The New Jewish Argentina: Facets of Jewish Experiences in the Southern Cone

414 Pages·2012·7.13 MB·English

by  Adriana Brodsky

The New Jewish Argentina
Jewish Latin America
Issues and Methods
Edited by
Raanan Rein (Tel Aviv University)
Editorial Board
Edna Aizenberg (Marymount Manhattan College)
Judah Cohen (Indiana University)
Luis Roniger (Wake Forest University)
David Sheinin (Trent University)
Rosalie Sitman (Tel Aviv University)
VoLUME 2
LEIDEN • boSToN
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/jlam 2013
The New Jewish Argentina
Facets of Jewish Experiences in the Southern Cone
Edited by
Adriana brodsky and Raanan Rein
LEIDEN • boSToN
2013
Cover illustration: Don Jacobo en la Argentina, Crítica, 9 october, 1940
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The new Jewish Argentina : facets of Jewish experiences in the Southern cone / edited by Adriana
brodsky and Raanan Rein.
  p. cm. — (Jewish Latin America ; 2)
 Includes index.
 ISbN 978-90-04-23346-1 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISbN 978-90-04-23728-5 (e-book)
1. Jews—Argentina—History. 2. Jews—Argentina—Identity. 3. Jews—Argentina—Intellectual
life. 4. Jews—Argentina—Social life and customs. 5. Jews—Cultural assimilation—Argentina. 6.
Argentina—Ethnic relations. I. brodsky, Adriana Mariel, 1967– II. Rein, Raanan, 1960–
 F3021.J5N49 2012
 982’.0004924—dc23
2012028034
This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters
covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the
humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface.
ISSN 2211-0968
ISbN 978-90-04-23346-1 (hardback)
ISbN 978-90-04-23728-5 (e-book)
Copyright 2013 by Koninklijke brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke brill NV incorporates the imprints brill, Global oriental, Hotei Publishing,
IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.
Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke brill NV
provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center,
222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA.
Fees are subject to change.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
CoNTENTS
List of Tables, Maps, and Figures  ............................................................... vii
Acknowledgment  ............................................................................................ ix
List of Contributors  ........................................................................................ xi
Introduction  ..................................................................................................... 1
 Raanan Rein and Adriana Brodsky
Chapter one The Jewish Experience in Argentina in a Diasporic
 Comparative Perspective  ......................................................................... 7
 José C. Moya
Chapter Two From Textile Thieves to “Supposed Seamstresses”:
 Jews, Crime, and Urban Identities in buenos Aires, 1905–1930  ... 31
 Mollie Lewis Nouwen
Chapter Three Uprooting the Seeds of Evil: Ezras Noschim and
 Jewish Marriage Regulation, Morality Certificates, and
 Degenerate Prostitute Mothers in 1930s buenos Aires  .................. 55
 Mir Yarfitz
Chapter Four Print Culture and Urban Geography: Jewish
 bookstores, Libraries and Printers in buenos Aires, 1910–1960  ..... 81
 Alejandro Dujovne
Chapter Five “Don Jacobo en la Argentina” battles the
 Nacionalistas: Crítica, the Funny Pages, and Jews as a Liberal
 Discourse (1929–1932)  ............................................................................... 109
 Ariel Svarch
Chapter Six The “other” Gerchunoff and the Visual
 Representation of the Shoah  .................................................................. 131
 Edna Aizenberg
Chapter Seven An Argentine Experience? borges, Judaism, and
 the Holocaust  .............................................................................................. 147
 Federico Finchelstein
vi contents
Chapter Eight Electing ‘Miss Sefaradí ’, and ‘Queen Esther’:
 Sephardim, Zionism, and Ethnic and National Identities in
 Argentina, 1933–1971  .................................................................................. 179
 Adriana Brodsky
Chapter Nine Politically Incorrect: César Tiempo and the
 Editorial Staff of the Cultural Supplement of La Prensa  ............... 213
 Raanan Rein
Chapter Ten Generation and Innovation in the Rise of an
 Argentine-Jewish Community, 1960–1967  ........................................... 235
 Beatrice D. Gurwitz
Chapter Eleven Reading Kissinger’s Avatars: Cold War
 Pragmatism in Argentina’s Middle East Policy ................................. 263
 David M. K. Sheinin
Chapter Twelve “Memories that Lie a Little.” New Approaches to
 the Research into the Jewish Experience during the Last
 Military Dictatorship in Argentina  ....................................................... 293
 Emmanuel Nicolás Kahan
Chapter Thirteen Child Survivors of the Shoa: Testimony,
 Citizenship, and Survival in Jewish buenos Aires  ........................... 315
 Natasha Zaretsky
Chapter Fourteen body and Soul: Therapeutic Dimensions of
 Jewish Ultra-orthodoxy in Neoliberal Argentina  ............................ 341
 Shari Jacobson
Chapter Fifteen The other becomes Mainstream: Jews in
 Contemporary Argentine Cinema  ........................................................ 365
 Tzvi Tal
Index  ................................................................................................................... 393
LIST oF TAbLES, MAPS, AND FIGURES
Table 1. Jewish Residential Segregation  .................................................. 18
Table 2. bookstores specializing in Jewish subjects  ............................ 84
Table 3. Printers of buenos Aires that published books in Yiddish  98
Map 1. Area of concentration of Jewish printing presses,
bookstores and publishers in the City of buenos Aires,
1910–1980  ....................................................................................................... 103
Map 2. Focus on the area of concentration of Jewish printed
word agents, 1910–1980  ............................................................................. 103
Figure 1. “Don Jacobo en la Argentina”, Crítica, September 2nd,
1929  ................................................................................................................. 116
Figure 2. Don Jacobo en la Argentina”, Crítica, physical
characteristics A  ......................................................................................... 120
Figure 3. Don Jacobo en la Argentina”, Crítica, physical
characteristics b  ......................................................................................... 120
Figure 4. “Don Jacobo en la Argentina”, Crítica, September 19th,
1929  ................................................................................................................. 122
Figure 5. “Don Jacobo en la Argentina”, Crítica, September 28th,
1929  ................................................................................................................. 123
Figure 6. “Don Jacobo en la Argentina”, Crítica, December 26th,
1929  ................................................................................................................. 123
Figure 7. “Don Jacobo en la Argentina”, Crítica, December 20th,
1929  ................................................................................................................. 124
Figure 8. “Don Jacobo en la Argentina”, Crítica, November 25th,
1929  ................................................................................................................. 125
Figure 9. “Don Jacobo en la Argentina”, Crítica, December 24th,
1929  ................................................................................................................. 126
Figure 10. “Quién es quién” [Who is Who] Clément Moreau  .......... 134
Figure 11. “Navidad en Europa” [Christmas in Europe] Clément
Moreau, 24 December 1942  ..................................................................... 137
Figure 12. “Fin de año,” [New Year's Eve], Clément Moreau,
28 December 1944  ...................................................................................... 140
Figure 13. “El saldo del Nuevo orden” [The balance of the New
order], Clement Moreau, 24 May 1945  ............................................... 142
viii list of tables, maps, and figures
Figure 14. La Jalutzá, buenos Aires 1944  ................................................. 193
Figure 15. Queen Esther, Tel Aviv, 1928  .................................................. 195
Figure 16. Candidate to the Reina Esther title, buenos Aires, 1946  196
Figure 17. Candidate to the Reina Esther title, buenos Aires, 1946  197
Figure 18. Magazine Israel, July 5–12, 1929  ............................................. 199
Figure 19. Reina del Trabajo crowned by Eva Perón, 1949  ................ 200
Figure 20. Candidates for Miss Sefaradí/Queen Esther, 1960  ........... 207
Figure 21. Queen Esther and Miss Sefaradí, 1973  ................................. 208
ACKNoWLEDGMENT
The publication of this volume was made possible thanks to the generous
support of the Elías Sourasky Chair of Iberian and Latin American Studies
and the S. Daniel Abraham Center for International and Regional Studies,
both at Tel Aviv University.
An earlier version of Adriana brodsky’s article was published in the
journal Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe, Vol. 23,
No. 1 (2012), and an earlier version of Raanan Rein’s essay was published
in Yiddish/ Modern Jewish Studies, Vol. 17, Nos. 1–2 (2011). We would like
to thank the editors of these journals for the permission to publish these
texts.
We would also like to thank Maayan Pasamanik for her assistance and
to the people at brill, especially to Katelyn Chin and Karen S. Cullen, for
their efficiency and dedication.
Lastly, we wish to dedicate this volume to our kids, David, Leah, omer,
and Noa. Their sense of being Argentine while living in the U.S and
Israel reminds us of the many layers of identity that make us human in
today’s world.