, 180, 251, 274; as a thera- philanthropy, 8, 15, 163; female, 162,
peutic strategy, 254, 256; literary, 163, 165–66, 167, 169–71, 179, 180,
121–22, 123–24; of “Jewishness,” 110, 187–206
292
Index
pogroms, 7, 10, 62, 234 Santiago, Silviano, 117
popular culture, 20, 53n20, 90, 106–31, São Paulo, 45, 47, 48, 50, 89–105, 120,
252, 272–73; My Big Fat Greek 122–25. See also Jewish community,
Wedding, 50; telenovelas, 20, 45, in São Paulo
250. See also music; samba Sarmiento, Domingo F., 153n10, 164
populism, 12, 55. See also Juan Domingo Sartre, Jean-Paul, 147, 150
Perón; Getúlio Vargas Semana de Arte Moderna, 119
Progressivism: as a political movement, Sephardic Jews, 52n1, 83n19, 162–63,
9, 66, 139, 142, 164, 174; as opposed 168–72, 180, 191–93, 199, 200,
to Zionism, 251–53; in Jewish 220, 269; and Zionism, 169, 179;
society, 172, 199, 239, 242, 244, immigration to Latin America, 10,
245, 248, 250–51, 252–54, 262n52, 12, 57, 126, 162; lack of research on,
263n64, 264n70, 270 5, 34, 40n41, 41, 203n1; music, 268,
prostitution, 129n43; and anarchism, 282n7, 282n9; women, 162–63,
58–61, 72; and Jews, 49, 109–12, 168–72, 179–80
118–25, 270; japonesinhas, 49; sex trafficking. See prostitution; white
Madame Pommery, 118–25, 130n57; slavery
polacas, 49; research focus on, 33, Simons, Moisés, 273
107, 274. See also white slavery Socialism/Socialist, 70, 137, 139, 144; and
public spaces, 45, 135, 160n82, 122, 177, Jews, 57, 66, 68, 70, 71, 76, 85n58,
194, 214, 217, 226, 278; Jewishness 164–65, 172–80, 239, 278; as a for-
in Argentina, 120, 76, 165, 179, eign import, 59, 78, 82n11, 97, 234.
201–2, 235, 236, 237–38, 251, 254–55, See also Communism/Communist;
273, 274; Jewishness in Brazil, 17, Communist Party; Fascism/anti-
42–43, 91, 98, 119; Jewishness in Fascism; Progressivism
Uruguay, 212, 218, 221, 225. See also Sociedade Genealogica Judaica do Brasil,
Jewishness, physical embodiment 46
Society of the Friends of Alberto Torres,
race, 32, 45, 269, 276; in Brazilian dis- 42, 52n4
course, 19, 42–45, 101, 113–14, 117, Spain, 66–67, 72, 88n87; and Jews, 5,
122, 123–24, 128n32; Jews as, 17, 42, 52n1, 192–93; colonial period, 9;
44, 62, 73, 107, 156n28, 267; racial immigration from, 11, 12, 31, 65, 75,
democracy, 19, 101; racism, 138–39, 163; Republic(an), 134, 145–46, 149,
140, 222, 234 150, 157n45, 178; Spanish Civil War,
religion (religious life), 19; Catholic/ 133, 135–43, 154n19, 156n31, 156n42,
non-Catholic, 23, 135, 138, 235; exclu- 157n45, 164, 173, 175, 179, 244, 249.
sion from Latin-American studies, See also exiles, Spanish Republican
278–79; Jewish religious life, 89, St. Thomas, 271
94–97, 100, 194, 195; persecution, Stereotypes, 33, 45–46, 49, 55–56, 73–80,
14, 62, 97, 160n77; visibility of 81nn1–3, 95, 108–9, 110–17, 121, 234,
Jewish (in the dominant society), 267, 269; of Jews as capitalists, 55,
1–2, 62, 187, 232, 238. See also 95, 109–13, 116–17, 121; of Jews as
Jewishness, religion as determining radicals, 55, 73–76; positive side of,
Revista do Brasil, 120 33, 45–46, 49, 220. See also anti-
Rosa, Noel, 108, 109, 111, 112–17, 125; Semitism/anti-Jewish, propaganda;
“Quem dá mais?,” 108, 112–17, ethnicity, defined from outside
128n10 SUR 123–60; grupo, 132–35, 151
Symbolists(ism), 108–10, 112–14, 124,
Salgado, Plínio, 92 129n44, 214, 218, 222
samba, 108, 109, 111, 113–17, 125. See also synagogues, 1, 32, 271, 280, 282n9;
music; Noel Rosa Argentina, 10, 62, 169, 180, 188,
293
Index
195, 200, 235, 240, 242, 249, 251, 188, 190–93, 195–96; and memory,
253; Brazil, 16, 90, 93, 94, 96, 100, 242, 243–50; and Zionism,
104n14. See also religion (religious 167–68, 169–72, 201; as teachers,
life) 97, 164–65, 168 (see also educa-
tion, Argentinean Jewish women);
Tácito, Hilário (José Maria Toledo Malta), in agricultural colonies, 163–67.
108, 109, 111, 119–22, 124–25, 130n45, See also Ashkenazic Jews, women
131n58; Madame Pommery, 108, organizations; Communist Party,
118–25, 130n47, 130n51, 130n57, women; philanthropy, female; pros-
131n59, 131n61, 131n67 titution; Sephardic Jews, women
Tedeschi, Giuliana, 149 World War II, 213; Argentina, 10, 12,
Toller, Ernst, 139–40 133–34, 136, 143–50, 161, 162, 170,
totalitarian(ism), 91, 135, 139, 144, 146, 175–79, 196; Brazil, 90–91, 93, 101.
148, 153n10, 213 See also Fascism/anti-Fascism;
Holocaust
Tragic Week, 7, 75, 87n85, 235, 258n12
transnational/ism, 13, 24, 30, 67, 265n82
xenophobia, 4, 9, 11, 61, 89, 96, 97,
101–2, 134, 135, 151, 218
UNESCO, 43
Uruguay, 170, 207–30, 273. See also
Montevideo Yiddish, 29, 91, 94–95, 99, 162, 170,
172–73, 182n9, 189, 195, 197–98,
231–65; and anarchism, 56, 65,
Vargas, Getúlio, 89, 92, 94, 95–96, 101, 67–68, 70, 81n6, 82n10, 85n58,
103n2, 114, 125, 272 87n85
Vasco da Gama, 115
violence, 90, 93, 254; against Jews, 13, 19,
Zionism, 5, 19–20, 27, 28, 30–31, 272;
235, 241, 246, 249; by police 62, 63,
Amigas Sefaradíes de la Histadrut,
68–69; by working class, 60–61,
171; in Argentina, 9, 13, 66, 162, 163,
62, 69–72, 74, 85n51, 88n87. See
167–68, 169–72, 179–80, 201, 242,
also pogroms; Tragic Week
245, 251; in Argentina, Jewish anti-
Zionists, 239, 246, 253–54, 263n64;
welfare state, 174, 187, 188, 194, 197, 202 in Brazil, 19, 97–99; Centro
Western (Wailing) Wall (Ha-Kotel Sionista Sefaradí, 170, 171–72;
Ha-Maaravi), 218, 222–23 Comisión de Señoritas del KKL,
whiteness, 41, 43, 51, 114 170; Consejo Central de Damas
white slavery, 58–60, 118, 120, 203n4. See Sefaradíes, 171; Gran Baile de la
also prostitution Colectividad Sefaradí, 171; OSFA
women, 33, 132–60, 161–86, 187–206; (Organización Sionista Femenina
and anti-Fascism, 161 (see also Junta Argentina), 167–68, 170–72. See also
de la Victoria); and health care, 165, Israel/is
166, 194, 198; and labor, 163–65, Zorrilla de San Martín, 216–18
294
Index

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Independence in Spanish America: Civil Wars, Revolutions,

Series advisory editor: Lyman L. Johnson,

University of New Mexico Press ! Albuquerque

All rights reserved. Published 2008

Printed in the United States of America

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rethinking Jewish-Latin Americans /

edited by Jeffrey Lesser and Raanan Rein.

isbn 978-0-8263-4401-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)

3. National characteristics, Latin American.

II. Rein, Raanan, 1960–

Book design and type composition by Melissa Tandysh

Composed in 10/13.75 ScalaOT

Display type is Poetica Std

figure 1. Jewish gaucho, wearing a tallit, drinking mate, 1984 2

jeffrey lesser • raanan rein

A s we sat in the archives of the Nahum Goldmann Museum of the

Nicaragua 1,578,000 200 5,570,000 60d

is clear now: the beautiful ideal, enveloped in rosy expectations con-

table 2: Latin American Immigration to Israel

Uruguay 66 425 726 1,118 2,199 2,014 827 1,158 8,533

Chile 48 401 322 1,468 1,180 1,040 604 299 5,362

Mexico 48 168 125 611 861 993 986 218 4,010

Colombia — — 126 289 552 475 598 275 2,315

Venezuela — — 109 188 245 180 378 201 1,301

Paraguay — 42 194 16 73 62 28 47 462

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E thnicity is a topic that has become canonized in the study of nineteenth-

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The threat which hovers over Brazil of an invasion of the inhabitants

Walking through San Francisco’s Chinatown, a tourist is fascinated

This joke is funny (I have retold it to great success at both academic

My second goal in this article is to examine public ethnic identity in order

Story Three: The “Legend of the Town of Marataize”

These “origins myths” have much in common. Each includes an imagined

The varieties of cultural discourses are important because members of

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Through confidential sources I have learned that the carter Caurro

Simon Radowisky belongs to that caste of helots that germinate in the

Rather than anti-Semitism or overt class prejudice, this language corre-

Beyond the State and Ideology

I n 1938, during the “Estado Novo” (New State) dictatorship (1937–1945) in

Anti-Semitic Discourse and Community Development

Jewish Institutional Life between 1937 and 1945

Jewish Schools and the State Education Project

The 1938 Decree and the Prohibition of Zionism

Semantic Strategies: Noun or Adjective?

The Scene of the Transaction

erin graff zivin

W hile issues of ethnic, economic, and sexual difference have become

Jews, in taking money, treated money as if it were alive, as if it were

“Quem dá mais?” Brasilidade for Sale

À vendre ce que les Juifs n’ont pas vendu.