EDUCATING ARGENTINE JEWS: SEPHARDIM and THEIR SCHOOLS, 1920S–1960S

CHAPTER TWO

EDUCATING ARGENTINE JEWS: SEPHARDIM AND THEIR SCHOOLS, 1920s–1960s

Adriana Brodsky

Starting in the 1890s and until the 1950s, Sephardic Jews settled in Buenos Aires and other provincial towns and cities in Argentina. Unlike Ashkenazic immigrants, Sephardim did not have support from inter- national immigrant organizations, and the migratory process was the result of family and group connections. In Buenos Aires, the various Sephardic groups settled in different neighborhoods: Moroccans in the Sud neighborhood; Ladino-speaking Jews in Villa Crespo, Downtown, Once, and Colegiales; and Arab-speaking Jews in Once, La Boca, and Flores. This last group, the largest numerically speaking, included both those originally from Aleppo and immigrants from Damascus. The distinction based on place of origin that Sephardic groups insisted on in Buenos Aires, however, was not preserved in the provinces, where there were fewer settlers (and fewer available resources). Provincial towns and capitals witnessed the creation of single Sephardic communities and cemeteries.1 Most Sephardic groups in Buenos Aires founded Talmudei Torah (schools) almost as soon as they created their main community organizations. Some of the communities included their educational objec- tives in their societies’ by-laws,2 and the names of the communal organizations evidenced their intentions of focusing on schools: for example, Sociedad Kahal Kadosh y Talmud Tora La Hermandad

1 There were, of course, some exceptions in cities with larger Sephardic popula- tions, like Rosario (Santa Fé) and Córdoba. For more information on settlement in the provinces, see Adriana Mariel Brodsky, “Re-conﬁgurando comunidades: Judíos sefaradíes/arabes in Argentine, 1900–1950,” in Arabes y judíos en Iberoamérica: Similitudes, diferencias y tensiones sobre el transfondo de las tres culturas, ed. Raanan Rein (Madrid: Fondo de las Tres culturas, 2008), 117–34. 2 See, e.g., Minute Book of the Congregación Israelita Latina de Buenos Aires, Acta 13 de Agosto 1913, by-laws approved in 1915; Agudat Dodim, article 3 of by- laws, 1935. 34 adriana brodsky

Sefaradí (Villa Crespo Ottoman Jews) and the Asociación Israelita Talmud Tora Sefaradim Yesod Hadath (Aleppine Jews in Once). In the provincial capitals, Sephardim also founded schools. The Sociedad Israelita Sefaradí Talmud Tora, for example, formed in 1921, gather- ing both Aleppine and Damascene Jews in the city of Córdoba.3 In Santa Fé, the Sociedad Israelita ‘Schalom Verehut,’ (sic), created in 1931 by Ottoman Jews, organized a Talmud Torah in 1933.4 Schools also opened in the cities of Salta, Rosario (Etz Ajaim), Catamarca, Corrientesm, and Posadas (Misiones). Efraim Zadoff, in his comprehensive survey of Jewish education in Argentina, defines these Talmudei Torah as attempts Jews made to retain their cultural specificities.5 In the face of an appealing (and free) universal educational system set up by the Argentine government, Zadoff reasoned, Jewish communities used these schools to avoid the loss of identity that could come from contact with one of the fundamentals of Argentine culture so engrained in its educational project: Roman Catholicism.6 Unlike other types of Jewish schools founded by other Argentine Jewish groups, Sephardim mostly focused their attention on Talmudei Torah, which almost exclusively, Zadoff argues, taught boys to read Hebrew and therefore to be fluent in saying prayers.7 Susana Bianchi, in her book Historia de las religiones en la Argentina: Las minorías religiosas, agrees with Zadoff ’s characterization of Sephardic educational institutions, defining them as “very close-knit” projects that allowed for “very little connection among the various Sephardic groups and no contact at all with Ashkenazim.”8 M. Fernanda Astiz, in a recent article on Jewish acculturation and education, also suggests that “Sephardim were largely apolitical . . . [and that therefore it was] easier for them to remain faithful to their communal traditions.”9

3 “Instituciones de Córdoba: Historiando su desarrollo,” Israel, 9, 16 July 1926, 4–5; Jacobo Rubin, Historia de la Comunidad Israelita Sefaradí de la provincia de Córdoba R.A., 1904–1973 (N.p., 1973), 5. All translations are my own. 4 Marcos Curzón, “Presencia judía en la ciudad de Santa Fé,” in III encuentro de historiadores: “Dra. Hebe Livi” (Santa Fé, 1999), 13. 5 Efraim Zadoff, Historia de la educación judía en Buenos Aires (1935–1957) (Buenos Aires: Mila, 1994), 54. 6 Ibid., 12. 7 Ibid., 54. 8 Susana Bianchi, Historia de las religiones en la Argentina: Las minorías religiosas (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 2004), 98. 9 M. Fernanda Astiz, “Jewish Acculturation: Identity, Society and Schooling: Bue- nos Aires, Argentina (1890–1930),” Journal of Jewish Identities 3, no. 1 (2010): 41–66, 50.