Buenos Aires and the unknown historical past of the Jews of Argentina | EUROtoday

On Apr 19, 2025

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L’Argentina has its Woody Allen. As New York has its American humorist, Buenos Aires has his Daniel Burman. The director usually offers in his comedies of Jewish identification by strolling together with his digital camera the district of Once [voir Le Fils d’Elias et El Rey del Once, NDLR]. His subsequent characteristic movie on two brothers, which is launched on May 14 in France, even addresses the topic of the Transgender with this provocative title: Transmitzvah. The Argentine capital now homes some of the essential Jewish communities on this planet exterior Israel. There are round 200,000 Jews in Buenos Aires, which is actually one of many largest city communities, after these in New York, Los Angeles or Miami.

Read too In Buenos Aires, how the “milei boys” torpedo the paperwork

This important presence has deeply marked the city, cultural and political panorama of the nation. It is the fruit of a protracted migratory story, tells the sociologist Sébastien Tank-Storper in his guide Jews of Argentina. A narrative of justice*. Known for its wholesale shops, the Once district is the historic heart of the Jewish presence within the Argentine capital. By surveying its streets, we uncover “synagogues but also Jewish schools, sports clubs, study centers, kosher restaurants, bookstores that testified to a lively and creative Jewish presence”, writes Sébastien Tank-Storper, director of analysis on the CNRS.

In the 1900s, the realm concentrated nearly 60 % of the town’s Jewish inhabitants. Today it stays an emblematic place regardless of its progressive dispersion in direction of different sectors of Buenos Aires. Once retains its symbolic centrality: “Jewish youngsters from all around the metropolis are educated in its colleges, households proceed to attend its synagogues, the general public continues to attend the conferences. “As the author summarizes,” being Jewish in Buenos Aires is, for the overwhelming majority, to cope with at the very least as soon as in his life with the Barrio Once. »»

The arrival of the Weser steam

Jewish immigration to Argentina actually started in 1889, with the arrival of the Weser vapor, transporting round 1,000 Jews from Eastern Europe who flee the pogroms. This date marks the start of a steady stream which is able to cross the Jewish inhabitants from 1,500 to 10,000 in 1895, then to 100,000 on the eve of the First World War and greater than 200,000 within the late Nineteen Twenties. Jewish immigrants transited via the Hôtel des Immigrants, “a long white building located not far from the quays which still keeps the memory and the tangible trace of these hundreds of men and women who have transited there”. Some joined the agricultural colonies based by Baron Bavarois Maurice de Hirsch within the provinces of Santa Fe and between Rios, like Moisés Ville (Kiryat Moshe, “City of Moses” in Hebrew), whereas the bulk settled in Buenos Aires.

Argentina is a fertile and welcoming land and it opens their arms to them. Immigration is then a part of the Argentinian coverage summarized by the motto “Gobernar es poblar” (“governing, it is popular”), which inspires the arrival of Europeans to develop the nation. The Constitution of 1853 grants equal rights to all inhabitants with out distinction of nationality, and the Avellaneda regulation of 1876 facilitates the set up of immigrants.

Amia’s trauma

However, anti -Semitism marked the historical past of the Jews of Argentina, taking completely different types in line with the eras. From the 1910s, and notably after the 1930 coup inaugurating the “infamous decade”, developed an anti -Semitism mixing “conservative Catholicism, nationalism and anti -communism, making Jews of the enemy cosmopolitan Bolsheviks of the Argentinian nation”. In 1935, confronted with the rise of anti -Semitism, the DAIA (Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas) was based to defend the pursuits of the Jewish neighborhood. In 1960, the seize of Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires by Mossad brought on a diplomatic disaster and reprisals towards the Jews of Argentina. During the navy dictatorship (1976-1983), the Jews have been overrepresented among the many 30,000 victims of the repression, testifying to a “certain anti-Semitism of State”.

But the deepest trauma for the Argentine Jewish neighborhood stays the assault on the AMIA (Argentine Israelite Mutual Association) on July 18, 1994, which left 85 useless and 240 injured. This occasion, preceded by the assault on the Embassy of Israel on March 17, 1992 (29 useless, 242 wounded), constitutes “the bloodiest terrorist attack in Argentine history” and “the most deadly anti-Semitic attack since the Second World War outside of Israel”, recollects Tank-Storper.

The explosion destroyed the siege of AMIA, a six -story constructing which housed many of the neighborhood establishments: the funeral firm which manages the Jewish cemeteries of the town, the VAAD Hajinuj (the community of Jewish colleges), the archives and the documentation heart. As Tank-Storper writes, “with this attack, it was in a way the Jewish community which had been beheaded”.

The very suspicious dying of Nisman

Thirty years later, the investigation stays unresolved. In 2015, the case skilled a dramatic twist with the mysterious dying of the prosecutor Alberto Nisman, discovered with a bullet within the head at his residence. Nisman was getting ready to current to the Argentinian Congress a report accusing President Cristina Kirchner of getting concluded a secret pact with Iran to stifle the investigation into the AMIA assault. Did he commit suicide? Has it been murdered? His mourning provides a brand new layer of opacity to this nationwide tragedy … Despite accusations geared toward Iran and Hezbollah, “no fact is legally established and there is nothing to think that those responsible may one day be judged”. Only a judgment of the Court of Cassation of April 12, 2024 establishes the accountability of Iran, with out formally figuring out these accountable. The AMIA assault nonetheless represents “the symbol of the incompetence and corruption of justice and the various Argentinian political parties today,” notes the creator.

He propelled the “Jewish question” on the coronary heart of nationwide political points. The failures of the investigation have created “extremely fertile land for the proliferation of multiple stories” and helped to politicize the place of Jews in Argentine society.

From 2015, a number of actors from the Jewish neighborhood entered politics whereas remaining concerned within the lifetime of Jewish establishments. Some have turn out to be ministers, “not despite being Jewish but as a Jews”. Formerly marginalized, these Jews of Argentina have turn out to be “central actors” of the State.

Javier Milei’s conversion

More just lately, the election, in 2023, of President Javier Milei, who shows “a real fascination for Judaism” regardless of his Catholic origins, illustrates this transformation. His “symbiosis between an orthodox Judaism mixed with messianism and an extreme right ideology”, in line with Tank-Storper, constitutes an unprecedented phenomenon which testifies to political recompositions at work in Argentina. The head of state doesn’t disguise his want to convert to Judaism when he has completed his mandate.

Read too Argentina: from Pope Francis to Judaism, the spiritual wanderings of Javier MileiOver the a long time, the Jews have considerably contributed to the financial and cultural lifetime of Argentina. Initially concentrated within the craftsmen or clothes vendor, they steadily turned to commerce and trade, then to the liberal professions. In 1980, “40 % of Jewish men and 8 % of women were part of the higher categories”, a proportion a lot higher than the nationwide common, particulars the creator of Jews of Argentina.

To uncover

The kangaroo of the day

Answer

On the cultural stage, the Jews actively participated within the argentization of their identification whereas enriching nationwide tradition. The instance of tango is especially revealing: figures like Max Glucksmann, pioneer of Argentinian cinema and first phonographic writer of Tango discs, or Ben Molar, producer and composer introduced because the “real symbol of the door”, helped make tango the very essence of the Argentinian soul. Just just like the comedies of filmmaker Daniel Burman…

* Jews of Argentina. A narrative of justice by Sébastien Tank-Storper, ed. Calmann-Lévy, Diaspora assortment, to be revealed on April 23.

https://www.lepoint.fr/monde/buenos-aires-et-l-histoire-meconnue-des-juifs-d-argentine-19-04-2025-2587738_24.php