{"id":669,"date":"2012-10-25T14:18:09","date_gmt":"2012-10-25T19:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/library.brown.edu\/modernlatinamerica\/?page_id=669"},"modified":"2012-10-25T14:18:09","modified_gmt":"2012-10-25T19:18:09","slug":"jewish-immigration-to-argentina","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/modernlatinamerica\/chapters\/chapter-9-argentina\/moments-in-argentine-history\/jewish-immigration-to-argentina\/","title":{"rendered":"Jewish Immigration to Argentina"},"content":{"rendered":"

Movements Before 1930<\/strong>
\nby Sophie Elsner<\/p>\n

Jorge Luis Borges aptly wrote: \u201cThe Argentines are Italians who speak Spanish, educated by the British, who want to be French.\u201d[1]<\/a> In this amalgamation of European cultures, where do the tens of thousands of Jewish immigrants to Argentina fit in?<\/p>\n

From the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth, six million people flowed into Argentina.[2]<\/a>\u00a0 In the first two decades of the twentieth century, the foreign-born population outnumbered native Argentines. On the eve of the First World War, Buenos Aires was the second largest city on the Atlantic seaboard after New York.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

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Total Net Immigration to Argentina Compared to Jewish Net Immigration. Ricardo Feierstein, Historia de los jud\u00edos argentinos (Buenos Aires: Editorial Planeta Argentina SAIC, 1993), 399.<\/p><\/div>\n

Along with masses of Spaniards and Italians arrived Jewish immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe, the Ottoman empire, and the Mediterranean.[4]<\/a> Historian Ricardo Feierstein described the early period of Jewish immigration to Argentina, from 1880 to 1920, as a \u201cdownpour.\u201d\u00a0 Compared to other Latin American destinations, Jews came to Argentina relatively early, with entries peaking in the years just following the First World War.\u00a0 In contrast, Jews did not move to Brazil in large numbers until the mid-1920s, and they did not migrate to Bolivia or the Dominican Republic until the late 1930s.[5]<\/a>\u00a0 The Jews who went to Buenos Aires and the Argentine interior between 1880 and 1920 formed the first sizable Jewish presence in Latin America.<\/p>\n

In this period, however, Jews did not form a solid ethnic or religious community.\u00a0 Between 1880 and 1920, the Jewish community was largely decentralized; many of the Jews were secular and did not congregate around a synagogue.[6]<\/a>\u00a0 They connected instead through language, traditions, and political beliefs.<\/p>\n

Many of the Jews arriving in this period already held left-leaning worldviews that manifested through political activism. In Argentina, Jews encountered a politically heated climate in which the working classes had mobilized in support of anarchism and socialism.\u00a0 Some Jews participated in anarchist movements, the most popular ideology among the masses in Argentina between 1905 and 1915.\u00a0 A major anarchist daily newspaper in Buenos Aires, La Protesta,<\/em> included a Yiddish supplement in its issues during 1908.[7]<\/a>\u00a0 But Jews participated in even larger numbers in communist, socialist, and Zionist organizations. In 1906 a group founded the first Jewish union, and one year later established the Organizaci\u00f3n de Trabajadores Socialistas Dem\u00f3craticos Jud\u00edos <\/em>(Organization of Jewish Socialist Democratic Workers), which voted to align themselves with the Bundist movement, a Jewish sector of socialism.\u00a0 This group formed teaching institutions for youth, providing a secular education in a Jewish social environment.[8]<\/a>\u00a0 Organizations also sponsored cultural activities, which gave new immigrants an opportunity for socialization and \u201ca measure of companionship and social support.\u201d[9]<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Figure 2: European Immigration to Argentina by Country of Origin. Ricardo Feierstein, Historia de los jud\u00edos argentinos (Buenos Aires: Editorial Planeta Argentina SAIC, 1993), 67.<\/p><\/div>\n

In expressing political viewpoints against the status quo, Jews risked their personal safety and possibilities for smooth integration into society.\u00a0 After emigrating, many Russian Jews followed coverage of the events in their homeland, and those who were communists celebrated the Bolshevik successes of the 1917 Russian Revolution. [10]<\/a>\u00a0 Argentine nationalists accused Jews of engaging in communist conspiracies on the basis of their expressed internationalist, leftist sentiments.<\/p>\n

Other Jews in both Buenos Aires and the interior created communities without engaging in politics. In 1889 the SS Weser<\/em> arrived, carrying 820 Russian Jews who established a religious agricultural society in the interior.\u00a0 To maintain accustomed levels of observance in their new home they brought Torah scrolls, religious texts, ritual slaughterers, teachers, and a rabbi.[11]<\/a>\u00a0 Other Orthodox communities formed in Buenos Aires, creating a yeshiva<\/em> to serve as a center for Jewish education and joining the international Hassidic Chabad Lubavich movement to set up places for prayer and social interaction. In 1921 a group formed to provide kosher<\/em> food for religious immigrants, offering a formal institution to preserve this religious practice.[12]<\/a><\/p>\n

The new immigrants fell into different classes within Argentine society, holding a variety of jobs.\u00a0 Eastern European Jews opened wholesale stores for furniture, clothes and carpets.\u00a0 Some were peddlers with small-scale operations.\u00a0 Others were artisans, carpenters, bricklayers, watchmakers, shoemakers, restaurant owners, and seamstresses. A small number of Jews came from wealthier parts of Western France and Germany and worked for European companies, founding the Jewish aristocracy of Buenos Aires.[13]<\/a><\/p>\n

In spite of the many occupations and traditions that Jews maintained, to the non-Jewish community they appeared a solidified, homogenous group. Residential concentration[14]<\/a> \u2013 to the extent of isolation \u2013 helped define the Jewish community.\u00a0 Arriving eastern European Jews knew where to go to find others who shared their traditions and past experiences. As Jews assimilated more into the economic market and social life of the city, they moved farther from these ethnic hubs.\u00a0 By the 1930s, fewer than two decades later, arriving central European Jews chose to settle in other, more prosperous neighborhoods.\u00a0 Though the Jewish community remained distinct from Christian society, its high residential cohesion did not last.<\/p>\n

An Immigration Ripple<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

After World War I, Argentina\u2019s open-door immigration policy, intact for more than half a century, began to close.[15]<\/a> Immigrants were no longer needed as they had been before 1914.\u00a0 They and their children provided sufficient manpower for the country, especially after the war. This abundance of labor had caused a subsequent industrial crisis.\u00a0 The country lacked the capital to expand its industry, and thus it no longer demanded such a large labor force. Thousands of people found themselves without work.[16]<\/a>\u00a0 The rumors of unemployment spread to Europe and the notion of immigrating to Argentina lost some appeal.<\/p>\n

In spite of the shortage of employment opportunities and weak hopes of economic betterment, some immigrants continued to arrive, not only from the Middle East and Eastern Europe but also in Central Europe, where post-war problems were leading to the emigration of many Jews.\u00a0 The international Jewish organization HICEM started in 1927 with the aim of \u201cinvestigating new countries as targets for Jewish immigration, rendering assistance to emigrants in their home countries and en route, and helping them settle down in their new countries.\u201d[17]<\/a>\u00a0 HICEM supported multiple immigration efforts to Argentina, although with some difficulty along the way.\u00a0 President Marcelo T. Alvear imposed new mechanisms for control over who could enter the country, requiring more documentation from the country of origin.[18]<\/a>\u00a0 The conservative regimes of the 1920s put up administrative barriers for those entering and for their relatives and friends trying to bring them to Argentina.[19]<\/a>\u00a0 For emigrants leaving war-torn areas or escaping persecution in their homelands, obtaining the proper documentation made entry nearly impossible.\u00a0 Despite the restrictions and ominous economic conditions, HICEM and other Jewish organizations continued to aid immigrants in bringing their families to Argentina.[20]<\/a>\u00a0 Jewish individuals and institutions were not yet prepared to give up on their hopes of immigration.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n
\n

[1]<\/a> \u201cLos Argentinos son italianos que hablan espa\u00f1ol, educados por ingleses que quieren ser franceses.\u201d by Jorge Luis Borges, quoted in Ricardo Feierstein, Historia de los jud\u00edos argentinos<\/em> (Buenos Aires: Editorial Planeta Argentina SAIC, 1993), 366. My translation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[2]<\/a> Ricardo Feierstein, Historia de los jud\u00edos argentinos<\/em> (Buenos Aires: Editorial Planeta Argentina SAIC, 1993), 366.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[3]<\/a> David Rock, Argentina 1516-1987: From Spanish Colonization to Alfons\u00edn<\/em> (Berkeley: University of California Press), 172.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[4]<\/a> Feierstein, Historia de los jud\u00edos argentinos, <\/em>264.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[5]<\/a> See See Jeffrey Lesser, Welcoming the Undesirables<\/em>, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995; Allen Wells, Tropical Zion<\/em>, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009, and Leo Spitzer, Hotel Bolivia: The Culture of Memory in a Refuge from Nazism<\/em> (New York: Hill and Wang, 1998).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[6]<\/a> Feierstein, Historia de los jud\u00edos argeninos, <\/em>230.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[7]<\/a> Feierstein, Historia de los jud\u00edos argentinos, <\/em>186.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[8]<\/a> Feierstein, Historia de los jud\u00edos argentinos, <\/em>188.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[9]<\/a> Haim Avni, Argentina and the Jews <\/em>(Tuscalossa, AL: The University of Alabama Press, 1991), 71.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[10]<\/a> Avni, Argentina and the Jews, <\/em>197.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[11]<\/a> Ibid., 27.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[12]<\/a> Ibid., 162.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[13]<\/a> Ibid., 182.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[14]<\/a> Feierstein, Historia de los jud\u00edos argentinos,<\/em> 149.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[15]<\/a> Fernando Devoto, Historia de la inmigraci\u00f3n en la Argentina<\/em> (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 2004), 354.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[16]<\/a> Ibid., 354.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[17]<\/a> Avni, Argentina and the Jews,<\/em> 114.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[18]<\/a> Abraham Zylberman, \u201cArgentina 1930\/1945: los a\u00f1os fundantes de una pol\u00edtica hacia el inmigrante jud\u00edo,\u201d in Indice: Argentina durante la Sho\u00e1<\/em>, ed. Mario Feferbaum (Buenos Aires: DAIA Centro de Estudios, 2007), 18.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[19]<\/a> Ibid., 19.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[20]<\/a> Avni, Argentina and the Jews, <\/em>121.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Movements Before 1930 by Sophie Elsner Jorge Luis Borges aptly wrote: \u201cThe Argentines are Italians who speak Spanish, educated by the British, who want to be French.\u201d[1] In this amalgamation of European cultures, where do the tens of thousands of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"parent":621,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"sidebar-page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-669","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/modernlatinamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/modernlatinamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/modernlatinamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/modernlatinamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/modernlatinamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/modernlatinamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/669\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/modernlatinamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/modernlatinamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}