(Or, how a smattering of urbanites and cowboys weathered Nazi fugitives, a dirty war, two deadly bombings and an economic crisis worse than the Great Depression.)
by Sue Garson
Among my late mother's memoirs is a typed family history of haplessness, disaster, immigration, war, death, privation and renewal. Most of her relatives who left Biala, Lithuania, settled in Brooklyn, but her Tante Bella immigrated to Buenos Aires shortly after the turn of the century. According to my mother's memoirs, one evening toward the end of the Roaring Twenties, the doorbell rang and there appeared - unannounced and without warning - a live New Yorker caricature, zaftig and dimpled with rouged cheeks and a beady-eyed fox collar attached to a worn-out wool coat. In her hand was a valise filled with chocolates and on her shoulder was a squawking parrot muttering Yiddish insults punctuated frequently by a screeching "Gevalt!" "Bella had never before been mentioned and we hadn't heard from her since that unexpected visit," wrote my mother, "but what an impression she made!" My grandfather, who had proudly maintained lifelong feuds with his siblings, never again uttered his eccentric sister's name. Nevertheless, my mother was enchanted with that powerful image of proffered chocolates from faraway Argentina.
Tough cookies
Bella Lubelczyk's long journey from Biala to Buenos Aires mirrors the history of many of Argentina's Jews: like generations before her, she fled European persecution for the welcoming haven of Argentina, a country with the fifth-largest Jewish population in the world (only Israel, the U.S., Russia and France have larger). The Jews of Argentina have weathered such obstacles as Perón's Nazi-friendly government, the dirty wars of the '70s, the terrorist bombings of Jewish centers in the mid-'90s and the economic cataclysm of the early 21st century. Yet, despite these recurrent dark periods and subsequent waves of emigration, the Jewish community of Argentina - and Buenos Aires particularly - has an enviable vitality.
Buenos Aires is home to the world's only kosher McDonald's, more than 70 Jewish educational institutions, a 14-story Jewish cultural center and synagogue architecture that rivals New York City's. Whereas other once-vital Diaspora centers like Tunisia, Morocco and South Africa have seen their Jewish populations practically disappear, Argentina remains home to more than a quarter of a million Jews.
What is Argentina's secret? What has made the Chosen People choose it back?
Immigrants and gauchos
After expulsion from Spain in 1492, Conversos (secret Jews) settled in Argentina where they assimilated into the general population. When Argentina gained independence from Spain in 1810, its first president supported policies that promoted freedom of immigration. This atmosphere of tolerance encouraged a second wave of immigration in the mid-19th century; Jewish immigrants arrived from Western Europe, particularly from France. In 1860, the first Jewish wedding was recorded in Buenos Aires and a few years later a minyan met for the High Holy Day services. This minyan eventually became the Congregación Israelita de la Republica, known commonly as Libertad Synagogue due to its downtown location on Calle Libertad.
By the late 19th century, because of its open door policy, a third wave of immigrants fleeing poverty and pogroms in Russia and other Eastern European countries settled in Argentina. In 1889, 824 Russian Jews arrived in Argentina on the S.S. Weser and became gauchos. They bought land in the northern province of Entre Rios where they established an agricultural colony called Moiseville. The Jewish gauchos of Moiseville appealed for funding to one of the world's wealthiest men, Bavarian-born Baron Maurice de Hirsch (1831-1896). Sensing that Argentina was a promising site for Jews to assume new roles as farmers and craftsmen, de Hirsch founded the Jewish Colonization Association, which in its prime owned more than 600,000 hectacres of land.
Between 1906 and 1912, Jewish immigration increased at a rate of 13,000 annually. By 1920, more than 150,000 Jews were living in Argentina. Although most were Ashkenazi, Sephardim from Morocco and the Ottoman Empire, referred to as Turcos, also joined the steady influx.
Following the Russian Revolution, however, anti-revolutionary feelings developed into full-blown anti-Semitism against the Rusos, a code name for Russian Jews. Despite increasing xenophobia Jews became involved in most sectors of Argentine society except politics and the military, which had long traditions of anti-Semitism. Many became farmers, peddlers, artisans and shopkeepers.
Throughout its history, Jews have held a large stake in Argentina's fur, textile, chemical, electronics and auto industries. Both Banco Mercantil and Banco Comercial were founded by Jews.
Like the rest of the population, Jews were enthralled with tango. Some danced it; others sang the melodies with Yiddish words; they called it "Tangele." Others became tango composers and performers. Luis Rubenstein established a well-known tango academy. Cultural and religious organizations flourished and a Yiddish press and theater opened in Buenos Aires as well as a Jewish hospital, cemeteries, and a number of Zionist organizations. Heated debates between Zionists and Socialists enlivened the community and kept it from uniting.
Perón, the Nazis and terror
General Juan Perón rose to power in 1946, immediately after World War II. This powerful Nazi sympathizer with fascist leanings (tempered by a charismatic wife) halted Jewish immigration to Argentina, introduced Catholic religious instruction in public schools and created a sanctuary for such notorious Nazi fugitives as Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele. Paradoxically however, in 1949, Peron established diplomatic relations with Israel. Five years after Perón was overthrown, Israeli agents abducted Eichmann from a Buenos Aires suburb; his trial and subsequent execution in Jerusalem aroused further anti-Jewish sentiment in Argentina.
During the years of military rule (1976-1983), 10 percent of those Argentine citizens (mostly students, academics, psychiatrists and journalists) targeted for kidnapping and torture and who "disappeared" forever were Jewish, even though Jews comprised only one percent of the population. During the "Dirty War," an estimated 20,000-30,000 Jews left the country. When military power waned and democracy was restored, anti-Semitism declined and some Jews returned to Argentina.
Prominent Argentine Jews include the late immunologist and 1984 Nobel Prize-winner, Cesar Milstein, Grammy-winning composer Lalo Schiffrin, leftist writer Horacio Verbitsky, the late journalist and publisher Jacobo Timerman, pianist/conductor Daniel Barenboim and Giora Feidman, considered the world's greatest klezmer artist. Even the late writer Jorge Luis Borges, who featured Jewish themes in some of his poems, openly wondered about his Converso roots. And the late Renee Eppelbaum, widowed mother of three murdered children who co-founded the Madres del Plaza de Mayo and was the 1989 recipient of the prestigious Hadassah Henrietta Szold Award for her work in human rights, was also a Judia.
In 1992, a bomb blew up at the Israeli Embassy, killing 29; two years later, a terrorist drove a van full of explosives into the Association of Argentine Jewish Mutual Aid Society building. Eighty-six died. Investigations into the bombings have dragged on for years, with howls from the Jewish community that Argentinian prosecutors are dragging their feet. In any case, the bombings have left so many emotional scars that there are now guard shacks at the entrance to nearly every Jewish buildings. The Jewish community centers don't allow photographs and Jewish institutions quarantine foreign visitors' passports during their visits.
At the Libertad synagogue foreigners need official permission even to enter the building. (Even at the Kosher McDonald's, a guard prevented us from taking photos until we obtained permission from management.)
The worlds only kosher McDonald's
Argentina today is home to 250,000-300,000 Jews, the largest concentration of Jews in Latin America. They are predominantly native-born. Like their counterparts in the U.S., they are primarily monolingual; almost all speak Spanish rather than Ladino or Yiddish. And unlike their compadres in Mexico (and much like their counterparts in the U.S.), they are predominantly secular.
Although Jewish gauchos still live in Entre Rios, most of Argentina's Jews live in Buenos Aires. In Buenos Aires, evidence of vibrant Jewish life is visible nearly everywhere. Buenos Aires is home to one of only four daily Yiddish newspapers in the world as well as 50 Orthodox, 21 Conservative and a handful of Reform synagogues. In the Plaza de Congreso (home to both the Argentine congress and a tent city of homeless people), there are fleeting images of seltzer bottles, halvah and real estate billboards advertising properties for sale by Goldstein and Levensohn. Occasionally, klezmer buskers perform outside a multiplex cinema in tony Recoleta, two blocks from where Evita Peron lies buried. Even the casas de cambios (money exchanges) are closed for Rosh Hashanah.
But the epicenter of Jewish life in Argentina is in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Once ("Eleven"). Once (pronounced "OHN-say") suggests the Lower East Side in its hey day, with its miles of schlock stores, kosher eateries and jewelry and watch shops. In the middle of the sector is the dazzling multi-level Abastos Mall, replete with mezuzot on the main doorways. Formerly the site of the city's municipal produce and meat market, the George Soros-financed mall is home to multiplex cinemas, trendy shops, a children's museum and two kosher eateries.
Shefa serves a mediocre potato knish, falafel and hummus. But next door you can get the world's only kosher Big Mac (minus the cheese, of course). According to Hannah, its young Chassidic manager, the McDonald's in Jerusalem uses kosher meat but is not under strict rabbinical supervision like this one in Buenos Aires. "Straight from airport they take taxis here," said Hannah, "because there's no other place in the world like this." The scene on Saturdays after sundown is a crowded spectacle of Orthodoxy in full plumage downing burgers and fries in lieu of chicken soup and brisket.
Community in crisis
Early in the 20th Century, Argentina was the world's fourth wealthiest economy, but since 1975, the economy has steadily deteriorated. In '75, two million of the nation's 22 million citizens lived below the poverty line; today 20 million out of 36 million earn less than the poverty level of $80 a month.
The current economic crisis began in December 2001, when the Argentine government defaulted on a $130 billion from the U.S. In the ensuing chaos, the currency was devalued, 27 people were killed in street protests and there were five presidents in 12 days.
Particularly hard hit were the middle classes. Mortgages are unavailable, some banks and shops are boarded up and the Jewish middle classes are unable to pay tuition fees to local Jewish institutions that now face declining membership and budgets.
Some 60,000 Argentine Jews are estimated to live below the poverty line. The middle class is the new poor; many have reduced consumption, look for cheaper brands, leave bills unpaid and some actually sell their own personal clothing and furniture in order to scrape by.
According to the Joint Distribution Committee, 36,533 Jews are currently receiving social services from the JDC's social welfare system, compared to 4,000 Jews receiving some kind of social aid in 2000.
Jewish soup kitchens are operating throughout the city. Jewish agencies provide basic sustenance, housing, employment, retraining, medical needs and schooling. Non-profit pharmacies currently fill more than 10,000 prescriptions a month for those who cannot afford needed medicines. Since its inception two years ago, the Ariel Job Centre has helped 448 people find jobs (out of nearly 6,000 resumes) and helped start 104 new businesses (with 266 new businesses in development).
In 2002, Jewish Argentines left for Israel in droves. According to the JDC, 6,200 made aliyah that year. "But this year there have been less than 1,000, and most Jews are staying in Argentina," says William Recant, desk director of the JDC for Latin America. "There's optimism, but getting out of an economic crisis of this magnitude will take years of fiscal discipline."
The Jews who have stayed remain resilient. Artist Mirta Ostroff and her husband Julio sell their handcrafted leather masks to tourists for dollars. Tourists are everywhere and sales are up. If conditions continue to improve, Mirta and her sister Beatriz Carpovich will visit their cousins in San Diego in 2005.
Alberto Epstein, an impeccably well-dressed private driver, used to work with ORT and other Jewish organizations that procured money for victims of the bombings of the '90s. He recently gave it up to earn more money driving a taxi. His wife works for a travel agency. (The devalued peso has led to a boom in tourism.)
Recently, the economy has shown small signs of recovery. After more than four years of recession, the International Monetary Fund and the government project 4 percent growth this year. Inflation is expected to reach "only" 16 percent this year compared with 41 percent in 2002. The unemployment rate is slightly reduced. There is a glimmer of light.
Paradox of Jewish survival
Despite the economic deprivation and security threats, Argentina's Jews remain. Paradoxically, the source of their resilience may be what is traditionally considered a weakness: assimilation and intermarriage. These Argentines are deeply attached to the culture, language, art, music, food and lifestyle of mainstream Argentina.
Assimilated into every industry and every level of Argentine society, the Jews of Argentina cannot simply pick up and move the way the isolated communities of Ethiopia, Eastern Europe and northern Africa have done. Their bonds to secular Argentine society are too strong, their roots too deep.
And their presence is too visible. Even with the Buenos Aires population hovering near 13 million, the Jewish presence is unavoidable. In Buenos Aires, streetsigns are topped by ads for "shalomchat.com." Tune into 96.3 FM and you'll hear Chai, a 24-hour Jewish radio station. How many American cities can make those claims?
Ultimately the reason for Jewish perseverance in Argentina may be as mystifying as the logic behind historical Jewish survival. As we walked the streets of Buenos Aires during Rosh Hashanah, we heard the blast of the shofar in the distance. It was the sound of an ancient people making their presence known in a modern, tumultuous world.
For feedback, contact editor@sdjewishjournal.com.