Essays on Ethnicity, Identity, and Diaspora Jewish Identities in a Changing World

Argentine Jews or Jewish Argentines? Essays on Ethnicity, Identity, and Diaspora Jewish Identities in a Changing World

General Editors Eliezer Ben-Rafael, Yosef Gorny, and Judit Bokser Liwerant

VOLUME 12 Argentine Jews or Jewish Argentines? Essays on Ethnicity, Identity, and Diaspora

By Raanan Rein

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2010 This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rein, Raanan, 1960- Argentine Jews or Jewish Argentines? : essays on ethnicity, identity, and diaspora / Raanan Rein. — 1st. ed. p. cm. — ( Jewish identities in a changing world) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-17913-4 (hard cover : alk. paper) 1. Jews—Argentina—Identity. 2. Jews—Argentina—Attitudes. 3. Jews, Argentine—Israel—Attitudes. 4. Argentina— Ethnic relations. 5. Argentina—Politics and government—20th century. 6. Argentina—Politics and government—20th century—Press coverage—Israel. I. Title. II. Series.

F3021.J5R38 2010 982’.004924—dc22

2009033578

ISSN 1570-7997 ISBN 978 90 04 17913 4

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 Brill 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. printed in the netherlands For my parents, Nehama and Shlomo, on their 60th wedding anniversary

To the memory of Jacobo Kovadloff, both an Argentine Jew and a Jewish Argentine, whose trajectory has been a source of inspiration to many of us

CONTENTS

Preface and Acknowledgements ...... ix

Chapter One Ethnicity and Diaspora in Twentieth-Century Latin America: The Jewish Case ...... 1

Chapter Two Searching for Home Abroad: Jews in Argentina and Argentines in Israel ...... 21

Chapter Three Complementary Identities: Sephardim, Zionists, and Argentines in the Interwar Period ...... 47

Chapter Four Argentina, World War II, and the Entry of Nazi War Criminals ...... 67

Chapter Five Nationalism, Education, and Identity: Argentine Jews and Catholic Religious Instruction ...... 89

Chapter Six Diplomats and Journalists: The Image of Peronism in the Hebrew Press ...... 103

Chapter Seven A Pact of Oblivion: The De-Peronization of the Jewish Community ...... 133

Chapter Eight Argentine Jews and the Accusation of ‘Dual Loyalty’ ...... 169

Chapter Nine Perón’s Return to Power as Reﬂ ected in the Israeli Press ...... 195

Chapter Ten Soccer as a Double-Edged Weapon: Argentine Exiles in Israel Protest against the 1978 World Cup ...... 227

Bibliography ...... 253 Index ...... 275

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A couple of years ago, I attended a Bar Mitzvah ceremony in a Reform community in Tel Aviv led by Israeli-Argentine actor Esteban Gottfried, the main character in a movie on Argentine immigrants in Israel that was screened on commercial television. While Gottfried spoke in Hebrew, with only a slight Spanish accent, most members of this community are Argentines, and the Torah scroll they use was donated to them by the Bet-El community of Buenos Aires. When the ceremony ended and most of the participants moved to the adjoining room for Kiddush, Gottfried and the pianist sang, now in Spanish, ‘El día que me quieras’ (The Day You Love Me), one of Carlos Gardel’s most famous tangos. A few years earlier, I happened to be in Buenos Aires during Pessach (the Passover holiday). I was invited to a seder meal at the home of Yume and Raquel, my wife’s cousins. Gathered around the table were Jews and non-Jews, Ashkenazim and Sephardim. The various platters that were placed before us offered a combination of delicacies from the East-European Jewish kitchen and typical Argentine dishes, foods that were kosher for Pessach side by side with non-kosher fare. Throughout the meal, in the background, the television set broadcast an important football match. From time to time, several of the guests, mostly (but not only) men, stole glances in the direction of the screen in order to at least keep up with the score. At one point someone asked how Atlanta, the football club from the Jewish neighborhood of Villa Crespo, was doing and whether the team had won its last game. Between the compote and the coffee, some of the family members tried to sing one of the holiday songs in broken Hebrew, at the same time that the sound of drums from the local branch of the Peronist party began to be heard, followed by the chant of Peronist hymns: Perón, Perón, qué grande sos/ mi general cuánto valés/ Perón, Perón, Gran Conductor/ sos el primer trabajador . . . (Perón, Perón, how great you are!/ My general, how we admire you!/ Perón, Perón, Great Leader / You’re worker number one!). These two anecdotes illustrate the central issues that appear, in one way or another, in all the essays included in this volume: namely, the mosaic of identities that characterize both Jews in Argentina and those Jewish Argentines who have “made aliyah” (relocated) to Israel. x preface and acknowledgments

The Jewish community of Argentina has been a secular one for most of the modern period. The recent surge of religious Jewish movements in Latin America has produced, among other results, a dramatic change in the leadership of Argentina’s organized Jewish community.1 In mid-2008, for the fi rst time in its history, the members of AMIA, an organization representing the formal Jewish community of Argen- tina, elected an orthodox Jew as president. Soon after taking offi ce, the new president, Guillermo Borger, provoked a controversy in the local community. Born in Germany, Borger had arrived in Argentina at the age of three, together with his Holocaust-survivor parents. A day after his election as president of AMIA, Borger went to Israel for the wedding of one of his nieces, and took advantage of this visit to meet with Israeli religious leaders. While in Israel, he was interviewed by the most popular Argentine daily, Clarín, and declared that under his leadership, “we are going to strengthen AMIA’s role as the representative of genuine Jews.”2 Asked what he meant by “a genuine Jew,” he answered: “It means that your life is entirely based on the dictates of the Torah, our sacred book.” In reply to a question concerning the Jewishness of the secular Jewish schools in Argentina, Borger declared, “it is a paradox that they should call themselves Jewish when they are not religiously observant.” Several days earlier, Rabbi Samuel Levin, a leading fi gure among Orthodox Jews in Argentina and reputedly a spiritual mentor of the new president of the AMIA, told another Buenos Aires daily, “you will see that even today, if we lived according to the Biblical system of 3000 years ago, everything would be fi ne, everything would work out.”3

1 On the surge of religious movements in Latin America’s three largest Jewish communities (Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico), among Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews alike, see for example, Marta F. Topel, Jerusalem and Sao Paulo: The New Jewish Orthodoxy in Focus (Lanham, Md., 2008); idem, “Brooklyn y Jerusalén en un país tropical: Cómo modiﬁ có la ‘Jazará Beteshuvá’ la identidad de los judíos paulistas” (paper delivered at the international conference Latin American Jewry in a Changing Context: 1967–2007, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2007); Shari Seider, “Looking Forward to the Past: The Ultra-Orthodox Community of Buenos Aires, Argentina” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1999); Shari Jacobson, “Modernity, Conservative Religious Movements and the Female Subject: Newly Ultraorthodox Sephardi Women in Buenos Aires,” American Anthropologist 108, no. 2 (2006): 336–346; Batia Siebzehner, “Changing Customs and Boundaries in Sephardic Jewry: The Expansion of the Shas Movement among the Syrian Communities of Latin America” (paper delivered at the international conference on Syrian Judaism and its Diaspora in the Americas, Mexico City, September 2008). 2 Clarín, 7 June 2008. 3 Crítica, 27 May 2008. preface and acknowledgments xi

Needless to say, these remarks caused an uproar among many Jewish Argentines, who were incensed that someone might question the Jewish- ness of such prestigious schools as Tarbut or Ort of Buenos Aires. In a typical comment, a middle-aged Jewish Argentine said: I am Jewish, I want to be Jewish, I know that I am Jewish, and, most importantly, I am proud to be Jewish. But I am not religious. I am not a believer. Does it mean, then, according to what these gentlemen say, that I am not a genuine Jew? This person, who preferred to remain anonymous, proceeded to recount the history of his Jewish family in Poland from 1811 onward and their immigration to Argentina in 1923, subsequently repeating the question, “and I am not a genuine Jew?” The essays in this volume are devoted to Jewish Argentines in the twentieth century, and deliberately avoid restrictive or prescriptive defi nitions of Jews and Judaism. Instead, they focus on people whose identities include a Jewish component, irrespective of social class and gender and regardless of whether they are religious or secular, Ash- kenazi or Sephardic, or affi liated with the organized Jewish community. Only when all these aspects are taken into consideration—and so far research has ignored most of them—we might arrive at a better understanding of the Jewish experience in Argentina. Since this collection of essays refl ects, in part, changes that are currently taking place in Latin American studies in Israeli academia, a brief overview of these transformations might be appropriate at this point.

Tensions between the National and the TransNational: Latin American Studies in Israel

Any survey of the current state of Latin American Jewish and non- Jewish studies in Israel reveals two notable phenomena. The ﬁ rst one, which I welcome, is that traditional Latin American Jewish studies, with their ideological and Zionist bias, are in decline. True, important research is being conducted by a handful of members of AMILAT (Asociación Israelí de Investigadores del Judaísmo Latinoamericano), who tirelessly invest time and effort in organizing events and publishing works related to Latin American Jewry. Worthy of mention in this respect are the AMILAT-sponsored sessions devoted to Latin xii preface and acknowledgments

America’s Jewish communities at the meetings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies, and the publication of a selection of the papers in its Judaica Latinoamericana series.4 Nevertheless, the publication of Essays in Honor of Haim Avni a few years ago would appear to signal the end of an era.5 Since Avni’s retirement, there has not been a single tenured professor at any Israeli university who devotes him- or herself exclusively to teaching and researching the Jewish experience in Latin America. This is a refl ection of the scant institutional backing for this area of study. While it is a fact that several members of the Latin American Jewish Stud- ies Association (LAJSA) teach courses on Latin American Jewry in Israeli academic institutions, primarily the Hebrew University of Jeru- salem, such courses are usually conducted by adjunct professors, on a temporary basis.6 Such a decline in the relative importance of Latin American Jewish studies warrants an explanation, which I will address below. The second phenomenon, which I fi nd even more encouraging, is the fact that general Latin American studies in Israeli universities are enjoying a boom that is likely to have a strong positive impact on the development of this academic fi eld and give new impetus to Latin American Jewish studies as well. It seems that this momentum is, at least in part, due to a shift towards Tel Aviv University as the new center of gravity for teaching and research in these areas. This is not the result of any specifi c plan on the part of the university authorities, but rather a consequence of local and personal initiatives. When Haim Avni and Yoram Shapira published their article on Latin American studies teaching and research in Israel in the Latin American Research Review some 35 years ago, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem was the only major center for these activities.7 Nowadays, the picture is completely different and Tel Aviv University has assumed the leading role in this fi eld. The importance of Latin American studies for the development of Latin American Jewish studies lies, as the title of a recent essay of mine

4 Volume 5 of Judaica Latinoamericana was published in Jerusalem in 2005. 5 Margalit Bejarano et al., eds., Latin American Jewry: Essays in Honor of Haim Avni ( Jerusalem, 2001). 6 For the origins and establishment of LAJSA in 1982, see Judith Laikin Elkin, ed., Resources for Latin American Jewish Studies: Proceedings of the First Research Conference of the Latin American Jewish Studies Association, October 30-November 1, 1982 (Cincinnati, 1984). 7 See Haim Avni and Yoram Shapira, “Teaching and Research on Latin America in Israel,” Latin American Research Review 9, no. 3 (1974): 39–51. preface and acknowledgments xiii suggests, in the contribution of the former to the de-essentialization of the latter.8 Generally speaking, current Jewish historiography is often characterized by its essentialism. To ‘essentialize’ means to impute a fundamental and absolutely necessary constitutive quality to a person, a social category, an ethnic group, a religious community or a nation. Essentialism, then, denotes any form of analysis which disregards the relational aspects of group culture or identity, and focuses, instead, on the subject itself as an autonomous, separate and internally coherent entity, unfragmented, and untouched by external forces.9 Essentializ- ing inevitably becomes a representation that distorts and disguises the characteristics of the social or ethnic group in question, and tends to silence internal inconsistencies. Homi K. Bhabha’s deconstruction of the ‘nation’ as an act of ‘narration’ reveals the way in which essentialist understandings of the nation falsely presuppose a timeless continuity and an organic unity, at the same time that they assume internal sameness and external difference or otherness.10 In this way, essentialism guarantees the comfort of social belonging and the power of political afﬁ liation, stressing the emotional power of distinctive cultures to deﬁ ne experience through strong, ‘taken-for-granted’ sentimental and cultural bonds. Self-essentializing, as a rhetorical device, becomes part and parcel of imagined communities, turning them into ‘moral’ or ‘religious’ superior entities that, on a political level, represent the total displacement and devalu- ation of the ‘other.’11 As a strategy, it can be easily manipulated to mobilize groups into action whenever there is competition for ter ritory, resources, political power, prestige, or ideological legitimization. One of the distinguishing features of the new approaches to Latin American Jewish studies is the effort to challenge the essentialism that character- izes so many studies of the Jewish experience on this continent.12

8 Raanan Rein, “Waning Essentialism: Latin American Jewish Studies in Israel,” in Identities in an Era of Globalization and Multiculturalism: Latin America in the Jewish World, ed. Judit Bokser Liwerant, Eliezer Ben-Rafael, Yossi Gorny, and Raanan Rein (Leiden, 2008), 109–124. 9 See Pnina Webner, “Essentialising Essentialism, Essentialising Silence: Ambiva- lence and Multiplicity in the Construction of Racism and Ethnicity,” in Debating Cul- tural Hybridity: Multi-Cultural Identities and the Politics of Anti-Racism, ed. Pnina Webner and Tariq Modood (London, 1997), 226–256. 10 Homi K. Bhabha, introduction to Nation and Narration (London, 1990), 1–7. 11 Edward W. Said, Orientalism (London, 1978), 22. 12 See, for example, the special issue on “The Jewish Diaspora of Latin Amer- ica,” Shofar 19, no. 3 (2001), guest-edited by Nelson Viera; and the special issue on “Gender, Ethnicity, and Politics: Latin American Jewry Revisited,” Jewish History 18, no. 1 (2004), guest-edited by Raanan Rein. xiv preface and acknowledgments

The new dynamism of Latin American studies in Israel in general, and at Tel Aviv University in particular, manifests itself in various ways—fi rst and foremost, in the publication of an internationally recognized journal devoted to modern Latin America, Estudios Interdisci- plinarios de América Latina y el Caribe (known by its acronym, EIAL). Its electronic edition, launched in February 2001, enjoys tremendous success,13 with well over one million requests for pages each year. To this should be added the publication of a new series of books in Hebrew on Latin American topics, Iberoamérica (nine books have been published and the tenth is already in preparation). These initiatives are complemented by the organization of a wide variety of conferences, international colloquia and similar academic events. The most important to date was the Ninth Congress of the FIEALC (Federación Internacional de Estudios de América Latina y el Caribe), which took place at Tel Aviv University in April 1999 under the title “The Mediterranean and Latin America.” More than 400 researchers from all over the world participated in this conference, in the course of which Professor Tzvi Medin was elected president of the FIEALC for a period of two years.14 A decade later, in July 2009, the Latin American Jewish Studies Association (LAJSA, founded in 1982) held its international research conference in Israel for the fi rst time in its history. Signifi cantly, Tel Aviv University was chosen as the venue for this event, while the author of this book was elected co-president of the Association. Impressed by the success of the FIEALC Congress, the authorities of Tel Aviv University established the Institute for Latin American History and Culture that same year. Nine years later, in 2008, the Institute was given additional funds, and it now bears the name of a Jewish-Mexican family (Sverdlin). The development of Latin Ameri- can studies at Tel Aviv University encouraged another Jewish-Mexican family to announce, a few months later, its intention of establishing a center at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for the research of the Jewish experience in Latin America.

13 The full text of all 40 issues of EIAL published to date are available at the EIAL website: http://www1.tau.ac.il/eial/ 14 Other colloquia held at Tel Aviv University since the mid-1990s include, among others: “Political Thought in Latin America” (1996); “Education and Politics in Latin America” (1997); “Cinema and Identity in Latin America” (1998); “New Approaches to Brazilian Studies” (2001); “Re-thinking Social History: Trends and Issues in Iberian and Latin American Research” (2005); and “Feminine Protagonism in the History of Latin America and Spain in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries” (2006). preface and acknowledgments xv

All this notwithstanding, there can be no doubt that the future of Latin American studies in Israel, as elsewhere, depends on our graduate students. In this respect, the growing number of graduate students in these programs is notable. Considering the fact that the fi rst regular course on Latin America was only introduced in 1960 (in the Depart- ment of Geography at the Hebrew University), the expansion of Latin American studies in institutions of higher learning is remarkable. Apart from the courses taught in the Hebrew University’s Department for Iberian and Latin American studies, which was established in 1968, courses on Latin America are offered in various other departments in the universities of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Bar-Ilan. The fi rst doctoral dissertation written in Israel on a Latin American topic was submitted to the Hebrew University in 1969; even by 1973 only four Ph.D. theses had been completed. At the time, the Hebrew University was the only university in Israel that offered Latin Ameri- can studies. Nowadays, the number is, of course, much higher, since graduate students pursue Latin American studies at four Israeli universities. The bi-annual research conference organized by these graduate students refl ects this growth. While most graduate students who wrote dissertations on Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s were of Latin American origin (as a result of increased immigration from Latin America), today we fi nd a ‘healthier’ mixture of sabras (Israeli natives) and students of different origins—mostly but not exclusively from Latin America. The diffi culties encountered by Latin American Jewish studies in Israel stem partly from the fact that they form part of Jewish history departments rather than what we in Israel call general history departments; and in Jewish history departments, Latin America is simply not important enough. In the preface to his book, Welcoming the Unde- sirables, Jeffrey Lesser wrote that while Latin American historians have tended to view the study of Jews as part of Jewish history, Jewish historians have tended “to lump all but the largest numerical communities into the category of ‘exotica,’ and thus not worthy of careful study.”15 An important factor here is the relative decline in the power of attraction of Jewish history departments in Israel, particularly when compared with the relative popularity of general history departments. Many Israeli youngsters are tired of lessons in Jewish history. Their

15 Jeffrey Lesser, Welcoming the Undesirables: Brazil and the Jewish Question (Berkeley, 1995), xv–xvi. xvi preface and acknowledgments high-school studies have left them with the false impression that Jewish history consists only of a long series of pogroms and other catastro- phes that befell Jews in various places and that supposedly confi rm the necessity of Zionism. This attitude has also resulted in even less attention being given to Latin American Jewish studies. The lamentable institutional distinction between Jewish history and general history dates back to a decision made by the Faculty of Humanities of the Hebrew University in 1935, as a result of an internal struggle—ideological, personal, and institutional—between those who wanted to combine Jewish history and general history in a single department, and those who wanted a separate department for Jewish history.16 In the context of the 1930s, cultivating Jewish history was in fact an important instrument in the process of nation-building,17 and the faculty members of the Hebrew University were well-aware of their role in the formation of a new national consciousness.18 This was true for the early 1950s as well, and explains why the proposal of several professors at the Hebrew University to merge both departments of history into one was rejected again. Gradually, however, this separation began to damage the development of Jewish history studies in Israel. At present, most Jewish history departments in institutions of higher education in Israel lag behind the general history departments in many respects, and so have diffi culty in attracting students, at both the undergraduate and the graduate levels. It is precisely at this juncture that the expansion of general Latin American studies would appear to herald the regeneration of Latin American Jewish studies as well. The proliferation of academic events and literature devoted to Latin America has created new fora for the publication of research on Latin American Jewry as well. EIAL is a case in point, since it is not devoted to Jewish topics but does include in its pages articles, essays, and book and fi lm reviews about Jewish

16 See Ariel Rein, “History and Jewish History: Together or Separate? The Deﬁ nition of Historical Studies at the Hebrew University, 1925–1935,” in The History of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem: Origins and Beginnings, ed. Shaul Katz and Michael Heyd ( Jerusalem, 1997), 516–537. 17 On the relations between historians and the formation of national consciousness, see, for example, John E. Craig, Scholarship and Nation Building: The Universities of Strasbourg and Alsatian Society, 1870–1939 (Chicago, 1984); Dennis Deletant and Harry Hanak, eds., Historians as Nation-Builders: Central and South East Europe (London, 1988). 18 David N. Myers, Re-inventing the Jewish Past: European Jewish Intellectuals and the Zion- ist Return to History (New York, 1995), chs. 1–2. preface and acknowledgments xvii themes as well,19 thus reversing the old habit of “relegating Jews to a space in which they were not real Latin Americans.” The same goes for the Iberoamérica book series. A Hebrew edition of Jeffrey Lesser’s book on Brazil and the Jewish question was published within this framework, while the collections of articles on Argentina and Mexico also included contributions on Jewish topics.20 Likewise, at conferences held at Tel Aviv University, Latin American Jewish studies are presented alongside general Latin American studies, facilitating a fruitful and richer dialogue among scholars. Moreover, most Latin Americanists in Israel have, at one point or another, turned their attention to Latin American Jewry as well. They may have been motivated by the better prospects of securing funds for research on the Jews of Latin America both inside and outside Israel, as well as by easier access to some of the relevant primary sources ( Jewish-Latin American press as well as Jewish and Hebrew general press deposited in the National Library in Jerusalem; centers of documentation, such as the Central Zionist Archives, Israel State Archives, the Archives of the Jewish People at the Hebrew University of Jeru- salem, and various libraries and oral history projects). Nevertheless, a prime reason seems to be the sense of intellectual commitment that many Jewish Israelis—myself included—feel about conducting at least some research that is related to Latin America’s Jews.21 This tendency has its advantages and disadvantages. Those of us trained in Latin American studies may bring with us a better knowledge and understanding of the wider Latin American context, and accordingly treat Jews as an integral part of the societies in which

19 Recent contributions on Jewish-related topics include, for example, Arceli Mater- son, “Las genealogías de Margot Glantz,” 19, no. 2 (2008); Carlos Escudé and Beatríz Gurevich, “Limits to Governability, Corruption and Transnational Terrorism: The Case of the 1992 and 1994 Attacks in Buenos Aires,” 14, no. 2 (2003); Hebe Vessuri, “‘El hombre del maíz de la Argentina’: Salomón Horovitz y la tecnología de la inves- tigación en la fi totecnia sudamericana,” 14, no. 1 (2003); Florinda Goldberg, “‘Judíos del Sur’: El modelo judío en la narrativa de la catástrofe argentina,” 12, no. 2 (2001); Marcos Chor Maio, “Against Racism: In Search of an Alliance between Afro-Brazil- ians and Brazilian Jews in the Early 1990s,” 10, no. 2 (1999). 20 See, for example, the articles by Haim Avni, Leonardo Senkman, Graciela Ben- Dror and Efraim Zadoff in Society and Identity in Argentina: The European Context [Hebrew], ed. Tzvi Medin and Raanan Rein (Tel Aviv, 1997); or the articles by Judit Bokser Liwerant and Adina Cimet in Mexico after the Revolution: Society and Politics, 1910–1952 [Hebrew], ed. Tzvi Medin and Raanan Rein (Tel Aviv, 1999). 21 See my personal note in the preface to Argentina, Israel, and the Jews: Perón, the Eichmann Capture and After (Bethesda, Md., 2003), ix–xi. xviii preface and acknowledgments they live. We also tend to prefer a comparative approach that might also enhance the study of Latin American Jewry. In a sense, we have all contributed to a shift in thinking about how Jews negotiate nation, identity, minority, and belonging.22 Yet, at the same time, many of us lack proper training in Jewish history, have little knowledge of religious themes, and are unable to use primary sources in heritage languages such as Yiddish.23 The ideal solution to these problems would be to have history departments in Israeli universities that combine both general and Jewish history. In this way, graduate students would be trained in both fi elds and would consequently be well-versed in the latest historiographical trends and debates. However, this does not seem likely in the near future. Universities are conservative institutions and since each department of history has its own vested interests, it would very likely oppose a merger with another department. For this reason, those interested in Latin American Jewish studies in Israel should support the expansion of Latin American studies in general. It is this fi eld that might produce researchers interested in Jewish topics, thereby ensuring the resurgence of Latin American Jewish studies in the Jewish state.

Ethnicity, Minorities, Identities, and Belonging

The ﬁ rst essay in this book is theoretical and methodological in nature. Scholarly interest in Jews as a subject of Latin American studies has grown markedly in the last two decades, especially when compared to research on Latin Americans who trace their ancestry to the Mid- dle East, Asia, or Eastern Europe. In this context, I propose that the term ‘Jewish Latin Americans,’ rather than ‘Latin American Jews,’ be used in order to shift the dominant paradigm about ethnicity in Latin America—returning the ‘nation’ to a prominent position precisely at a time when the ‘trans-nation,’ or perhaps no nation at all, is often an unquestioned assumption in contemporary scholarship. Entitled “Eth- nicity and Diaspora in Twentieth-Century Latin America: The Jewish

22 See Raanan Rein, “New Approaches to Latin American Jewish Studies,” an introduction to Raanan Rein, ed., “Gender, Ethnicity, and Politics: Latin American Jewry Revisited,” Jewish History, special issue, vol. 18, no. 1 (2004): 1–5. 23 On the importance of Yiddish in 20th century Jewish Argentine culture, see, for example, the articles in Perla Sneh, ed., Buenos Aires ídish (Buenos Aires, 2006). preface and acknowledgments xix

Case,” this essay analyzes the historiography of the Jewish presence in Latin America as a means of understanding the state of the ‘fi eld.’ It then sets forth a series of propositions which might be useful to all scholars working on Latin American minorities of non-Catholic ancestry. First and foremost, it challenges essentialist concepts and the overemphasis on Jewish particularity, as well as the common discourse of Jewish victimology. At the same time, it reveals that ethnic groups are not monolithic but fragmented by place of origin, social class, political ideologies, and gender. The next essay presents the historical background for all the issues discussed in the following chapters. The fi rst part of the essay provides the necessary context of Jewish immigration to Argentina, the development of the organized community and the successful integration of Jews into Argentine society and culture. During this process, Jews elaborated a collective identity that comfortably includes national and transnational components. The Argentine Jewish community, the largest on the continent, reached its demographic peak in the early 1960s with well over 300,000 people. From then on, numbers began to decline, as a result of both the increase in exogamic marriages and Jewish emigration from Argentina to Israel, the United States, or other countries in Latin America and Europe. Current estimates put the number of Jews now living in Argentina at around 200,000. The second part of this essay is devoted to Argentine Israelis. It includes an overview of Jewish Latin American immigration to Israel, particularly the Argentine ‘aliyah.’ There are currently 65,000 Israeli citizens of Latin American origin. Together with their children, they number over 100,000, most of them Argentines. In their efforts to better position themselves within Israeli society while emphasizing their difference and exoticism, in recent years they have developed a kind of Israeli-Latin identity. In “Complementary Identities: Sephardim, Zionists, and Argentines in the Interwar Period,” I analyze the identity construct put forward by Israel, a periodical founded by Moroccan Sephardim in Buenos Aires in 1917. While waving the Zionist banner during the almost six decades of its existence, in reality the newspaper not only did not explicitly call upon its readers to emigrate, but even went so far as to suggest that for them Argentina was preferable to Palestine. Jews had made Argentina their home and wanted other Argentines to recognize them as members of this nation. My analysis of this publication suggests that Zionism was not necessarily and exclusively about Palestine, xx preface and acknowledgments but was often about creating identities in the Diaspora: For the editors and writers of Israel, Zionism was about their lives in Argentina. Even though it was a global movement, Sephardim and Ashkenazim in Israel united around an apolitical strain of Zionism that emphasized their place in Argentina. Between 1917 and the late 1930s, these Jews of diverse backgrounds used Zionism to create a new Jewish identity, based as much on a common mythic past as on the hope of a shared future in this South American republic. Lastly, the essay questions the oft reiterated argument concerning the supposedly absolute separation between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews in twentieth-century Argen- tina, by pointing out several social, cultural, and ideological contact zones between the two ethnic groups. “Argentina, World War II, and the Entry of Nazi War Criminals” focuses on three questions. The fi rst examines whether Argentine neutrality during World War II was indeed an expression of support for the Axis powers in general and for Nazi Germany in particular. I contend that the motives behind this policy derived exclusively from Argentine self-interest (especially its international trade and the export of its agricultural surpluses), the recognition of Argentina’s geographical remoteness from the killing fi elds of the war, and a clear distinction between Argentina’s attitude towards Great Britain and its attitude towards the United States. While it recoiled from the US and the idea of cooperating with it, Argentina maintained close relations with Brit- ain. The large quantities of food and other essential goods that it sold to the British throughout the war aided Britain’s war effort and ability to withstand German aggression. The second question is whether Argentina indeed served as a primary place of refuge for Nazi war criminals after the defeat of the Third Reich. This question appears to have elicited much exaggeration and very little comparative research. Many war criminals did enter Argen- tina during the 1940s, but large numbers found their way to other countries as well. In any case, a distinction should be made between war criminals and German immigrants who were sympathizers of the Third Reich and/or members of the National-Socialist Party. The commonly accepted estimate today is that about 50 of these German immigrants were war criminals (the number rises to around 180 when it includes collaborators with the Nazi regime). The most notorious were Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele, which brings us to the third issue dealt with in this chapter: the May 1960 kidnapping of Eich- mann in Buenos Aires by Mossad agents. This operation precipitated preface and acknowledgments xxi a crisis that almost severed the diplomatic ties between Argentina and Israel and provoked a wave of anti-Semitism that threatened the Argentine Jews’ sense of personal security. In the midst of World War II, as they struggled against the limitations imposed on Jewish immigration while their brothers were being sent to the death camps in Europe, Argentine Jews were forced to face yet another challenge. In December 1943 the military government that had taken power in Buenos Aires six months earlier published a decree instituting Catholic education in all state schools. In the next decade, the Jewish community of Argentina had to contend with governments that regarded Catholicism as a basic ingredient of Argentine nationalism. Thus, all non-Catholic Argentines found themselves in a peculiar situation in which they were not considered ‘good Argentines.’ “Nationalism, Education, and Identity: Argentine Jews and Catholic Religious Instruction” seeks to analyze the reaction of Jewish Argen- tines to the growing infl uence of the Catholic Church in their country, particularly in the fi eld of education, during the 1940s and 1950s. What I originally mistook as Jewish passivity I later recognized as the moderation, sense of proportion, and pragmatic strategy of Jewish leaders in times of rapidly and radically changing political and social circumstances. At the same time, I became more aware of the gap that existed between anti-Semitic public discourse and its actual infl uence on the daily lives of most Argentine Jews. While many in Argentina’s organized Jewish community did remain hostile to the populist leader Juan Perón, the fact remains that during the presidency of this charismatic leader (1946–1955) Argentina cultivated excellent relations with the newly established State of Israel. “Diplomats and Journalists” highlights the contrast between the US and British press, which tended to view Peronism as a typical Latin American dictatorship and megalomaniac crusade designed to fulfi ll the unbridled desires of Juan Perón and Eva Duarte, and the Israeli press, which usually gave considerable weight to the ideological aspect of Peronism and its quest for social justice. Consequently, the image of this leader and this regime in the Hebrew press was more nuanced. “A Pact of Oblivion” is devoted to the de-Peronization of the Argen- tine Jewish community. History books tend to generalize, claiming that all Jews were hostile to the Peronist regime and the populist movement that provided its base of support. This image has to do with the fact that historians have focused on the organized Jewish community and ignored the majority of unaffi liated Jews, who included more than a xxii preface and acknowledgments few supporters of Peronism. This essay constitutes both a reappraisal of Jewish support for Juan Perón and his movement, and a detailed study of the purges effected within the Jewish community once Perón was ousted by a military dictatorship. As the authorities of the self- proclaimed Liberating Revolution sought to de-Peronize Argentine society, rooting out anything and anybody tainted by association with the former regime, the institutions of the Jewish community likewise embarked on a purge in order to ingratiate themselves with the new government. Concerned that the Jewish community might be too closely identifi ed with Peronism, community leaders worked swiftly to expel sympathizers of the previous regime from any offi cial position in Jewish social, economic or philanthropic institutions. “Argentine Jews and the Accusation of ‘Dual Loyalty’” deals with the aftermath of the kidnapping of Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires. Argentine nationalist groups sought to exploit Eichmann’s kidnapping and trial and the infringement of Argentine sovereignty in order to attack Jews in their country and to question their loyalty to Argentina. The wave of anti-Semitism that washed over Argentina in the early 1960s actually helped unify the Jewish community. It strengthened Argentine Jews’ identifi cation with the State of Israel, prompted an expansion of Jewish education and the creation of separate frameworks for it, stimulated organization for self-defense, enlisted general public opinion in a protest that went beyond the limits of the Jewish community, and increased emigration to Israel. The year 1963 was a peak year in Jewish aliyah from Argentina as a direct result of the anti-Semitic campaign sparked by the Eichmann affair and Argenti- na’s economic crises. This was the Jewish community’s response to the brutal offensive launched by Tacuara and other nationalist and xenophobic forces, who exploited Eichmann’s kidnapping and the violation of their country’s sovereignty as ideological justifi cation for their own iniquitous actions. The return of Juan Perón to Argentina after a prolonged exile aroused hopes of renewed political stability and economic growth for the country. “Perón’s Return to Power as Refl ected in the Israeli Press” analyzes the images of Perón and Peronism in Israel during the third presidency of this charismatic leader. It also deals with the effect of the dramatic events taking place in Argentina on the local Jewish community and Argentina’s relations with the State of Israel as perceived by the contemporary Hebrew press. Even in the midst of the Yom Kippur War, and during momentous historical junctures, such as preface and acknowledgments xxiii the Watergate affair and the Nixon-Brezhnev summit, the Israeli press devoted more attention to Argentina than might have been expected. By analyzing the articles and commentaries published in various Israeli dailies, this chapter traces the changes in the image of Perón in the Hebrew press between the 1950s and the 1970s: a complex and far from unidimensional image that became decidedly more negative in the 1970s. This had to do with stronger anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli voices within the Peronist movement, which identifi ed with various liberation movements in the Third World, as well as with a shift in Argentine foreign policy towards the Arabs in general, and the Pales- tinian cause in particular, in the Middle East confl ict. “Soccer as a Double-Edged Weapon: Argentine Exiles in Israel Pro- test against the 1978 World Cup” is devoted to the campaign carried out in Israel against the Argentine military dictatorship of the 1970s.24 This brutal tyranny was responsible for the death and exile of tens of thousands of Argentines, many of them of Jewish origin.25 This text raises certain questions concerning the protests mounted against the World Cup. After a brief review of the military government’s efforts to use the championship to legitimize its dictatorial regime, both in the eyes of Argentine society and the rest of the world, I examine the way world public opinion reacted to the fact that this event was being held in a country ruled by a repressive and criminal regime. My focus, however, is on the people and groups in Israel who used the World Cup to protest and denounce the crimes being committed in Argentina. The Israeli case is particularly interesting because of the close relations between Israel and the Argentine dictatorship, and because of the large community of Argentine residents in Israel. Their numbers steadily increased as several hundred exiles fl ed the horrors of the military dictatorship. The protests in Israel were spearheaded by those Argentine exiles who found refuge in Israel, many of them with the help of the Jewish Agency. The collective trauma of the military repression is often referred to and studied in Argentina using concepts and categories usually

24 For a general overview, see Efraim Davidi, “Una solidaridad selectiva: El exilio latinoamericano en Israel (1973–1978),” unpublished paper, Tel Aviv University [2008]. 25 On the relatively high proportion of Jews among the victims of the dictatorship, see Edy Kaufman, “Jewish Victims of Repression in Argentina under Military Rule (1976–1983),” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 4 (1989): 479–499; Gabriela Lotersztain, Los judíos bajo el terror: Argentina 1976–1983 (Buenos Aires, 2008). xxiv preface and acknowledgments employed by researchers of the Jewish Holocaust. “Our little Shoah,” were the words used to describe it by the former rector of the Uni- versity of Buenos Aires, during a visit to Israel to present the Hebrew edition of the 1984 report of the Argentine National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP) detailing the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the generals.26 Others have alluded to the ‘fi nal solution’ that the military junta tried to implement in order to exterminate its opponents. When the generals sponsored the 1978 World Cup games, the event was often compared to the 1934 World Cup games in Mussolini’s Italy or the 1936 Olympic games that Hitler sponsored in order to legitimize his National Socialist regime. Several authors have emphasized the fact that while the opening ceremony was taking place in Buenos Aires’ Estadio Monumental, “only a few steps away from there, the Argentine Auschwitz—the torture and extermination centre at the Navy’s Mechanical School—was operating at full steam.”27 Several of the essays gathered here are updated and expanded versions of previously published works. The preparation of the revised versions provided me with an opportunity for self-refl ection and the possibility to present new hypotheses that challenge commonly held assumptions, including some echoed in my own publications. Put together, these essays acquire an additional signifi cance and allow the reader to contextualize many of the processes and phenomena I analyze in the different chapters. Furthermore, it is my hope that this collection of articles will be relevant not only for those interested in Argentina and its Jewish community but also for those interested in the Jewish experience, past and present, in other parts of the world, as well as scholars and students of ethnicity, diaspora and identity in general. Various issues dealt with here were initially discussed in my book Argentina, Israel, and the Jews: Perón, the Eichmann Capture and After (2003). The fi rst essay was originally written with my friend and colleague Jeffrey Lesser and published as “Challenging Particularity: Jews as a Lens for Ethnicity in Latin America.”28 The third essay was written in collaboration with my former student at Emory University, Dr. Mollie

26 Leolam lo od (Nunca Más) [Hebrew] (Buenos Aires, 1998). 27 Eduardo Galeano, El fútbol a sol y sombra, 7th ed. (Mexico City, 2006), 175. 28 Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies 1, no. 2 (2006): 249–263. preface and acknowledgments xxv

Lewis, and published in Hebrew as “Complementary Identities: Sep- hardim, Zionists and Argentines between the Two World Wars.”29 Finally, the last chapter was written together with Dr. Efraim Davidi, a former student at Tel Aviv University, and published in Spanish as “Deporte, política y exilio: Protestas en Israel durante la Copa Mun- dial de Fútbol (Argentina, 1978).”30 During the years that I spent gathering material for this book, I beneﬁ ted from the assistance and good advice of librarians, archi- vists, colleagues, and many friends in different countries. I am particularly indebted to my friend and colleague Jeffrey Lesser, from Emory University, for an inspiring and continuous intellectual dialogue that opened my eyes to many aspects of Latin American ethnic studies as well as diaspora and identity issues; to Rosalie Sitman, from Tel Aviv University, for her worthy comments on various parts of this book, as well as for her moral support; to Eliezer Nowodworski, who studied with me as an undergraduate and became a close friend and my Span- ish translator, for the long conversations on Jewish Argentines during our walks in Ramat Gan’s National Park. Several colleagues in the history department at Tel Aviv University have generously offered advice, among them Miri Eliav Feldon, Gerardo Leibner, and Tzvi Medin. I am grateful to many former and current students—Efraim Davidi, Tzvi Tal, Atalia Shragai, Tamar Groves, Inbal Ofer, Claudia Kedar, Uri Rosenheck, Eilon Barel, and Ilan Diner—for their assistance in locating several of the sources used in this research. My colleagues from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have held long and fruitful discussions with me, even on the many occasions when they disagreed with me: Haim Avni, Leonardo Senkman, Mar- galit Bejarano, Yossi Goldstein, Mario Sznajder, Florinda F. Goldberg, and Luis Roniger. A group of young Jewish Argentine scholars, Grupo Koshmar de Estudios Judaicos, deserves special mention here. My meetings with them in Buenos Aires made it clear to me that a new historiography of the Jewish experience in Argentina is in the making. Special thanks are due to Alejandro Dujovne and Emmanuel Kahan. I also thank Mollie Lewis and Nerina Visacovsky, as well as Ivan Cherjovsky and

29 Pe’amim (Studies in Oriental Jewry) 111–112 (Spring-Summer 2007): 79–102. 30 Estudios Sociales 35 (2008): 169–198. xxvi preface and acknowledgments

Adrian Krupnik, for their help in interviewing the relatives of Jewish Peronist activists. I would like to express my gratitude to all contributors to the volume Rethinking Jewish-Latin Americans which I recently co-edited with Jeffrey Lesser,31 and to the contributors to the volume Árabes y judíos en Iberoamérica,32 especially Edna Aizenberg, Sandra McGee Deutsch, José C. Moya, Donna J. Guy, Natasha Zaretsky, Judah M. Cohen, Erin Graff Zivin, Beatriz Gurevich, Judit Bokser Liwerant, Susana Brauner, Maritza Corrales Campestany, Emmanuel Taub, Adriana Mariel Brod- sky, Diana Epstein, and Carlos Martínez Assad. Many thanks to Saúl Sosnowski, Mariano Plotkin, and Carlos Escudé. I completed this manuscript during my stay as a Research Fellow at the Hebrew University’s Institute of Advanced Studies and subsequent stay as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Fox Center for Human- istic Inquiry at Emory University. I would like to thank both institutions for their hospitality and stimulating intellectual environment. At Tel Aviv University, I enjoyed the support of the S. Daniel Abra- ham Center for International and Regional Studies, the Sverdlin Insti- tute of Latin American History and Culture, and the Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center. I greatly appreciate the insights afforded me by Yossi Gorni and Eliezer Ben-Rafael, the editors of this book series, who introduced me to the Klal-Israel project and encouraged me to publish this collection of essays. I was fortunate to have Martha Grenzeback translate parts of this volume and copy-edit the entire manuscript. The Walovnik, Bichman, and Fryd families have always opened their homes to me, whenever I come to Buenos Aires for research. Finally, my wife deserves special thanks for a variety of reasons. Born in Argentina under the name of Mónica Patricia Bichman, she appears as Mónica Esther Rein on her Israeli identity card. Called simply Mónica by her relatives in Argentina, she is known to everybody in Israel as Esti. Her presence is a constant reminder of the multiplicity and complementary nature of the individual identities of Jewish Argentines who became Argentine-Israelis. Our son Omer and daughter Noa, sabras who recently obtained Argentine citizenship, have been a source of pride and joy to us for many years now.

31 Jeffrey Lesser and Raanan Rein, eds., Rethinking Jewish-Latin Americans (Albu- querque, 2008). 32 Raanan Rein, ed., Árabes y judíos en Iberoamérica: Similitudes, diferencias y tensiones (Seville, 2008). CHAPTER ONE

ETHNICITY AND DIASPORA IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY LATIN AMERICA: THE JEWISH CASE

Ethnicity in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Latin America is a popular topic for historians. Among the most frequent themes are the black-white continuum in places such as Brazil, the Caribbean and Venezuela; the indigenous-white continuum in Mexico, Central America and the Andes; and the hegemony of white Catholic Europeans over a number of subaltern groups in the Southern Cone.1 Academic production on ethnicity, however, has rarely focused on Latin Americans who trace their ancestry to the Middle East, Asia, or Eastern Europe, or those whose ancestors were characterized as Middle Eastern, Asian, or European non-Catholics. Today, people in these categories comprise at least ten million Latin Americans. Jews are one group that has inspired a notable increase in scholarly interest (as distinct from community-based production). Most of this academic research was conducted by scholars in the United States and Israel and categorized as ‘Jewish studies,’ as it is in those few Latin American universities with programs in the ﬁ eld.2 This attitude continues in much of the scholarship and teaching outside of the United States where students learn about Latin America without hearing about the Jewish (or Middle Eastern or Asian) presence. By contrast, in the United States the study of Jews has begun to be integrated into Latin American studies, even though, ironically, Jewish Latin Americans continue to be marginalized or ignored as a sector of Jewish studies.

1 Nancy P. Appelbaum, Anne S. Macpherson, and Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt, eds., Race and Nation in Modern Latin America (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2003); Michael Hanchard, ed., Racial Politics in Contemporary Brazil (Durham, N.C., 1999); Samuel L. Baily and Eduardo José Míguez, eds., Mass Migration to Modern Latin America (Wilmington, Del., 2003). 2 Most research on Brazilian Jewry, for example, emerges from the Centro de Estudos Judaicos at the Universidade de São Paulo and the Programa de Estudos Judaicos at the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. 2 chapter one

A Field of Identity

Descriptive language is critical to scholarship on ethnic groups, which are defi ned most broadly as “a self-conscious collection of people united, or closely related, by shared experiences.”3 In many cases scholars use defi nitional language that is quite different from that used either by the group they study or by majority national populations. This is certainly the case for ‘Latin American Jewry.’ The term, frequently used in the academic literature, suggests a broad hemispheric identity, but the subjects defi ne themselves in three competing ways: as Jews, without reference to nation; as nationals, without reference to Jewish ethnicity; and as hyphenated Jewish- (fi ll in the nation here). These self-defi nitions stand in marked contrast to the academic category of ‘Latin American Jewry’ which derives from two different sources. One is transnational Jewish social and political organizations, usually based in the United States and Israel, which categorize Jews in regional rather than national ways.4 The second source is scholars, mainly based outside Latin America, whose Diasporic perspectives often lead them to presume similarity based on language (e.g. Spanish) and minority status (e.g. Jews living in predominantly Catholic societies).5 The term ‘Latin American Jewry,’ however, is neither neutral nor descriptive. Indeed, it imposes an answer to what should be an important research question: “What is the relationship of minority group members to the national state and the Diasporic homeland?” This question is critical for understanding the multi-layered and fl uid identities, indivi- dually and collectively, of Jews, Asians, Middle Easterners, and those of

3 Ellis Cashmore, Dictionary of Race and Ethnic Relations, 3rd ed. (London, 1994), 102. 4 See, for example, the annual volumes of The American Jewish Year Book, edited by David Singer and Lawrence Grossman, and published in New York by the American Jewish Committee. The American Jewish Committee also produced Comunidades Judías de Latinoamérica. 5 Isaiah Raffalovich, “The Condition of Jewry and Judaism in South America,” in Central Conference of American Rabbis Yearbook 40 (New York, 1930); J. X. Cohen, Jewish Life in South America: A Survey Study for the American Jewish Congress (New York, 1941); Jacob Beller, Jews in Latin America (New York, 1969); Martin A. Cohen, ed., The Jewish Experience in Latin America (Philadelphia, 1971), 2 vols.; U. O. Schmelz and Sergio Della Pergola, The Demography of the Jews in Argentina and in Other Countries of Latin America [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1974); Judith Laikin Elkin, Jews of the Latin American Republics (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1980); Judith Laikin Elkin and Gilbert W. Merkx, eds., The Jewish Presence in Latin America (Boston, 1987); AMILAT, Judaica Latinoamericana: Estudios Histórico-sociales, published every four years since 1988 by Magnes Press in Jerusalem. ethnicity and diaspora in latin america 3

European descent, as well as populations that preceded the European arrival. The term ‘Latin American Jewry’ may be accurate for those who consider themselves fi rst and foremost Jews (and perhaps even question their Latin Americaness) but the research does not confi rm that this is the case for all Jews. With Jeffrey Lesser, I have proposed that scholars consider using the term ‘Jewish-Latin Americans’ rather than ‘Latin American Jews.’ This formulation emphasizes national identity without denying the possibility of a Diasporic identity. In addition, the hyphen recalls the early days of ethnic studies in the 1960s when so many United States citizens fought to be called Japanese-American rather than Japanese, or Mexican-American rather than Mexican. Our use of the term Jewish- Latin American thus shifts the dominant paradigm about ethnicity in Latin America by returning the ‘nation’ to a prominent position just at a moment when the ‘trans-nation,’ or perhaps no nation at all, is often an unquestioned assumption. Another way of presenting our argument would be to offer a continuum, with an ideal type of Diasporic Latin American Jew at one end and an ideal type of national Jewish Latin American at the other. Yet another possibility might be the use of the concept of ‘identity fi eld,’ in which individuals can place themselves at different ‘identity points’ according to the changing circumstances of time and location.6 The Argentine novelist Ana María Shua explained her multiple and fl uid identities beautifully: “Woman, Argentine, Jew and writer in that order or any other.”7 Such a ‘continuum’ or ‘identity fi eld’ would replace what appear to be the false binaries and dichotomies that have been imposed on the history of Jews since antiquity. The Diaspora, after all, dominates the history and imagination of the Jewish people. And historiography has tended to present the dilemma allegedly facing Diaspora Jews as two options: either to assimilate into the surrounding culture by diluting their own traditions, or to separate themselves from the world at large in order to preserve the purity of their faith and heritage. Erich S. Gruen has shown that, even back in ancient times, “for most Jews, retention of

6 Mollie Lewis, “Con Men, Cooks, and Cinema Kings: Popular Culture and Jew- ish Identities in Buenos Aires, 1905–1930” (Ph.D. diss., Emory University, 2007), Introduction. 7 Ana María Shua, “With All That I Am,” in Taking Root: Narratives of Jewish Women in Latin America, ed. Marjorie Agosín (Athens, Ohio, 2002), 251–263. 4 chapter one a Jewish identity and accommodation to the circumstances of Diaspora were joint goals and often successfully achieved.”8 Jews, of course, have no monopoly on the Diaspora, and the relationship between national- and immigrant-based ethnic identity is not unique to Jews. On the contrary, Jewish experiences enable us to understand better the experiences of other ethnic groups in Latin America whose lives are often portrayed only within closed community circles. My approach is two-pronged. First, the study of ethnicity must include people other than those affi liated with community institutions. Indeed, contemporary research suggests that most ethnic group members in Latin America are not affi liated with local ethnic associations and frameworks. Notions of ‘ethnic community’ are misleading when they include only people affi liated with organizations, places of worship, social clubs, youth movements, etc. Second, I see ethnicity as one piece of a broader identity mosaic. In this sense, identity might be seen as a coin in a pocket fi lled with coins of different values. Sometimes we need 25 cents and we pull out one ethnicity quarter. Other times we need 100 cents and the ethnicity coin is just a penny of the total. Two notes of caution are needed here before any further elaboration on these issues. First, it is critical to shun essentialism. Most Jews in Latin America are ‘Jewish’ in the cultural sense—not the genetic, religious, ideological or communal sense—and defi ne themselves as such. And, unfortunately, as I argued in the preface, current Jewish historiography is often characterized by its essentialism. Essentialism guarantees the comfort of social belonging and the power of political affi liation, and stresses the emotional power of distinctive cultures to defi ne experience through strong, ‘taken-for-granted’ sentimental and cultural bonds. Self-essentializing can be easily manipulated to mobilize groups for action whenever there is competition for territory, resources, political power, prestige or ideological legitimation. One of the marks of the new approaches to Latin American Jewish studies offered by various scholars, including myself, is the effort to challenge the essentialism characteristic of so many studies of the Jewish experience on this continent. The second note of caution is that my comments do not focus on the immigrant generation. Needless to say, in detailed studies more attention should be given to the specifi c historical phase of each minority group.

8 Erich S. Gruen, Diaspora: Jews amidst Greeks and Romans (Cambridge, 2002), vii. ethnicity and diaspora in latin america 5

It is clear that for immigrants the nationality of the ‘sending country’ carried more weight than that of the ‘receiving country.’ For this ﬁ rst generation the fact that they represented a multi-ethnic national group was of extreme importance; in that sense, the Jewish case represents a complicated ‘multi-national ethnic group.’

Latin American Jewish Studies: A Field of Research?

Jews are one of the smallest Latin American ethnic groups in demographic terms and, along with Latin Americans of Asian and Middle Eastern descent, are highly visible socially and economically. Yet the volume of scholarly work on Jewish-Latin Americans exceeds that on the other groups. The literature falls into two broad categories. First, most ethnic communities in Latin America have signiﬁ cant internal production that is often completely separate from the national historiography. These publications are produced by community organizations or individuals linked to them and include institutional histories, oral histories, novels, short stories, and hagiographies.9 Much of the literature emphasizes uniqueness, or even cultural superiority, and is aimed at fostering communal cohesion, maintaining an ethno-national identity, and mobilizing resources. Self-referential production, it is important to remember, is common among all Latin American ethnic groups. The tendency towards internal production is reinforced by the fact that many intellectuals in most of Latin America reject ethnicity as an important analytical category, even if they themselves identify with speciﬁ c ethnic backgrounds. This ambivalence helps to explain why there is relatively little academic scholarship on Latin American ethnicity. One way in which the scholarship on Jewish Latin America stands out is the recent boom in research published outside the region, notably in the United States. A brief glance at the holdings of any college or

9 See, for example, Organización Sionista en el Uruguay, El Sionismo en el Uruguay: Editado con motivo del 25 aniversario de la Organización Sionista en el Uruguay (Montevideo, 1943); Tsentral Farband fun Galitsyaner Yidn in Argentine, Galitsyaner yidn: Yoyvel-bukh (Buenos Aires, 1966); Mario Nassí, La comunidad ashkenazi de Caracas: Breve historia institu- cional (Caracas, 1981); Egon Wolff and Frieda Wolff, Natal, uma comunidade singular (Rio de Janeiro, 1984); León Trahtemberg, Los judíos de Lima y las provincias del Perú (Lima, 1989); Alicia Gojman de Backal, ed., Generaciones judías en México: La kehilá ashkenazí (1922–1992) (Mexico City, 1993). 6 chapter one university library reveals more books on Jewish-Latin Americans than on Latin Americans of Asian and Middle Eastern descent combined.10 This is attributable to a particular set of historical circumstances that have transformed studies of Jewish Latin America into an accepted ‘fi eld’ of inquiry in disciplines such as history, literature, and cultural studies.11 The history of the fi eld known most commonly as Latin American Jewish studies began with the centering of Israeli university education within a broader international context in the mid-1960s. In 1966 the Hebrew University of Jerusalem created the Latin American section of the Institute of Contemporary Jewry, an institution that was itself formed in 1960. The Israeli scholars conducting research on Latin America produced two contradictory trends. One placed Israeli academics comfortably within a worldwide community of scholars of Latin American studies, as Haim Avni and Yoram Shapira insisted in a 1974 article on Latin American studies in Israel in the Latin American Research Review.12 Yet a new line of research that developed in Israel was the study of Jews in Latin America. Scholars working on these topics, notably Haim Avni and his many students and colleagues, emphasized the growth of Zionism in Latin America, anti-Semitism, the movement of Jews to Israel and Israeli-Latin American relations.13 The approach generated by the Institute for Contemporary Jewry provoked a reaction among some Latin Americanists, for whom the ‘nation’ was pre-eminent. David Rock’s review of the 1991 English edition of Avni’s classic Argentina and the Jews: A History of Jewish Immigration (fi rst published in Hebrew in 1982 and soon thereafter published in

10 Some recent works on other ethnic communities include Theresa Alfaro-Velcamp, So Far from Allah, So Close to Mexico: Middle Eastern Immigrants in Modern Mexico (Austin, Tex., 2007); John Toﬁ k Karam, Another Arabesque: Syrian-Lebanese Ethnicity in Neoliberal Brazil (Philadelphia, 2007); Lane Ryo Hirabayashi, Akemi Kikumura-Yano, and James A. Hirabayashi, eds., New Worlds, New Lives: Globalization and People of Japanese Descent in the Americas and from Latin America in Japan (Stanford, Calif., 2002); Lok C. D. Siu, Memories of a Future Home: Diasporic Citizenship of Chinese in Panama (Stanford, Calif., 2005). For earlier works see Robert M. Levine, Race and Ethnic Relations in Latin America and the Caribbean: An Historical Dictionary and Bibliography (Metuchen, N.J., 1980). 11 For a listing of pre-1990 works on Jewish-Latin Americans see Judith Laikin Elkin and Ana Lya Sater, eds., Latin American Jewish Studies: An Annotated Guide to the Literature (New York, 1990). 12 Haim Avni and Yoram Shapira, “Teaching and Research on Latin America in Israel,” Latin American Research Review 9, no. 3 (1974), 39–51. 13 For Avni’s early publications, see the appendix in AMILAT, Latin American Jewry: Essays in Honor of Haim Avni ( Jerusalem, 2001), 330–340. ethnicity and diaspora in latin america 7

Spanish by the AMIA, an organization representing the formal Jewish community of Argentina), made this clear: “. . . if the author may be well versed in the modern history of the Jewish people, his knowledge of Argentina is at best rudimentary.”14 Rock’s critique revealed a confl ict that has continued to be a source of tension among scholars of ethnicity in Latin America. The fi rst generation of scholars studying Jewish-Latin Americans at the Institute of Contemporary Jewry made a fundamental contribution that was, nevertheless, barely noticed outside Israel. One of the fi rst non-Israeli academic publications on Latin American Jewry was by Martin H. Sable, a “Latin Americanist of the Jewish faith specializing in bibliography” at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. His massive collection of over 5,000 citations does not mention Avni and Shapira’s 1974 article in the Latin American Research Review, although it does mention some of Avni’s other work. More important is Sable’s recollection that he realized the need for a bibliography on Latin American Jew- ish topics while returning home from Sabbath prayers. For Sable, this classic religious-ethnic memory led to an ethnic-community inspiration based on reading about Latin American Jewry in Boston’s The Jewish Advocate.15 Notably absent is any reference to Israeli scholarship, or, for that matter, any academic work on the topic. The re-centering of the study of Latin American Jewry out of Israel came in 1982 when a group of scholars met at the Latin American Studies Association conference to discuss the “the intersection of Latin American studies and Jewish studies.” Later that year the First Confer- ence on Latin American Jewish Studies was held at the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati.16 At that meeting, which linked studies of Jewry in the United States and Latin America via the wide holdings of the American Jewish Archives, the Latin American Jewish Studies Association (LASJA) was established. Judith L. Elkin, perhaps the fi rst US scholar to write about Jews from a Latin Americanist background and to publish her work with a press known for its Latin American series, became the organization’s president.17 The

14 David Rock, “Ideas, Immigrants et alia in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Argentina,” Latin American Research Review 9, no. 1 (1994), 172–183; Haim Avni, Argentina and the Jews: A History of Jewish Immigration (Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1991). 15 Martin H. Sable, Latin American Jewry: A Research Guide (New York, 1978), xi. 16 Judith Laikin Elkin, ed., Resources for Latin American Jewish Studies: Proceedings of the First Research Conference of the Latin American Jewish Studies Association (Cincinnati, 1984). 17 Elkin, Jews of the Latin American Republics. 8 chapter one following year a second conference was held at the University of New Mexico, not coincidentally the home of both the Latin American Research Review and one of the most active Latin American studies programs in the US.18 Together these conferences refl ected the wide-ranging interests of LAJSA as both an ethnic-studies and area-studies organization. The establishment of LAJSA changed the study of Latin American ethnicity in the United States. Today, many modern Latin American studies courses in the United States include discussions of Jews (although Middle Easterners and Asians still go almost unmentioned). Academic conferences devoted to Latin America frequently include papers relating to Jews, increasingly on panels whose themes are not Jewish Latin Americans. Since LAJSA emerged in part out of the fi eld of Latin American studies, subsequent scholarship might have been expected to take the position that Jews were one of many components of a pluralistic Latin American society. The research produced since 1982, however, is much like the earlier studies that emerged from the Institute of Contempo- rary Jewry—in many cases imbued with the idea of Diasporic primacy rather than a sense of nation-based identity. What in 1982 appeared to be an intellectual shift now seems more like a repositioning from Israel to the United States and from a seemingly Zionist outlook towards a more ethnic perspective. In post-1982 publications on Jewish Latin America, two main intellectual positions can be detected. The fi rst is the notion that Jewishness is the primary (and at times exclusive) basis of identity. Jewish life in any one Latin American country is often presented as similar to Jewish life in any other specifi c country. Research frequently focuses on com- monality, with data being mined from formal community institutions. The classic example is Judith Laikin Elkin’s seminal Jews of the Latin American Republics, which compared Jewish life across the region. Many of the works that followed her groundbreaking book were similar. Edited collections have titles like The Jewish Presence in Latin America, The Jewish Diaspora in Latin America or The Jewish Diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean.19 Surprisingly, nationally based volumes (for example,

18 A selection of the papers from that ﬁ rst conference was published in Elkin and Merkx, eds., The Jewish Presence in Latin America. 19 Elkin and Merkx, eds., The Jewish Presence in Latin America; David Sheinin and Louise Baer Barr, eds., The Jewish Diaspora in Latin America: New Studies on History and Literature (New York, 1996); Kristin Ruggiero, ed., The Jewish Diaspora in Latin America ethnicity and diaspora in latin america 9

Jews of Argentina or Jews of Brazil) have taken the same approach, rarely comparing Jews to other ethnic minorities in the same country.20 Monographs about Jews in Latin America, although focusing on specifi c countries and, often, specifi c topics, are similar to anthologies in their Diasporic approach and comparative references to Jews.21 A second dominant presumption is that Jews live in closed communities. This idea is due partly to the fact that much primary documentation about Jewish-Latin Americans was written in Yiddish or Hebrew, languages not considered normative in Latin American studies. This resulted in decades of scholarly invisibility for Jewish-Latin Americans, a point Judith Elkin made more than 25 years ago in the preface to her Jews of the Latin American Republics. Yiddish and Hebrew sources often create the impression that Jews lived unconnected to general society, a phenomenon noticeable in research on other ethnic groups as well.22 The closed-community approach also created a lack of methodological debate; I have never seen a publication or heard a lecture proposing that studying Jews, or any other ethnic group in Latin America, demands a specifi c approach. In this sense the establishment of the Latin American and Iberian section of the Institute of Contemporary Jewry and the Latin American Jewish Studies Association never achieved their implicit goal of creating a ‘fi eld’ in the classic academic sense of the word. The study of Jewish Latin America has advanced in terms of quality and quantity of production in the last two decades, particularly in the fi elds of Latin American literature, anthropology, cultural studies, and history. Scholarly work on Jews is often placed within a broader societal perspective, and major academic publishers and journals regularly

and the Caribbean: Fragments of Memory (Brighton, 2005); Marjorie Agosín, ed., Memory, Oblivion, and Jewish Culture in Latin America (Austin, Tex., 2005); Judit Bokser Liwerant and Alicia Gojman de Backal, eds., Encuentro y alteridad, vida y cultura judía en América Latina (Mexico City, 1999). 20 Monica Grin and Nelson H. Vieira, eds., Experiência cultural judaica no Brasil: Recepção, inclusão e ambivalência (Rio de Janeiro, 2004); Ricardo Feierstein and Stephen A. Sadow, eds., Recreando la cultura judeoargentina: 1894–2001: En el umbral del segundo siglo: encuentro 2001 (Buenos Aires, 2002); Judit Bokser Liwerant, Imagenes de un encuentro: La presencia judía en México durante la primera mitad del siglo XX (Mexico City, 1992). 21 Jeffrey Lesser, Welcoming the Undesirables: Brazil and the Jewish Question (Berkeley, 1994); Adina Cimet, Ashkenazi Jews in Mexico: Ideologies in the Structuring of a Community (Albany, N.Y., 1997); Katherine Morris, ed., Odyssey of Exile: Jewish Women Flee the Nazis for Brazil (Detroit, 1996); Robert M. Levine, Tropical Diaspora: The Jewish Experience in Cuba (Gainesville, Fla., 1993). 22 Elkin, Jews of the Latin American Republics; Perla Sneh, ed., Buenos Aires Ídish (Buenos Aires, 2006); Eliahu Toker, El ídish es también Latinoamérica (Buenos Aires, 2003). 10 chapter one publish on these topics. Much innovative research on Jews is found in second or third books written by those trained as scholars of Latin America.23 They see Latin Americans of Jewish origin as part of the ethnic and cultural mosaics that constitute Latin American societies, with their hybrid and complex identities. Many of these authors focus on the dynamic relations between Jews and non-Jews in economic, social, cultural and political life. Furthermore, a growing number of scholars are asking what the experiences of Jews reveal about other immigrant and ethnic groups and about the overall character of Latin American societies. In this sense, then, Argentina is an example of how the lack of an institutional tradition of Jewish studies has become an advantage in recent years. There, the study of various aspects of the Jewish experience has necessarily become better integrated into the national scholarship.

Rethinking Latin American Jewry

This essay calls for eliminating the view of ethnic minorities as either Diasporic or national. This tension, and the rejection of the ‘or’ in favor of the ‘and,’ is relevant to the study of ethnicity in Latin America in the broadest sense, since the study of Jewish-Latin Americans can help articulate new approaches to ethnic studies. In a keynote address I delivered at a LAJSA conference several years ago, under the title “Together yet Apart: Israel and Argentine Jews,” I referred to several commonly held assumptions that have characterized much of the research on the Jewish experience in Latin America, particularly the Zionist-oriented research conducted in Israel.24

23 Jeffrey Lesser and Raanan Rein, eds., Rethinking Jewish-Latin Americans (Albuquer- que, 2008); Raanan Rein, ed., Jewish History 18, no. 1 (2004), special issue on “Gender, Ethnicity, and Politics: Latin American Jewry Revisited”; Raanan Rein, Argentina, Israel and the Jews: Peron, the Eichmann Capture and After (Bethesda, Md., 2003) (an updated second edition was published in Spanish: Argentina, Israel y los judíos: De la partición de Palestina al caso Eichmann 1947–1962 (Buenos Aires, 2007); Nelson Vieira, ed., Shofar 19, no. 3 (2001), special issue on “The Jewish Diaspora of Latin America”; Edna Aizenberg, Books and Bombs in Buenos Aires: Borges, Gerchunoff, and Argentine-Jewish Writing (Hanover, N.H., 2002). 24 Raanan Rein, “Together yet Apart: Israel and Argentine Jews” (keynote address delivered at the Conference of the Latin American Jewish Studies Association, Dart- mouth College, 27 June 2004). ethnicity and diaspora in latin america 11

1) Most studies of ethnicity emphasize exceptionalism. The assumption of uniqueness as an a priori category of analysis manifests itself in scholarship where historiographical points of reference are to the experiences of members of the same group in different countries. This suggests that Jews, for example, are a minority unlike other minorities and that therefore researchers studying Argentine Jews or Brazilian Jews need only be familiar with the experiences of Jews in South Africa or Australia, for example.25 Exceptionalism suggests that ethnicity is a non-national phenomenon and that ethnic group members are either separate from or victims of national culture. This tendency is not exclusive to scholarship on Jews. Research on Latin Americans of Japanese, Chinese, and Lebanese descent, for example, usually presents the group ﬁ rst and foremost in their Diasporic condition.26 In fact, transnational ethnicity is not necessarily a more dominant identity component than national identity. Research on Jewish-Latin Americans might focus on engagement in the national context in order to create comparison, and perhaps contact zones, with other ethnic minorities such as Latin Americans of Polish, Japanese, Chinese, Syr- ian and Lebanese descent.27 For example, a recent doctoral dissertation presented in Buenos Aires highlighted the social, cultural and economic

25 Daniel J. Elazar and Peter Medding, Jewish Communities in Frontier Societies: Argentina, Australia and South Africa (New York, 1983). 26 Albert Hourani and Nadim Shehadi, eds., The Lebanese in the World: A Century of Emigration (London, 1992); Ignacio Klich and Jeffrey Lesser, eds., The Americas 53, no. 1 (1996), special issue on “Turco Immigrants in Latin America”; Jeffrey Lesser, ed., Searching for Home Abroad: Japanese Brazilians and Transnationalism (Durham, N.C., 2003); Wanni W. Anderson and Robert G. Lee, eds., Displacements and Diasporas: Asians in the Americas (New Brunswick, N.J., 2005). 27 For early attempts at such an approach, see Daniel Bargman and Mirta Bialogor- ski, “Articulación interétnica en medio urbano: Judíos y coreanos en Buenos Aires,” Estudios Migratorios Latinoamericanos 11, no. 32 (1996): 111–134; Nélida Bouldgourdjian and Diana L. Epstein, “Armenios y judíos en el Once, 1910–1950,” in Encuentro y alteridad; vida y cultura judía en América Latina, ed. Bokser Liwerant and Backal, 163–181; Ignacio Klich and Jeffrey Lesser, eds., Arab and Jewish Immigrants in Latin America: Images and Realities (London, 1998); Jeffrey Lesser, Negotiating National Identity: Immigrants, Minorities and the Struggle for Ethnicity in Brazil (Durham, N.C., 1999). For more recent works, see Christina Civantos, Between Argentines and Arabs: Argentine Orientalism, Arab Immigrants, and the Writing of Identity (Albany, N.Y., 2006); Ignacio Klich, ed., Árabes y judios en América Latina: Historia, representaciones y desafíos (Buenos Aires, 2006); Raanan Rein, ed., Árabes y judíos en Iberoamérica: Similitudes, diferencias y tensiones (Seville, 2008). 12 chapter one interrelations among Jewish, Christian and Moslem immigrants from Syria to Argentina, at least until the 1950s.28 I know of no research project that has ever examined the fl uid inter- relationship between national identity and the presumed primacy of Diasporic solidarity among Jews. As Jorge Luis Borges once wrote about the Jewish Argentine author, Carlos M. Grünberg, one might say that Argentine Jews have always struggled to be “unmistakably Argentine.” In fact, the tension between ethnicity and nation that his comment reveals might be a starting point for research.29 It seems that anthropologists rather than historians are beginning to adopt this path.30 2) Research on ethnicity in Latin America often presumes that the children and grandchildren of immigrants feel a special relationship to their ancestors’ place of birth or imagined homeland. Implicit in this assumption is the idea that ethnic minorities do not play a signifi cant role in a national identity formation. Studies of Jewish-Latin Ameri- cans, for example, often assume that rank-and-fi le support of Zionist organizations has been fi rst and foremost about the State of Israel. It is about time, however, that researchers ask whether participation in Zionist activity is necessarily about the presumed homeland of Israel. Put differently, to what homeland does Zionist activity in Latin America actually relate? Furthermore, does support for Israel constitute a main ingredient in the identity of Latin American Jews? This position is often advanced but hardly tested.31 My own research suggests that being Zionist in Argentina, for example, often has had little to do with the

28 Susana Brauner, “Los judíos de origen sirio en Argentina: Identidad, liderazgo, participación política y alineamientos en el conflicto árabe-israelí, 1900–2000” (Ph.D. diss., Universidad del Salvador, 2008). 29 Jorge Luis Borges, “Prologo,” in Mester de judería by Carlos M. Grünberg (Buenos Aires, 1940). On Grünberg, see Eliahu Toker, Un diferente y su diferencia. Vida y obra de Carlos M. Grünberg (Madrid, 1999). 30 For early examples of this effort to explore the relations between Jews, other European immigrants, and local populations, see Shari Seider, “Looking Forward to the Past: The Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Community of Buenos Aires” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1999); Misha Klein, “Braided Lives: On Being Jewish and Brazilian in São Paulo” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2002); Judith Noemí Freidenberg, Memorias de Villa Clara (Buenos Aires, 2005); Teresa Porzecanski, La vida empezó acá: Inmigrantes judíos al Uruguay: Historias de vida y perspectiva antropológica de la conformación de la comunidad judía uruguaya, contrastes culturales y procesos de enculturación (Montevideo, 2005). 31 Haim Avni, “El sionismo en la Argentina: El aspecto ideologico,” in Judaica Latinoamericana: Estudios Histórico-sociales, ed. AMILAT (2005), 5: 145–168; Silvia Schenkolewsky-Kroll, The Zionist Movement and the Zionist Parties in Argentina, 1935–1948 [Hebrew] ( Jerusalem, 1996); Judit Bokser de Liwerant, “El movimiento nacional judío: El sionismo en México, 1922–1947” (Ph.D. diss., Universidad Nacional Autónoma ethnicity and diaspora in latin america 13

State of Israel. More often, it was one of the strategies espoused by Jews in order to become Argentines. Like every other immigrant community, Jews in Argentina or Brazil needed to have their Madre Patria. Just as Italian immigrants had Italy and Spanish immigrants had Spain, so Jews had their own imagined motherland, Zion, or Israel. This brand of Zionism was part of the effort to shape new identities and make Argentina a home, emphasizing more the idea of a nation of origin than a political project to safeguard the future. Becoming Argentine while staying Jewish, rather than relocating to Palestine, was the primary objective of very many Jews.32 Arnd Schneider’s sociological work on Argentine citizens who have obtained Italian passports suggests that holding a foreign passport is critical to contemporary middle-class Argentine identity.33 Furthermore, due to the conquest of the organized communities by Zionist political parties in the early 1950s, historiography has tended to devote little attention to non-Zionists in Latin America. Their experiences and efforts to integrate into Argentine or Mexican society lay on the margins of the currently dominant or hegemonic narratives of Latin American Jewry.34 3) Many scholars suggest that the ethnic ‘homeland’ has a commitment to its Diasporic communities. This idea derives from the often untested assumption that the center of ethnic collective identity must be outside the nation of residence. It also reﬂ ects a relative lack of debate about the location of the Diasporic center and periphery. Scholars often presume that Israel has an exceptionally deep commitment to Jewish-Latin Americans and that its interests are similar or complementary to theirs. Recent scholarship challenges this assumption and suggests that the bond between the Jewish Diaspora and the State of Israel is similar

de México, 1991); Sigue Friesel, Bror Chail: História do Movimento e do Kibutz Brasileiro ( Jerusalem, l956). 32 See chapter 3 in this volume. 33 Arnd Schneider, Futures Lost: Nostalgia and Identity among Italian Immigrants in Argentina (New York, 2000). 34 For examples of interesting contributions by young Argentine scholars on the subject of non-Zionist Jews in their country, see Nerina Visacovsky, “La educación judía en la Argentina: Una multiplicidad de signifi cados en movimiento. Del Peretz de Lanús a Jabad Lubavich,” Anuario de Historia de la Educación 6 (2005): 129–170; Claudia Bacci, “Las políticas culturales del progresismo judío argentino. La revista Aporte y el ICUF en la década de 1950,” Políticas de la Memoria 5 (2004/5): 159–168. 14 chapter one to other Diasporic/national links.35 In fact, many Israelis regard the Jewish Diaspora with a certain disdain, and Israeli policy-makers often show little sensitivity towards the needs and sensibilities of individual Jewish communities in Latin America. That attitude was refl ected, for example, in the Israeli government’s decision to limit the help extended to Jewish Argentine victims of the Argentine dictatorship in order to maintain good relations with the ruling junta.36 This realpolitik combines fundamental Zionism’s ‘negation of the Diaspora’ with a contemporary belief in Israel that Diaspora Jews should maintain a one-way connection that includes loyalty, political and moral support, and fi nancial assistance for the motherland. 4) Many scholars studying ethnicity in Latin America presume that heritage makes one a member of an ethnic community, and many Latin Americans believe the same thing. Yet when one examines exogamy, the rates are often above 50 percent, and many individuals do not see themselves (or wish to be seen) as members of a formally constituted ethnic community. There are many studies of ethnic community leaders and institutions, but few about what might be termed ‘unaffi liated ethnics.’37 This broad tendency is repeated in studies of Jewish-Latin Americans. Research has ignored the 50 percent (or more in many places) of Jews who were or are not affi liated with Jewish institutions.38 The frequently

35 One essay that questions the assumption of Jewish exceptionalism is Gabriel Shef- fer, “Is the Jewish Diaspora Unique? Refl ections on the Diaspora’s Current Situation,” Israel Studies 10, no. 1 (2005): 1–35. See also Rein, Argentina, Israel and the Jews. 36 For the polemic surrounding this debate, see Marcel Zohar, Let My People go to Perdition: Betrayal in Blue and White [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1990); Luis Roniger and Mario Sznajder, “From Argentina to Israel: Escape, Evacuation and Exile,” Journal of Latin American Studies 37, no. 2 (2005): 351–377; Joel Barromi, “Israel frente a la dictadura militar argentina. El episodio de Córdoba y el caso Timerman,” in El legado del autorita- rismo: Derechos humanos y antisemitismo en la Argentina contemporánea, ed. Leonardo Senkman and Mario Sznajder, eds. (Buenos Aires, 1995). 37 Hirabayashi, Kikumura-Yano, and Hirabayashi, eds., New Worlds, New Lives: Global- ization and People of Japanese Descent in the Americas and from Latin America in Japan (Stanford, 2002); Comissão de Elaboração da História dos 80 Anos da Imigração Japonesa no Brasil, Uma Epopéia Moderna: 80 Anos da Imigração Japonesa no Brasil (São Paulo, 1992); María Bjerg and Hernán Otero, eds., Inmigracíon y redes sociales en la Argentina moderna (Tandil, Argentina, CEMLA/IEHS, 1995); Hourani and Shehadi, The Lebanese in the World; José C. Moya, Cousins and Strangers: Spanish Immigrants in Buenos Aires, 1850–1930 (Berkeley, Calif., 1998). 38 Among the few studies that include unaffi liated Jews are Henrique Rattner, Tradição e Mudança: A Comunidade Judaica em São Paulo (São Paulo, 1977); Eugene F. Sofer, From Pale to Pampa: A Social History of the Jews of Buenos Aires (New York, 1982). ethnicity and diaspora in latin america 15 used term ‘Jewish community’ is misleading if it refers only to those affi liated with Jewish organizations, synagogues, social clubs, or youth movements. Documenting life stories and reclaiming the memories of unaffi liated Jews will provide important lessons on the nature of national and ethnic identity. Studies might be conducted of Jews married to non- Jews, individuals who express Jewish identity based on culture rather than on religion or ethnicity, and authors who do not explicitly express their Jewishness (the Jewish-Brazilian novelist Clarice Lispector comes to mind). Traditional studies, for example, would ignore people like the Oscar-winning songwriter Jorge Drexler (The Motorcycle Diaries). Drexler, born in Uruguay to German Jewish refugees from Nazism, does not speak German but holds a German passport. He lived for a year in Israel but moved to Spain for professional reasons. While his fi rst songs were written in Hebrew, he is known for his works in Spanish, including a few with Jewish themes like ‘Milonga del moro judío’ or ‘El pianista del gueto de Varsovia.’ Several years ago, Drexler was interviewed in The New York Times, at which time he characterized himself as a Jew and “a lot of other things too,” since he is not affi liated with any religious institution and is married to a Catholic.39 People like Drexler, with strong but non-exclusive Jewish identities, should not be ignored. 5) Much scholarship on Latin American ethnicity correctly notes that dominant majority discourses are frequently racist. Yet there is often a huge gap between rhetoric and social practice. Indeed, racist manifestations have not prevented many Latin American ethnic groups from entering the dominant political, cultural, economic and social sectors. Yet scholars focusing on discourse tend to fi nd victims, often suggesting that racism represents an absolutely hegemonic structure.40 Thus, ethnic identity formation appears based primarily on the struggle against discrimination and exclusion. Scholars examining social status, on the other hand, come to a different conclusion. They suggest that success among Asian, Middle-Eastern and Jewish Latin Americans places them in the ‘white’ category.41

39 “Latin American Singer’s Rainbow Coalition of Identities,” The New York Times, 12 July 2005. 40 Ignacio Klich and Mario Rapoport, eds., Discriminacíon y racismo en América Latina (Buenos Aires, 1997); Martin N. Dreher, Arthur Blásio Rambo, and Marcos Justo Tramontini, eds., Imigração e imprensa: XV Simpósio de História da Imigração e Colonização (Porto Alegre, Brazil, 2004). 41 George Reid Andrews, Blacks and Whites in São Paulo, Brazil, 1888–1988 (Madison, Wis., 1991); Robert Stam, Tropical Multiculturalism: A Comparative History of Race in Brazilian 16 chapter one

The scholarship on Jewish-Latin Americans is a case in point. The literature is almost unanimous in suggesting that anti-Semitism in Latin America is stronger than in other regions of the world. One might get the impression that life for Jews on the continent is unbearable, a continued nightmare.42 Yet even Haim Avni, whose own work often focuses on anti-Semitism, has correctly noted the “overdeveloped focus of research energy [on] anti-Semitism.”43 In the case of Argentina this distortion is evident: Too little social and cultural research has been conducted on the Jewish presence and experience in that country, while anti-Semitism has been a favorite topic for many scholars. 6) Much of the literature gives the mistaken impression of homogeneous, unstratiﬁ ed immigrant-descended ethnic communities. Latin Americans of Asian and Middle-Eastern descent seem to be uniformly situated in the middle class or higher, a position emphasized by a scholarly focus on ethnic success stories like Alberto Fujimori (Peru), Celso Lafer (Brazil), and Carlos Saúl Menem (Argentina). This image is even stronger with regard to Jewish-Latin Americans, who are presented in scholarly works as having rapidly and exclusively moved up to middle-to-upper-middle-class status—as if all Jews on the continent were white and rich. As a result of this erroneous assumption, many scholars do not even consider research on the Jewish working class or the Jewish poor—possibly because their existence might shatter the myth, cherished by historians and Argentine Jews alike, that celebrates the success of the Jews who moved from the Pale to the Pampa and rose quickly to

Cinema and Culture (Durham, N.C., 1998); Ruben E. Reina, Paraná—Social Boundaries in an Argentine City (Austin, Tex., 1973). 42 Maria Luiza Tucci Carneiro, O anti-semitismo na era Vargas: Fantasmas de uma geração (1930–1945) (São Paulo, 1988); Graciela Ben-Dror, Católicos, nazis y judíos: La Iglesia argentina en los tiempos del Tercer Reich (Buenos Aires, 2003); Laura Pérez Rosales, “Anti- cardenismo and Anti-Semitism in Mexico, 1934–1940,” in The Jewish Diaspora in Latin America: New Studies on History and Literature, ed. Sheinin and Barr, 183–197; Margalit Bejarano, “Antisemitism in Cuba under Democratic, Military and Revolutionary Regimes, 1944–1963,” Patterns of Prejudice 24, no. 1 (1990): 32–46; Clara Aldrighi et al., Antisemitismo en Uruguay: Raices, Discursos, Imágenes (Montevideo, 2000). 43 Haim Avni, “Post-War Latin American Jewry: An Agenda for the Study of the last Five Decades,” in The Jewish Diaspora in Latin America: New Studies on History and Literature, ed. Sheinin and Barr, 3–19. In his recent works Bernardo Sorj has characterized most studies on anti-Semitism in Brazil as gross infl ation and exaggeration. See, for example, Bernardo Sorj, “Brazilian Non-Anti-Semite Sociability and Jewish Identity” in Identities in an Era of Globalization and Multiculturalism, ed. Bokser Liwerant et al., 151–169. ethnicity and diaspora in latin america 17 middle-class status. This was indeed the case for very many Argentine Jews, but not all of them. In a recent study I conducted of the second line of Peronist leadership,44 I was surprised to see what an important role Jews played in the organized labor movement. In the two most important trade unions of the 1940s, the railroad workers’ union (Unión Ferroviaria) and the confederation of the commercial employees (Con- federación de Empleados de Comercio), key fi gures included Rafael Kogan (secretary-general of the Unión Ferroviaria) and Abraham Krislavin and David Diskin of the Empleados de Comercio. All three men became supporters of Juan Perón, yet almost no one seems to have been interested in them so far.45 There are, however, other approaches. First, we might learn a lesson from fi lm scholars who have correctly noted that in Hollywood, for example, people with ‘non-Jewish’ names are not necessarily non-Jews. Who knows what the biography of the Argentine journalist and politician Emilio Perina, born Moisés Konstantinovsky, might teach us about ethnicity? Or that of the popular Argentine sports journalist, Luis Elías Sojit, born with the last name Shoijet? Second, anti-Semitic discourses, even when emerging from powerful centers of political power, do not always translate into absolute oppression. Examining racist discourses together with individual and group mobility may well change our understanding of the nature of both oppression and success. Third, I question whether minority-group identity is primarily a reaction to societal bigotry. Stereotypes often function because of their positive presumptions, and there is a distinction between Judeophobes (those who hate all Jews) and anti-Semites (those who hold some or many negative stereotypical notions about Jews as a group). Furthermore, those who express negative stereotypes about Jews (or any other ethnic group) may hold positive stereotypes as well.

44 Raanan Rein, In the Shadow of Perón: Juan Atilio Bramuglia and the Second Line of Argentina’s Populist Movement (Stanford, Calif., 2008). 45 Krislavin became under-secretary of the interior ministry. Diskin became a member of the executive board of the labor-union confederation (CGT) and a deputy in the national Congress until Perón’s fall in 1955. See David Diskin, El compañero Borlenghi: Su trayectoria, su integridad, su temple (Buenos Aires, 1979). On Jews in the Argentine workers’ movement, see Edgardo Bilsky, “Etnicidad y clase obrera: La presencia judía en el movimiento obrero argentino,” in El movimiento obrero judío en la Argentina, vol. I, ed. Centro de Documentación e Información sobre Judaísmo Argentino “Marc Turkow” (Buenos Aires, 1987). 18 chapter one

7) There are a number of other areas that have been under- researched in Latin American ethnic studies generally and Jewish-Latin American studies speciﬁ cally. Notable among them is gender.46 Studies of Jewish women in Latin America of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries too often focus on prostitutes or novelists, although Jewish women have played fundamental roles in all aspects of society.47 As Sandra McGee Deutsch has emphasized in the Argentine case, “Jew- ish women are virtually absent from the secondary historical sources. Studying them is vital for its own sake, to recover the voices and tell the untold stories of the unheard half of the Jewish population.”48 The same holds true for children and sexual minorities.49 8) Another issue relates to the presentation of homogenous ethnic communities (e.g. the ‘Jewish’ community, the ‘Arab’ community, the ‘Asian’ community). While the distinctions are occasionally more reﬁ ned ( Japanese and Chinese and Indians; Syrians and Lebanese and Pales- tinians), the literature is primarily monolithic and community-focused. Examining ethnic groups grosso modo ignores intra-ethnic divisions that are often replicated over many generations. The number of Okinawans among Latin American Nikkei is very large, as are the numbers of Moslems among Middle Easterners, even though studies often seem to assume that all Middle Easterners in Latin America are Christians.

46 One fairly recent volume that represents an important step forward is Florencia E. Mallon, Courage Tastes of Blood: The Mapuche of Nicolás Aliaño and the Chilean State, 1906–2001 (Durham, N.C., 2005). 47 Gerardo Bra, La organización negra: La increible historia de la Zvi Migdal (Buenos Aires, 1982); Victor A. Mirelman, En busqueda de una identidad: Los inmigrantes judíos en Buenos Aires, 1890–1930 (Buenos Aires, 1988), ch. 9; Donna J. Guy, Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family, and Nation in Argentina (Lincoln, Neb., 1991); Nora Glickman, The Jewish White Slave Trade and the Untold Story of Raquel Liberman (New York, 2000); Isabel Vincent, Bodies and Souls: The Tragic Plight of Three Jewish Women Forced into Pros- titution in the Americas (New York, 2005); Claire Thora Solomon, “Fictions of the ‘Bad Life’: The Discourse of Prostitution in Argentine Literature and Culture” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 2007); Beatriz Kushnir, Baile de máscaras: mulheres judias e prostituição: as polacas e suas associacoes de ajuda mutual (Rio de Janeiro, 1996); Yvette Trochon, Las rutas de Eros: La trata de blancas en el Atlántico Sur. Argentina, Brasil y Uruguay (1880–1932) (Montevideo, 2006). 48 Sandra McGee Deutsch, “Changing the Landscape: The Study of Argentine Jewish Women and New Historical Vistas,” Jewish History 18, no. 1 (2004): 49–73, special issue on “Gender, Ethnicity, and Politics: Latin American Jewry Revisited,” guest-edited by Raanan Rein. 49 Ricardo Feierstein, Vida cotidiana de los judíos argentinos: del gueto al country (Buenos Aires, 2007), 453–461. ethnicity and diaspora in latin america 19

Among Jewish-Latin Americans, Sephardic Jews have not been the subject of much research. Fewer in number, more traditional, and less enthusiastically Zionist, Sephardic Jews are not considered an important part of the Jewish-Latin American story. Since they are a minority within a minority, their history is supposed to be less crucial for our understanding of the Jewish experience on the continent.50 Furthermore, scholars have probably exaggerated their descriptions of the religious and cultural differences between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, as well as their allegedly complete lack of interaction. At any rate, Sephardic Jews themselves are divided (like Ashkenazis) by nation and by city of origin. The size of a minority group should not be a criterion for determining the research attention it should receive. Smaller communities and subcommunities can teach us much about ethnic relations, just as Leo Spitzer’s study of Jews in the virtually ignored nation of Bolivia has become a model for the study of ethnicity, Diaspora and memory.51 9) Apart from the need to transcend disciplinary boundaries, we should also consider the possibility of expanding the geographical territory analyzed. In the program committee of the LAJSA conference held in Buenos Aires in 2007, there was a debate as to whether it was legitimate to include papers devoted to Jewish-Latin Americans living in Israel. My answer to that question is clear: I believe that Jewish Israelis of Latin American origin should be included in this ‘research ﬁ eld.’ During the ﬁ rst decades after the establishment of the State of Israel, such Israelis tried to hide and/or repress the Latin American component of their identity. However, since then Israeli society has gone through a profound change, in part due to the massive immigration from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s. Bearing a foreign name, maintaining a former mother tongue, and retaining the cultural traits of one’s country of origin are socially much more legitimate these days. Israelis who recently emigrated from Latin America take advantage of

50 Margalit Bejarano examines the modest production on Sephardic Jewry in Latin America in her article, “Sephardic Communities in Latin America—Past and Present,” in Judaica Latinoamericana: Estudios Histórico-sociales, ed. AMILAT ( Jerusalem, 2005), 5: 9–26. See also Liz Hamui de Halabe, Identidad colectiva. Rasgos culturales de los inmigrantes judeo alepinos en México (Mexico City, 1997); Adriana Mariel Brodsky, “The Contours of Identity: Sephardic Jews and the Construction of Jewish Communities in Argentina, 1880 to the Present” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 2004). 51 Leo Spitzer, Hotel Bolivia: The Culture of Memory in a Refuge from Nazism (New York, 1998). 20 chapter one this new cultural and intellectual climate and no longer hesitate to display publicly (or, in the case of older immigrants, to reassert) the Latin American aspects of their identity. The same argument can be used in favor of including the growing population of Jewish-Latin Americans in the United States in discussions of Jewish-Latin Americans.

Conclusion

All these commonly held assumptions should become research questions that are challenged and re-examined by scholars and not taken for granted. There is a need for a ‘new’ ethnic studies for Latin America, and the study of Jewish-Latin Americans can serve as an example of how that might be implemented. In retrospect, it is clear that my own contribution to many of the volumes mentioned here, and surely my earlier scholarship, might at times represent an example of the limitations of the ‘old’ ethnic studies. Therefore, the eagerness for change expressed here is also based on self-reﬂ ection and the understanding that my own trajectory is deeply rooted in the very assumptions that I have criticized. It is my hope that this compendium of essays will provoke discussions among scholars interested in Jewish-Latin Americans, and that some of them will adopt a comparative perspective, looking simultaneously at multiple ethnic groups in a national context, thereby contributing something new to the ﬁ eld of ethnic studies. From this comparative standpoint, many issues that might appear to be unique to Jews may prove to be of general applicability. Perhaps in Latin America the com- mutative property holds true: If Jews are like Asians and Asians are like Arabs, then Arabs and Jews, in some respects, are indeed one. CHAPTER TWO

SEARCHING FOR HOME ABROAD: JEWS IN ARGENTINA AND ARGENTINES IN ISRAEL

In the midst of a wave of anti-Semitism in Argentina following the abduction of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann by Mossad agents, the Jewish bi-weekly La Luz expressed its deep concern for the future of the Argentine Jewish community: For Argentine Jewry, the stormy year we have just left behind us was the saddest of the hundred years of its existence in this country. This intolerable situation has caused Jews in some circles to think that Jewish life may be impossible in Argentina [. . .] one thing is clear now: The beautiful ideal, enveloped in rosy expectations concerning the future, which the Jewish settlers brought with them . . . began to crumble with each Jewish child slashed with swastikas, each Jewish institution shot at [. . .]. The painful dilemma is posed: Does the Jewish community have a future here, and is it worthwhile for Jews to continue living in Argentina?1 This was neither the fi rst nor the last time that such an alarm was sounded by Jews in this South American republic. The fi rst time was during the 1919 pogrom in Buenos Aires known as the ‘Tragic Week.’ The repression of labor unrest in Buenos Aires was accompanied by a series of violent acts by volunteer squads of ‘patriotic’ youth against the ‘rusos,’ that is, the Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe identifi ed as Bolsheviks and anarchists because of their origins and faith. These ‘rusos’ were supposedly plotting to overthrow the Argentine government and establish rule by worker councils. The number of Jewish victims in this ‘pogrom’ is still a matter of debate. Pinie Wald was arrested as the would-be dictator of a Soviet republic in the Southern Cone.2

1 La Luz, 5 October 1962. 2 On the Tragic Week, see Sandra McGee Deutsch, “The Argentine Right and the Jews, 1919–1933,” Journal of Latin American Studies 18 (1986): 113–134; David Rock, Politics in Argentina, 1890–1930: The Rise and Fall of Radicalism (London, 1975), 157–179; Eduardo Bilsky, La semana trágica (Buenos Aires, 1984); Julio Godio, La semana trágica de enero de 1919 (Buenos Aires, 1985); and the account by Pinie Wald, Pesadilla (1929; reprint Buenos Aires, 1998). 22 chapter two

The future of the Jewish community was most recently the subject of doubts and soul-searching following the 1994 bombing of the AMIA (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina, or Argentine Jewish Mutual Aid Society), and again during the 2001–2002 economic crisis that severely hit the middle classes to which most Argentine Jews belong. On 18 July 1994 a car bomb exploded in front of the AMIA building in the center of Buenos Aires, killing 85 people and wounding hundreds. The attack—which had been preceded by the March 1992 bomb attack on the Israeli embassy in the Argentine capital—destroyed the building that housed the AMIA and several other Jewish community organizations, including a library and community archives. In the aftermath, Jews in Argentina came together to mourn, to fi ght for justice, and to remember the victims.3 The fi nancial crisis at the beginning of this century had dramatic consequences for community institutions, which were unable to honor their obligations. Entire families lost the means of living normal lives. This situation gave rise to wide-spread Jewish poverty and, for the fi rst time in the community’s history, hunger among several Jewish Argentine families.4 Still, during my many visits to Buenos Aires in the past decade, I could not but notice what a rich and varied life Argentine Jews enjoy. Contrary to the image portrayed in too many studies on anti-Semitism in Argentina, Jews have integrated very well into Argentine society, economy, and culture, often without rejecting the Jewish component of their individual or collective identity. Before establishing the historical context for the main axis of discussion and analysis in this book, I would like to share the following story. A couple of years ago, my wife and I went to Tel Aviv’s cinematheque to watch a documentary entitled El año que viene . . . en Argentina (“Next

3 On the AMIA bombing and the various responses in Argentine society in general and among Jewish Argentines in particular, see, among others, Beatríz Gurevich, “After the AMIA Bombing: A Critical Analysis of Two Parallel Discourses,” in The Jewish Diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean: Fragments of Memory, ed. Kristin Ruggeiro (Brighton, 2005), 86–111; idem, “Passion, Politics,and Identity: Jewish Women in the Wake of the AMIA Bombing in Argentina,” research paper, The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, 2005; Edna Aizenberg, Books and Bombs in Buenos Aires: Borges, Gerchunoff, and Argentine-Jewish Writing (Hanover, N.H., 2002), 7–13; Silvia Chab, Entre la crisis y la esperanza: La comunidad judeoargentina tras el atentado a la AMIA (Buenos Aires, 2001). 4 Natan Lerner, “Argentine Jewry in a Period of Economic Crisis,” in Contemporary Jewries: Convergence and Divergence, ed. Eliezer Ben-Rafael, Yosef Gorny, and Yaacov Ro’i (Leiden, 2003), 335–340. searching for home abroad 23

Year . . . in Argentina”).5 Among other issues, the movie dealt with the almost taboo subject of Jews who had made aliyah but later decided to return to their home country. The fi lm portrayed several families of Argentine Jews—whom in the previous chapter I have dubbed ‘Jewish Argentines.’ They had all discovered that the Argentine component in the mosaic of their individual identities was strong enough to pull them back to their country of origin. The discussion that followed the screening of the fi lm was even more interesting. Several people in the audience expressed clear hostility toward the movie and its creators, Jorge Gurvich and Shlomo Slutzky, who were present in the hall. Gurvich and Slutzky were accused of not being Zionist enough and, by extension, not Jewish enough. An elderly person in the audience stated that after moving to Israel, he had identifi ed so fully with the Jewish national project that, unlike the producers of the movie, he had never felt the need even to visit his native land, Argentina. Like many other Israelis, whether of Latin American origin or not, such people fi nd it diffi cult to understand why the long series of political upheavals, economic ups and downs, and social crises experienced by Argentina in recent decades have not produced a major exodus of Jewish Argentines to Israel. Here I might add that some 11,200 Argentines relocated to Israel between January 2000 and December 2006. Some 15–20 percent of them returned to Argentina, but very little writing or research has been done on this group of people.6 The Zionist bias of historiography on Jewish-Latin Americans, especially works written in Israel, has encouraged this neglect. Another fi lm on the same subject, a Jewish Argentine production entitled Un abrazo partido (“A Lost Embrace”), was far from being a box- offi ce success in Israel.7 This movie tells the story of a lower middle-class

5 El año que viene en . . . Argentina, directed by Jorge Gurvich and Shlomo Slutzky (Israel, 2005). 6 Aryeh Dayan, “An Expectations Gap [Hebrew],” Ha’aretz, 23 May 2007. The same is true for earlier periods as well. There is hardly any research on Latin Ameri- cans who moved to Israel in the 1960s, 1970s, or 1980s and then returned to their home countries. A rare discussion of several cases of this kind can be found in David Hurovitz, “The Jewish Community and Aliyah from Argentina, 1962–1973” (Ph.D. diss., Tel Aviv University, 2006). 7 Un abrazo partido, directed by Daniel Burman (Argentina, 2003). The ﬁ lm won a Silver Bear for best actor (Daniel Hendler) and the Jury Grand Prix at the Berlin Film Festival. The movie was also Argentina’s nomination for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars in 2004. 24 chapter two

Jewish family in Buenos Aires whose father moved to Israel in the early 1970s and fought in the Yom Kippur War.8 It transpires that he had left Argentina not so much because of Zionist ideals but because his wife had had an affair with another man. The main problem that Israeli viewers had with the fi lm involved the way it portrayed the life of this family, who ran a little lingerie store in an old Buenos Aires shopping center (galería).9 The movie in fact challenges the particularity of the Jewish experience, since it depicts the lives of middle-class Jews, Italians, Asians, and other immigrant groups living together, working together, and maintaining love-hate relationships with each other. The experiences of the various ethnic groups seem to be similar in many respects, as are their strategies for becoming Argentines. Even the diasporic condition is not a uniquely Jewish phenomenon in the movie; instead, the fi lm stresses the Jewish contribution to the efforts to shape ‘la argentinidad,’ Argentine collective identity. Ariel Makaroff, a young Jewish Argentine who helps his mother in her small store, tries to obtain a Polish passport in order to leave Argentina and become European. His grandmother is a Holocaust survivor and Makaroff, like many other middle-class Argentines after the downfall of President Fernando de la Rúa’s government, looks for her Polish documents as part of his search for personal salvation. This search has very little to do with anti-Semitism or discrimination in Argentina. On the contrary, the fi lm depicts Argentina as a tolerant, multi-cultural society.10 Naturally, Israelis, including many Argentines who have moved to Israel, fi nd it hard to relate to this pastoral image of Argentina.

8 Israel is present in many works of Jewish Argentine authors. See Amalia Ran, “ ‘Israel’: An Abstract Concept or Concrete Reality in Recent Judeo-Argentinean Nar- rative?” in Latin American Jewish Cultural Production, ed. David William Foster (Nashville, 2009). 9 Burman’s previous fi lm, Esperando al Mesías (“Waiting for the Messiah”) (2000), was also set in a traditionally Jewish neighborhood of Buenos Aires, the garment district known as Once. 10 For a review of this movie, see Mariela Coudannes’s contribution in Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe 17, no. 2 (2006). On Burman’s career and Jewish identity, see Tamara Leah Falicov, The Cinematic Tango: Contemporary Argentine Film (London, 2007); Carolina Rocha, “Identidad masculina y judía en la trilogía de Daniel Burman,” Letras Hispanas 4/2 (Fall 2007); idem, “Cine despolitizado de principio de siglo: Bar El Chino y El abrazo partido,” Bulletin of Spanish Studies 85, no. 3 (2008). Burman’s most recent fi lm is El nido vacío (“The Empty Nest”) (2008). The fi lm explores the emptiness experienced when children grow up and leave the family home. In this case Julia, the daughter of Leonardo and Marta, leaves for Israel. searching for home abroad 25

At the same time, this same public prefers to avoid discussing the very real diffi culties encountered by new immigrants from Argentina, as seen even in a light romantic comedy made in Israel. The movie is entitled Like a Fish Out of Water. It tells the story of Marcelo, a new immigrant from Argentina (played by Esteban Gottfried), and Anat, his Hebrew teacher at the Raanana Absorption Center (played by Tal Lifshitz). As a former telenovela actor, Marcelo wants to pass the auditions for an Israeli soap opera, and needs Anat’s help to improve his Hebrew. Like most Argentine Jews, Marcelo is not religious, while Anat’s family is religious. The movie was directed by Leon Prudovsky (born in St. Petersburg in 1978).11 Like a Fish out of Water was produced by Yochanan Jorge Weller, an Argentine-Israeli. As a student at Tel Aviv University in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Weller directed a 38-minute fi lm entitled Ernesto. The movie tells the story of Argentine exiles in Israel, youngsters who fl ed from Argentina’s brutal military dictatorship and found refuge in Israel.12 In their new home they try to demonstrate against the repression of human rights in their home country. In April 2006, the fi lm was screened on Channel 2, the most popular commercial channel in Israel. Critic Ehud Asheri of Ha’aretz was far from enthusiastic about it. He claimed that it was an idealized view of the way Latin American immigrants were absorbed in Israel and that we learn very little about these immigrants from the movie.13 Viewers, however, to judge from the comments on the Ha’aretz online edition, seemed to like it. But the fact remains that both the press and scholarly works by historians, sociologists, and political scientists have almost entirely ignored the diffi culties encountered by Latin American immigrants to Israel.14 Only a handful of psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers have written about the diffi culties that many of these immigrants have faced as they relocated from their homeland. These studies have dealt with problems of adjustment, mental stress, and

11 Prudovsky won prizes for another ﬁ lm, Dark Night, in which the Israeli-Palestinian conﬂ ict is revealed in its most complicated form in the course of a single night, during an encounter between two Israeli soldiers and two Palestinian residents of a house to which the soldiers escape after their vehicle is attacked. 12 Mario Sznajder and Luis Roniger, “From Argentina to Israel: Escape, Evacuation and Exile,” Journal of Latin American Studies 37, no. 2 (2005): 351–377. 13 Ha’aretz, 18 April 2007. 14 For one exception, see Michal Grinberg’s report in Ha’aretz, 12 Sept. 2007. 26 chapter two isolation, as well as many cases of family disruptions and divorce.15 We have very little data about the many immigrants who vow to be back in Buenos Aires next year, rather than in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.

Another Promised Land

The Argentine Jewish community, the biggest in Latin America, is mainly the product of the great wave of trans-Atlantic immigration from Eastern Europe, and, to a lesser degree, the Middle East and the Balkans to the Americas during the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth.16 As with any other immigrant group, we have to analyze the factors that pushed certain people to leave their homes and the factors that drew them towards other places, as well as the patterns of immigration adopted by that particular group. In the late nineteenth century, Jews in Eastern Europe—especially those from the Pale of Settlement, an area containing a high proportion of Jews that encompassed part of what is today Poland and Russia—felt a growing pressure to seek a better future outside Europe. Physical harassment, social pressures and economic hardship all contributed to this urge. At more or less the same time, from the mid-nineteenth century onward, the crisis of the Ottoman empire was accompanied by the persecution of religious minorities, growing Arab nationalism, and forced military service. Economic changes made life difﬁ cult for a growing number of craftsmen and small merchants. Thus, Syro-Lebanese immigration—Christian, Jewish and Moslem alike—arose out of a combination of political, economic, religious, and cultural factors.17

15 José A. Itzigsohn, “Los inmigrantes latinoamericanos en Israel: Aspectos clínicos,” Judaica Latinoamericana: Estudios Histórico-sociales (1988), 1: 248–258; Ronaldo Marco Deligdisch, “Un estudio analógico de la integración social de inmigrantes: El caso de los judíos alemanes en Argentina y de los judíos argentinos en Israel” (Ph.D. diss., Atlantic International University, 2008). 16 Jews constituted, of course, a small minority of the 11 million immigrants who arrived in Latin America between 1854 and 1924. For a general overview on Jewish immigration to Argentina, see Haim Avni, Argentina and the Jews: A History of Jewish Immigration (Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1991); Victor A. Mirelman, Jewish Buenos Aires, 1890–1930: In Search of an Identity (Detroit, 1990). 17 See, for example, Albert Hourani and Nadim Shedhadi, eds., The Lebanese in the World: A Century of Emigration (London, 1992); Raymundo Kabchi, ed., El mundo árabe y América Latina (Paris, 1997); Raanan Rein, ed., Árabes y judíos en Iberoamérica: Similitudes, diferencias y tensiones (Seville, 2008). searching for home abroad 27

The Americas, both North and South, seemed to promise prosperity and a better future for both Jews and Arabs. Argentina became home for hundreds of thousands of them, most of them arriving between the late 1870s and 1930. While a few East European Jews sought refuge in Palestine, their real or imagined homeland, others looked for ways to cross the Atlantic and fi nd a new home in the Americas. Jewish organizations considered various proposals for settling these Jews in new countries. One such proposal focused on a practically unknown land in South America. Theodor Herzl himself, in his Judenstaat (1896), described the choice facing the Jewish masses in Eastern Europe as one between “Palestine or the Argentine.” Although most Jews settled in the capital city, a signifi cant minority of the East European Jews became farmers, thus giving rise to the myth of Jewish gauchos (a common name for Jewish immigrants who settled in fertile regions of Argentina). Those immigrants were masterfully portrayed by Alberto Gerchunoff in his epic work, published in 1910 to celebrate the centenary of the Argentine May Revolution that set the country on its way to independence.18 In later works by many Jewish Argentine writers the emblematic fi gure of the Jewish gaucho is a recurrent theme.19 The agricultural settlements established in Argentina, and later in Brazil, by the Jewish philanthro- pist Baron Maurice de Hirsch seemed to offer a partial solution to the Jewish national question at the time.20 Coincidentally, at the same time that Jews were looking for a safe haven, Argentine authorities adopted a well-conceived policy, inspired by positivistic ideals, to encourage European immigration. The desire to increase the relatively small population and to improve—that is, ‘whiten’—it by bringing in European immigrants, ideally from Northern Europe, in order to foster development and modernization, was the main motivation behind the demographic policy of Argentine statesmen.

18 Alberto Gerchunoff, Los Gauchos judíos (La Plata, 1910). For an English translation, see Alberto Gerchunoff, The Jewish Gauchos of the Pampa, trans. Prudencio de Pereda (Albuquerque, 1998). 19 Ricardo Feierstein, ed., Los mejores relatos con gauchos judíos (Buenos Aires, 1998). 20 These agricultural settlements have received much scholarly attention. The most comprehensive account is Haim Avni, Argentina, “The Promised Land”: Baron de Hirsch’s Colonization Project in the Argentine Republic [Hebrew] ( Jerusalem, 1973). Many memoirs of life in the colonies have been written. See, for example, Raquel Zimerman de Faingold, Memorias (Buenos Aires, 1987); Helene Gutkowski, Rescate de la herencia cultural. Vidas… en las colonias (Buenos Aires, 1991); Haim Avni and Leonardo Senkman, eds., Del campo al campo. Colonos de Argentina en Israel (Buenos Aires, 1993). 28 chapter two

‘Gobernar es poblar’ (‘to govern is to populate’) was a maxim coined in 1853 by Juan Bautista Alberdi, a prominent liberal intellectual and politician. And, indeed, from the 1870s until the economic recession of the early 1930s, a huge wave of immigrants descended on Argentine shores. In the early twentieth century, about half the population of the federal capital, Buenos Aires, was foreign-born.21 Determined to turn their backs on the former colonial power, Spain, members of the Argentine governing elite looked towards republican France as a secular, progressive model to emulate. This cultural and political orientation, together with the country’s growing economic and commercial ties with Great Britain, contributed to the institution of a liberal constitution in 1853 (which guaranteed freedom of worship), the adoption of a liberal immigration law in 1876 (which did not discriminate against non-Catholic immigrants), and the enactment of state-education as well as civil-registration laws in 1884 (thus limiting the power and infl uence of the Catholic Church). Rumors about the possibilities offered by immigration to Argentina, where anyone could live freely and prosper, spread among urban and rural Jews in Central and Eastern Europe.22 In reality, for the majority of Jewish immigrants, Ashkenazi and Sephardic alike, Argentina did indeed prove to be the ‘promised land,’ a place where they could secure a living for themselves and an education for their children, and which they could try to make their new home. Within a short time, they established community institutions and Jewish schools that satisfi ed their social, economic, and cultural needs. Thus they created a rich mosaic of social, cultural, political, and ideological life, which refl ected a wide variety of faiths, identities, and social practices: Communists and Zion- ists, Orthodox and secular, those who emphasized their Jewishness and others who preferred to stress their Argentine identity. Many of these immigrants rose to prominent positions in social, economic, artistic, and political spheres.23

21 For a general overview of immigration to Argentina, see Carl Solberg, Immigration and Nationalism, Argentina and Chile, 1890–1914 (Austin, Tex., 1970). 22 In the colonial period, Latin America had experienced the effects of the Inquisi- tion, which tried to eradicate any vesige of Jewish faith, persecuting and prosecuting new Christians suspected of being crypto-Jews or Marranos. In contrast to that rejection, by the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the entire region, including Argentina, was opening its doors to Jews. 23 Haim Avni, Argentine Jewry; Social Status and Organizational Profile [Hebrew] ( Jerusalem, 1972); Robert Weisbrot, The Jews of Argentina: From the Inquisition to Perón searching for home abroad 29

This does not mean that Jews, or any other ethnic immigrant group for that matter, were welcomed at all times and by everybody. Jews and Arabs benefi ted from Argentine open-door policies but also suffered, from the late nineteenth century onward, from the Argentine elites’ disappointment over the outcome of the immigration project destined to ‘whiten’ or ‘Europeanize’ their country. Both ethnic groups encountered general anti-immigrant sentiment as a result. With growing nationalism, authoritarianism and xenophobia, especially in the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s, Semitic immigrants—whether Christian Arabs, Eastern Euro- pean Jews, Moslem Arabs, or Arab Jews, all immigrants who were not considered ‘white’ or Catholic—were targeted sometimes as the most undesirable of immigrants. Positivist Argentine discourses often looked at the non-Northern European immigrant as racially inferior, diseased, and contaminating. An 1898 article from the Buenos Aires Herald refl ected this attitude: Are we becoming a Semitic republic? The immigration of Russian Jews is now the third largest in the list, while Syrian Arabs (Turcos) and Arabians are also fl ocking on these shores.24 Similar articles were published by the Spanish-language newspapers. Thus La Nación wrote in 1910 that the deplorable peddling of trinkets by the Syro-Lebanese was a dishonor to the nation, and called for the restriction of Levantine immigration.25 Race, and not just economic concerns, could be used against both Arab and Jewish immigration. Among the liberal elites, even the staunchest supporters of immigration embraced the concept of the melting pot. All newcomers, especially non-Catholics, were expected to abandon the customs and idiosyncrasies they had brought with them from their countries of origin in favor of the new culture that was emerging in the immigrant society of Argentina. This attitude and the pressure toward cultural homogeneity and assimilation were particularly pronounced among those belonging to Catholic nationalist and xenophobic sectors within Argentine society. Albeit a minority, these elements have always existed in Argentine society and in certain periods they have managed to exert

(Philadelphia, 1979); Efraim Zadoff, A Century of Argentinean Jewry: In Search of a New Model of National Identity ( Jerusalem, 2000). 24 Quoted in Ignacio Klich, “Criollos and Arabic Speakers in Argentina: An Uneasy Pas de Deux, 1888–1814,” in The Lebanese in the World, ed. Hourani and Shehadi, p. 266. 25 Quoted in Solberg, Immigration and Nationalism, 88–89. 30 chapter two infl uence in political, military, and clerical circles, as well as on the contemporary intellectual climate. This phenomenon was a source of permanent unease among Argentine Jews who, because of their mostly European origins and family ties with the Old World, could not but view local events in Argentina through a European perspective of growing hostility towards Jews. Debate continues as to the number of Jews living in Argentina both during the twentieth century and today.26 Part of the problem lies in the tendency of most studies to focus on those Jews affi liated with formal community institutions, despite the fact that research indicates that most Jews—in common with members of other ethnic communities—have never been affi liated with such institutions. Furthermore, in national population censuses many Jews have preferred not to defi ne themselves as such, either because they feared identifying themselves ethnically in government databases, especially in times of authoritarian rule, or because the option of a hyphenated identity was not included and they did not wish to give Jewishness priority over their Argentine identity. Moreover, the use of religious rather than cultural criteria to defi ne Jews has created additional barriers to data collection in a community known for its highly secular character. According to a leading authority on the demography of the Jewish people, the number of Jews in Argentina grew from 14,700 in 1900 to 191,400 in 1930, reaching 273,400 at the end of World War II and a peak of 310,000 in the early 1960s (see Table 1). From then on, numbers began to decline, with Jews emigrating from Argentina to Israel, the United States, or to other countries in Latin America and Europe. There has also been an increasing rise in the number of exogamic marriages. Whereas in the mid-1930s the rate of marriage to non-Jews was 1–5 percent of all marriages involving a Jewish partner, in the early 1960s it rose to 20–25 percent, reaching 35–40 percent in the mid-1980s. Current estimates put the number of Jews now living in Argentina at around 200,000.

26 For recent studies, see Adrián Jmelnizky and Ezequiel Erdei, La población judía de Buenos Aires: Estudio sociodemográfi co (Buenos Aires, 2005); Yaacov Rubel, La población judía de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Perfi l sociodemográfi co (Buenos Aires, 2005); Sergio Della Pergola, “Jewish Autonomy and Dependency: Latin America in Global Perspective,” in Identities in an Era of Globalization and Multiculturalism: Latin America in the Jewish World, ed. Judit Bokser Liwerant, Eliezer Ben-Rafael, Yossi Gorny, and Raanan Rein (Leiden, 2008), 47–80. searching for home abroad 31

Table 1: The Jewish Population in Argentina, 1895–1965 Year Census Data Rosenswaike Schmelz and DellaPergola 1895 6,085 1900 14,700 1905 24,700 1910 68,100 1915 115,600 1920 120,000 126,700 1925 160,400 162,300 1930 200,200 191,400 1935 226,400 218,000 1940 254,400 1945 273,400 1947 249,326 265,000–275,000 285,800 1950 294,000 1955 305,900 1960 291,877 310,000 1965 296,600 Source: Sergio DellaPergola, “Demographic Trends of Latin American Jewry,” in The Jewish Presence in Latin America, ed. Judith Laikin Elkin and Gilbert W. Merks (Boston, 1987), p. 92; and Ira Rosenswaike, “The Jewish Population of Argentina: Census and Estimate, 1887–1947,” Jewish Social Studies, XXII, No. 4 (Oct. 1960): 195–214.

Jewish immigration to Argentina has been mostly Ashkenazi, although Jews from Morocco were among the ﬁ rst immigrants, back in the mid- 1800s.27 Later in the century they were joined by Jewish immigrants from the declining Ottoman Empire, especially from Aleppo and Damascus, who arrived alongside the wave of Jews from Eastern and Central Europe.28

27 For a general overview on Jewish immigration to Argentina, see Avni, Argentina and the Jews. On Sephardic Jews in Argentina, see Margalit Bejarano, “Los Sefardíes de la Argentina,” Sefárdica 1–2 (1984): 37–42; idem, “Los Sefaradíes en la Argentina: Particularismo étnico frente a tendencias de uniﬁ cación,” Rumbos en el Judaísmo, el Sionismo e Israel17–18 (1986): 143–160. For Moroccan Jews in Argentina, see Diana L. Epstein, “Instituciones y liderazgo comunitario de los judíos de origen marroquí en Buenos Aires,” in Árabes y judíos en Iberoamérica, ed. Raanan Rein (Seville, 2008), 135–158; Diana L. Epstein, “Los judeo-marroquíes en Buenos Aires: Pautas matrimoniales, 1875–1910,” Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe (EIAL) 6, no. 1 (1995): 113–133. 28 On Jews from Syria, see Susana Brauner, “Los judíos de origin sirio en Argentina: Identidad, liderazgos, participación política y alineamientos en el conﬂ icto árabe-israelí, 1900–2000” (Ph.D. diss., Universidad del Salvador, 2008). 32 chapter two

Chronologically, the fi rst Jewish immigrants began to arrive as early as the 1840s (in Argentina, unlike Brazil, evidence of conversos during the colonial period is scant) and the fi rst synagogue was established in 1862. However, the fi rst important milestone in Jewish immigration was recorded in 1881 when, following pogroms in Russia, the Argentine government decided to encourage Jews to immigrate and a special emissary was sent to invite Jews from Tzarist Russia to settle in Argentina. The fi rst organized group of immigrants, consisting of 820 Russian Jews, arrived in August 1889 on board the ship Wesser. They were sent to the Jewish agricultural colonies and some of its members founded the by now almost mythological colonies of Moisesville (1889), Mauricio (1892), and Villa Clara (1892), among others (see Table 2).29

Table 2: Jewish Agricultural Settlements Established by JCA in Argentina Colony Province Year Moises Ville Santa Fe 1889 Mauricio Buenos Aires 1892 Clara Entre Rios 1892 San Antonio Entre Rios 1892 Lucienville Entre Rios 1894 Monteﬁ ore Entre Rios 1902 Baron Hirsch Buenos Aires/ 1905 La Pampa Lopez y Berro Entre Rios 1907 Santa Isabel Entre Rios 1908 Curbelo-Moss Entre Rios 1908 Narcisse Leven La Pampa 1909 Dora Santiago del Estero 1912 Palmar-Yatay Entre Rios 1912 Louis Oungre Entre Rios 1925 Avigdor Entre Rios 1936 Leonard Cohen Entre Rios 1937

Source: Author’s elaboration.

29 Avni, Argentine “The Promised Land,” Ch. 3; Daniel Fernando Bargman, “Un ámbito para las relaciones interétnicas: Las colonias agrícolas judías en Argentina,” Revista de Antropología 11(1992): 50–58; Lea Literat-Golombek, Moisés Ville: Crónica de un shtetl argentino ( Jerusalem, 1982). searching for home abroad 33

The government’s immigration policy dramatically changed the demographic profi le of the country, as became apparent in the 1914 census. Within 20 years, the country’s population had almost doubled (to about 7.9 million). More than a third of the inhabitants were foreign- born. In the capital city of Buenos Aires, this fi gure was around 50 percent. As for Jews, the rate of growth was much higher—from 1895 to 1919 the Jewish population increased from 6,000 to 125,000. At any rate, the original vision of a Jewish agricultural enterprise as the main focus of attraction for Jewish immigration did not last long. While in the late nineteenth century most Argentine Jews were concentrated in the Jewish Colonization Association ( JCA) colonies, by the end of World War I the majority of Jews were urban dwellers, with Buenos Aires housing the largest Jewish population.30 In urban centers, Jews were inclined to concentrate in certain neighborhoods—in Buenos Aires, Once and Villa Crespo are among the most well-known—which added to their urban and social visibility. With the exception of a temporary break in immigration during the Great War, when dwindling commercial ties with Europe contributed to economic recession and unemployment, the fl ow of immigration to Argentina continued, including many Jews. In contrast to the limitations imposed on immigration by the United States and other countries, Argentina's liberal immigration policy remained almost unchanged, with minor revisions instituted in the mid-1920s. It was only the world economic recession in the wake of the Wall Street crash that brought immigration virtually to a halt. The ensuing political upheaval provoked the fi rst military coup in the country’s history (September 1930), in turn reinforcing nationalist, Catholic, and xenophobic tendencies in Argentine society.31 During the 1930s the Jewish population had grown in number to approximately a quarter of a million. Contemporary restrictions on immigration were based on political as well as economic considerations.

30 On Jewish social life in contemporary Buenos Aires, see Eugene F. Sofer, From Pale to Pampa: A Social History of the Jews of Buenos Aires (New York, 1982); Mollie Lewis, “Con Men, Cooks, and Cinema Kings: Popular Culture and Jewish Identities in Buenos Aires, 1905–1930” (Ph.D. diss., Emory University, 2007). 31 See the important works of Federico Finchelstein, La Argentina fascista: Los orígenes de la dictadura (Buenos Aires, 2008), and “The Anti-Freudian Politics of Argentine Fascism: Anti-Semitism, Catholicism, and the Internal Enemy, 1932–1945,” Hispanic American Historical Review 87, no. 1 (2007): 77–110. 34 chapter two

The social and political ferment in Europe aroused fears among the Argentine elites concerning the possible entry of ‘undesirable’ elements, people who might constitute a potential danger to the existing social and political order. Consequently, Republican exiles and refugees fl ee- ing from the Spanish Civil War and the new dictatorship of General Francisco Franco faced all kind of barriers in their efforts to enter Argentina. National authorities feared that they might bring with them a leftist ‘virus.’32 The same was true for Jews, who were often considered ‘Bolsheviks.’ Moreover, in view of the economic recession, priority was given to those professionals who were needed by the local economy, while xenophobic attitudes constituted further obstacles in the way of non-Catholic immigrants or those who might supposedly have diffi culties in adjusting to Argentine society and culture. Those Jews who had pinned their hopes on Argentina’s position at the Evian Conference (France), convened by the League of Nations in July 1938 to discuss possible solutions to the problem of refugees from Nazi Germany and Austria, were disappointed. Argentina, like most other countries, was unwilling to open its gates to these refugees. This same restrictive policy was maintained throughout World War II, although between 1933 and 1945 around 40,000 Jews did enter Argentina, legally or illegally, almost a fi fth of them during the years of the Holocaust. In the mid-1940s, following the defeat of Fascism and the end of hostilities in Europe, immigration to Argentina resumed, albeit not in the same magnitude as in the past. The populist president, Juan Perón, lifted most restrictions to immigration in 1947, and during the next three years some 300,000 immigrants entered the country, chiefl y from Spain and Italy, the two ‘mother countries’ of most Argentines. Although only 1,500 Jews arrived in the second half of the 1940s, the Peronist regime’s decision to grant amnesty to all illegal residents enabled some 10,000 Jews to obtain legal status.33 At the same time, Nazi war criminals and collaborators who had found shelter in Argentina, mostly under false identities, also benefi ted from this amnesty. Their presence

32 Leonardo Senkman, Argentina, la segunda guerra mundial y los refugiados indeseables, 1933–1945 (Buenos Aires, 1991). 33 On this measure see Leonardo Senkman, “Etnicidad e inmigración durante el primer peronismo,” Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latin y el Caribe (E.I.A.L) 3, no. 2 (1992): 5–38; Susana M. Sassone, “Migraciones ilegales y amnistías en la República Argentina,” Estudios Migratorios Larinoamericanos 6–7 (1987): 249–289. searching for home abroad 35 in the country has greatly contributed to the myth of Argentina being an anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi society.34 The 1950s witnessed the last wave of Jewish immigration to Argen- tina (and to neighboring Brazil). These were mainly refugees from the Communist repression in Hungary in 1956, or Jews who had fl ed Egypt because of the hostile policy adopted by the Nasser regime after the joint attack by Israel, Great Britain, and France.35 From that point onwards, the number of Jews in Argentina began to decline. While it is true that anti-Semitic manifestations have always accompanied the Jewish presence in Argentina, it is important to differentiate between the various types of anti-Semitism, which is possibly one of the most studied aspects of Jewish life in South America. Haim Avni has pointed to three levels of anti-Semitism in Argentina: popular, organized, and government-sponsored.36 Popular anti-Semitism is diffi cult to measure. Deeply rooted in Catholic precepts, it has at times been fueled either by Nazi propaganda (during the 1930s and World War II) or by Arab propaganda (from the 1960s onwards). Recent polls, however, indicate that Jews are hated no more than other ethnic or social groups, while many people consider multinational corporations, the Catholic Church, banks, politicians or the Army to be ‘too powerful,’ more so than Jews. Organized anti-Semitic groups fi rst appeared in 1910, the year of the centennial celebrations of Argentina’s de facto independence. In 1919 they took advantage of a workers’ strike in order to attack Jewish neighborhoods, which they perceived as hubs of revolutionary ferment. In the early 1960s they exploited the kidnapping of the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires (May 1960) by Mossad agents to accuse the Jews of their country of dual loyalty and to carry out a series of violent anti-Semitic attacks, led by groups such as Tacuara and the Guardia Restauradora Nacionalista.37 These incidents were

34 Debate continues on this issue. For two opposing views, see Uki Goñi, The Real Odessa: How Perón Brought the Nazi War Criminals to Argentina (London, 2002); Ronald C. Newton, The “Nazi Menace” in Argentina, 1931–1947 (Stanford, Calif., 1992). 35 Michael M. Laskier, The Jews of Egypt, 1920–1970: In the Midst of Zionism, Anti- Semitism, and the Middle East Conﬂ ict (New York, 1992): 252–264; Raanan Rein, “Diplo- macy, Propaganda, and Humanitarian Gestures: Francoist Spain and Egyptian Jews, 1956–1968,” Ibero-americana 23 (2006): 21–33. 36 Haim Avni, “Antisemitism in Argentina: The Dimensions of Danger,” in Approaches to Antisemitism: Context and Curriculum, ed. Michael Brown (New York, 1994), 57–77. 37 See Raanan Rein, Argentina, Israel, and the Jews: Perón, the Eichmann Capture and After (Bethesda, Md., 2003), ch. 7. On Tacuara, see Daniel Gutman, Tacuara—Historia de 36 chapter two not repeated, although in subsequent decades nationalist organizations often distributed anti-Semitic propaganda and even carried out isolated attacks on Jewish institutions. Usually small in number, these groups occasionally gained some inﬂ uence in military, clerical or political circles. Since the 1960s, anti-Semitic propaganda has sometimes been couched as anti-Israeli or anti-Zionist discourse. In any case, government-sponsored anti-Semitism has been rare in Argentina. It manifested itself in the limitations imposed on Jewish immigration during the 1930s and the 1940s, and was also noticeable during the years of the brutal military dictatorship that ruled the country between 1976 and 1983. The Jewish community suffered disproportionately from the terror of those years: Jews amounted to 1 percent of the population, but about 10 percent of the desaparecidos.38 According to many testimonies, Jews arrested by the military suffered more than non-Jews; yet community institutions continued with their normal activities, no anti-Semitic laws were ever instituted and government relations with the State of Israel were excellent. The transition to democracy in the 1980s and 1990s witnessed the adoption of a tolerant policy toward ethnic minorities and a growing awareness of the multicultural nature of Argentine society. However, this did not signal the complete disappearance of anti-Semitism or even of its occasional violent manifestations. In fact, the two bomb attacks on the Israeli Embassy and the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires—in 1992 and 1994, respectively—represented a different kind of danger for Jews in Argentina: transnational terror with local support.39 These bombings triggered grassroots mobilization and a continuing polemic among Argentine Jews as to their individual and collective

la primera guerrilla urbana argentina (Buenos Aires, 2003); Michael Goebel, “A Movement from Right to Left in Argentine Nationalism? The Alianza Libertadora Nacionalista and Tacuara as Stages of Militancy,” Bulletin of Latin American Research 26, no. 3 (2007): 356–377. 38 On anti-Semitism during the military dictatorship and the high percentage of Jews among the desaparecidos, see Edy Kaufman, “Jewish Victims of Repression in Argentina under Military Rule (1976–1983),” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 4 (1989): 479–499; Gabriela Lotersztain, Los judíos bajo el terror: Argentina 1976–1983 (Buenos Aires, 2008). 39 Carlos Escudé and Beatríz Gurevich, “Limits to Governability, Corruption and Transnational Terrorism: The Case of the 1992 and 1994 Attacks in Buenos Aires,” Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe (E.I.A.L) 14, no. 2 (2003): 127–148. searching for home abroad 37 identities, their place in Argentine society, and their relations with their imagined homeland, the State of Israel.

Not Invisible Anymore: The Individual and Collective Identities of Latin Americans in Israel

There are currently 65,000 Israeli citizens of Latin American origin. Together with their children, they number over 100,000, and most of them are Argentines.40 These numbers do not include the thousands of undocumented Latin Americans in Israel, most of them from the Andean countries (Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia), and this essay does not deal with them. It is worth noting, however, that this group of migrant workers has received more scholarly attention than the Jewish Latin Americans who have made aliyah—that is, relocated to Israel.41 Many Israelis of Latin American origin have attained prominent positions in the liberal professions, academia, industry, or agriculture, and therefore they project an image of successful integration as individuals. Until recently, however, they have been collectively an ‘invisible community,’ a term coined by sociologist Luis Roniger:42 a group that prefers individual mobility to communal assertiveness. In contrast to the experience of other communities of Jews relocating to Israel, such as Moroccans, Russians, or Iranians, Latin Americans so far have

40 Luis Roniger and Deby Babis, “Latin American Israelis: The Collective Identity of an Invisible Community,” in Identities in an Era of Globalization and Multiculturalism: Latin America in the Jewish World, ed. Judit Bokser Liwerant et al., 297–320; Shlomo Bar-Gil, We Started with a Dream: Graduates of Latin American Youth Movements in the Kibbutz Movement, 1946–1967 [Hebrew] ( Jerusalem, 2005); Florinda Goldberg and Iosef Rozen, eds. Los latinoamericanos en Israel: Antología de una aliá (Buenos Aires, 1988); Donald L. Herman, The Latin American Community of Israel (New York, 1984). 41 See, for example, Adriana Kemp and Rebecca Raijman, “Foreigners in a Jew- ish State: The New Politics of Labour Migration in Israel,” Israel Sociology 3, no. 1 (2000): 79–110; Adriana Kemp, Rebecca Raijman, Julia Resnik, and Silvina Schammah- Gesser, “ ‘Making It’ in Israel? Non-Jewish Latino Undocumented Migrant Workers in the Holy Land,” Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe (EIAL) 11, no. 2 (2000): 113–136; idem, “Contesting the Limits of Political Participation: Latinos and Black African Migrant Workers in Israel,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 23, no. 1 (2000): 94–119. 42 Luis Roniger, “The Latin American Community of Israel: Some Notes on Latin American Jews and Latin American Israelis,” Israel Social Science Research 6, no. 1 (1988/89): 63–72; Luis Roniger and Gabriel Jarochevsky, “Los latinoamericanos en Israel: La comunidad invisible,” Reﬂ ejos 1 (1992): 39–49. The following paragraphs are based in part on Roniger’s various studies of this subject. 38 chapter two Country of

Paraguay Total a America , ed. Judit Bokser Liwerant, Eliezer Ben-Rafael, Yossi Gorny, and Raanan Gorny, Ben-Rafael, Yossi Eliezer Bokser Liwerant, , ed. Judit 57 (2006): 238–39. Table 3: Latin American Immigration to Israel by Country of American Immigration to Israel by 3: Latin Table Origin and Period Statistical Abstract ofStatistical Abstract 2006 Israel Identities in an Era in Identities an Era Identity of American Israelis: The “Latin Collective Babis, and Deby Community,” : Luis Roniger an Invisible Central America includes Costa Rica, Guatemala, Cuba, Panama, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, and Haiti. El Salvador, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Panama, Central America includes Costa Rica, Guatemala, Residence,” Residence,” 1948–19511952–19601961–1964 904 2,8881965–1971 5,5371972–1979 6,1641980–1989 304 13,158 7631990–2000 10,582 637 1,9642001–2004 1,763 9,911 425Total 66 1,763 10,014 1,118 726 2,199 2,161 2,014 1,468 401 793 1,180 48 59,158 322 1,040 827 1,158 10,148 611 168 861 125 48 993 604 8,533 299 289 – 552 5,362 126 986 – 475 218 4,010 188 245 109 – 180 598 275 2,315 – 111 104 18 1,301 378 43 201 8 16 17 73 194 782 140 341 42 62 11,929 20,135 – 462 7,794 28 47 17,117 4,730 92,071 1,387 15,633 13,346 Rein (Leiden, 2008), 297–320; Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, “Table 4.2: Immigrants by Periods of of (Leiden, 2008), 297–320; Israel Central Bureau Periods 4.2: Immigrants by Rein Immigration “Table and Last Statistics, Period Argentina Brazil Uruguay Chile Mexico ColombiaSource of Venezuela World Latin America in the Jewish Globalization and Multiculturalism: Central a searching for home abroad 39 refrained from assuming a communal public visibility. This has to do with the fact that there has never been a ‘wave’ of immigration from Latin America to Israel. In sharp contrast to other groups that have acquired a distinctive ethnic identity in Israel because they arrived in one or several massive waves, the Latin American immigration was a cumulative rather than an abrupt process. Between 1948 and 2005 some 100,000 Latin Americans immigrated to Israel in a steady trickle, with some peaks in the 1970s and 1980s (see Table 3). As a result, these immigrants were perceived as Westerners who arrived in comparatively small numbers. Their arrival did not precipi- tate a sudden revolution in Israeli public opinion, as the massive fl ood of immigration from the Soviet Union did, or the much smaller but nonetheless dramatic waves of Ethiopian Jews—both of them immi- grations that impacted Israeli society at large and required substantial absorption efforts on the part of the state administration. The demographic distribution of the Latin Americans throughout Israel is such that on one hand, their presence is felt everywhere, but on the other hand their geographical distribution has made it diffi cult for them to assert themselves collectively.43 Another factor hampering the emergence of a collective ‘ethnic’ assertiveness is the huge diversity of Latin American Israelis. Whereas a pan-Latin American identity has been constructed in Israel—based mainly on language and cultural manifestations—there are still many sources of division and discord between Argentine immigrants, who constitute the majority, and immigrants from countries such as Peru, Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Venezuela. Even Argentines are divided between those originally from the capital city of Buenos Aires, known as porteños, and immigrants from the provinces of the interior. Among the fi rst Jews to leave Argentina for Jewish Palestine, it is worth mentioning the 53 volunteers who in 1918 joined the British forces in their campaign to end Turkish rule in Palestine.44 Most of them went back to Argentina at the end of the war. There were also

43 In the early 1980s most immigrants from Latin America (80 percent) were still concentrated in four cities: Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and Beersheva. See Herman, The Latin American Community of Israel. 44 See Rafael Doron, Legionarios de Argentina: Voluntarios a la legión judía en la primera Guerra mundial [Hebrew] (Givat Chaviva, Israel, 2007). The author is the son of one of those volunteers. 40 chapter two many Jewish Argentines among the 350–400 Latin American Jews who fought for Israel's independence in 1948.45 However, it was not until the 1960s that substantial numbers of Jews relocated from Argentina to Israel.46 From the 1950s to the 1970s, the motives behind Argentine immigration to Israel were mostly ideological, based on Zionist ideals or Jewish identity, with the prime concern being the younger generation’s future as Jews. This was demonstrated in a survey that the late David Hurvitz, a Jewish Agency envoy in Argentina in the 1960s, conducted among 150 Jews in Argentina and another 150 Jewish Argentines who had moved to Israel.47 During the ruthless military dictatorship that began in 1976, several hundred Jews fl ed to Israel in order to save their lives.48 By contrast, in more recent years economic upheavals have constituted the main impetus for emigration to Israel. The December 2001 crisis alone almost immediately more than doubled the number of Argentine immigrants to the country, which reached a total of over 6,000 in 2002. Many of these immigrants encountered diffi culties in integrating into Israeli society and consequently some of them went back to Argentina. Taking into account the fact that around this time 61 percent of Jewish Argentines were not affi liated with community institutions and only about one-third sent their children to Jewish schools, this is not surprising.49 In social terms, the Latin Americans’ passion and cultural orientation are assets in the informal, improvisational climate of Israeli society. As one of my informants told me, “It is cool to be Latino in Israel.” Bars with Latin names, such as Evita in Tel Aviv and Che Guevara in Rishon Letzion, are popular with young people. In addition, interest

45 See Henrique Cymerman’s documentary, Valió la pena (Tel Aviv University, 2008). 46 On the early immigrants from Argentina, see Moisés Joselevich, Jornadas pioneras. Apuntes para una historia del movimiento jalutziano de América Latina ( Jerusalem, 1957); Schmuel Aides, Latinoamericanos en Israel (Tel Aviv, 1960). 47 David Hurovitz, “The Jewish Community and Aliyah from Argentina, 1962–1973” [Hebrew] (Ph.D. diss., Tel Aviv University, 2006). See also Sebastían Klor, “Argentine Aliyah to Israel during the Years 1948–1967” [Hebrew] (doctoral research in progress, Haifa University). 48 On the lives of those who came to Israel during the second half of the 1970s, see Eduardo D. Faingold, Diáspora y exilio: Crónica de una familia argentina (Buenos Aires, 2006); Vera Jarach, Diana Guelar, and Beatríz Ruiz, Los chicos del exilio: Argentina 1975–1984 (Buenos Aires, 2003). 49 Adrián Jmelnizky and Ezequiel Erdei, La población judía de Buenos Aires: Estudio sociodemográﬁ co (Buenos Aires, 2005), 51, 58. searching for home abroad 41 in Spanish-speaking cultures has grown dramatically in recent decades as a result of increased numbers of young Israeli backpackers traveling to South America, usually after completing their obligatory military service, and the rise in popularity of Spanish-language soap operas, or telenovelas, and Latin American music among the Israeli public.50 In 1977, for example, several of Israel’s leading singers joined together to produce a radio show, later made into a best-selling album, of Brazil- ian songs translated into Hebrew. The program and album, entitled Eretz Tropit Yafa (A Beautiful Tropical Land), marked the beginning of a kind of Latin American music craze in Israel.51 A decade later the Latin sound of a band called Atraf and led by Peruvian-born musi- cians Victor Azuz and Ruben Salamon became very popular in Israel. The members of this group emphasized their Latin identity and their albums included Hebrew versions of popular songs like ‘La Bamba’ or ‘Guantanamera.’ One of their albums, released in 1995, was entitled Latini Ivri Latini (Latino Hebrew Latino). Is there a better indication of the emergence of an Israeli-Latino identity? As for telenovelas, it is worth noting that two popular channels in Israel, Viva and Viva Platina, are devoted exclusively to telenovelas, and that telenovelas are broadcast regularly on several other channels as well. These series are subtitled, so the Israeli audience is accustomed to hearing Spanish. Although the ﬁ rst Latin American telenovela to be broadcast in Israel was the Mexican Los ricos también lloran (The Rich Also Cry) two decades ago, the telenovelas channels are actually dominated by Argentine rather than Mexican or Colombian programs. Interestingly enough, one of the main producers of Argentine telenovelas in recent years is an Argentine-Israeli, Yair Dori, wounded in the 1973 Yom Kip- pur War. In the movie Like a Fish out of Water the father of one of the main characters is an avid fan of Argentine telenovelas. Certain Israeli blogs and talk-back sites are devoted exclusively to telenovelas.

50 On Latin American telenovelas in Israel, see Tomás López-Pumarejo, “Telenovelas and the Israeli Television Market,” Television & New Media 8, no. 3 (2007) 197–212; “Hoy, en Israel todos hablan español,” Pagina/12, 27 Dec. 2005; Gerald Erichsen, “Argentine Telenovelas Popular in Israel,” Miami Herald, 19 Sept. 2003. 51 Judah M. Cohen, “The Ethnic Dilemmas of Latin American Jewry,” in Rethink- ing Jewish-Latin Americans, ed. Jeffrey Lesser and Raanan Rein (Albuquerque, 2008), 266–284. Latin dance has also proved extremely popular in Israel. See, for example, Penny Starr, “Dancing the Night Away: Salsa and Ballet. Latin Beat that Tempts Israeli Feet,” Jerusalem Post, 13 Nov. 1992. 42 chapter two

All these factors have encouraged students to take Spanish courses in both high schools and universities. Since the early 1980s Spanish has been taught as an elective subject in middle schools and high schools. The number of students taking Spanish as a foreign language has steadily increased, reaching 3,500 in the 2006/7 academic year; 400 of them took the matriculation exam in that subject.52 Spanish is studied even in several Jewish religious schools, where students may be selecting Spanish in order to avoid studying Arabic (see Tables 4 and 5).

Table 4: Number of Israeli High Schools in which Spanish Is Taught Number of Schools School Year 10 1998–1999 12 1999–2000 14 2000–2001 15 2001–2002 25 2002–2003 31 2003–2004 42 2004–2005 Source: Ivonne Lerner, “El lugar de la lengua española en Israel,” Real Instituto Elcano de Estudios Internacionales y Estratégicos, http://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/wps/ portal/rielcano/contenido?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/Elcano_es/Zonas_es/ Lengua+y+Cultura/ARI+50–2006

Concerning the inﬂ uence of telenovelas on learning Spanish, Sitman and Lerner have correctly argued that whether one likes them or not, they cannot be ignored. Spanish teachers have reported that many students do not start their Spanish studies as complete beginners but have some previous knowledge of the language, particularly in comprehension and speaking.53

52 On Spanish studies in Israel, see Ivonne Lerner and Beatriz Katz, “La enseñanza del español como lengua extranjera en Israel,” El español en el mundo, anuario del español (Madrid, 2003), 205–252; Ivonne Lerner, “El lugar de la lengua española en Israel,” Real Instituto Elcano de Estudios Internacionales y Estratégicos, http://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/wps/portal/rielcano/contenido?WCM_GLOBAL_ CONTEXT=/Elcano_es/Zonas_es/Lengua+y+Cultura/ARI+50–2006. 53 Rosalie Sitman and Ivonne Lerner, “La enseñanza del español como lengua extranjera en Israel,” in Problemas y métodos en la enseñanza del español como lengua extranjera, ed. Jesús Sánchez Lobato and Isabel Santos Gargallo (Madrid, 1994), 591–602; idem, “Queridas, odiadas pero nunca ignoradas: Las telenovelas en la clase de ELE,” in Tendencias actuales en la enseñanza del español como lengua extranjera II : Actas del VI Congreso searching for home abroad 43 Institution Ben Gurion University Ben Gurion University Sapir College Interdisciplinary Hertzliya Center, yet yet yet Not offered Not offered Not offered Not offered Not offered Not offered yet yet yet Not offered Not offered Not offered Not offered yet yet Not offered Not offered Not offered Not offered yet yet 60 62 63 57 University Ilan Bar Not offered Not offered yet down Closed 60 25 45 30 offered Not 561414120336 506 367 112 – 560 363 98 550 510 296 52 388 467 263 63 298 362 270 57 Jerusalem University, Hebrew University Aviv Tel 229 University Haifa Technion 25 31 offered Not 35 230 210 210 190Agriculture of Faculty 35 30 offered Not down Closed Table 5: Table Number of Spanish Language Courses in Israeli Colleges and Universities Students Taking : Ivonne Lerner, “El lugar de la lengua española en Israel.” Lerner, : Ivonne down 60 479 415 85 321 Closed 2004–05 2003–04 2002–03 2001–02 2000–01 1999–00 1998–99 30 120 38 Source 44 chapter two

Another factor that helped Argentines integrate into Israeli society was their comparatively better knowledge of Israel and of the Hebrew language prior to actual immigration. Studies show that a large proportion, especially of those who immigrated before 1974, reported being aware of both Zionism and their Jewish heritage while they were still living in Argentina.54 To sum up, Latin American immigrants have placed great importance on their cultural and social absorption into Israeli society, and they have succeeded in attaining a degree of integration that is in striking contrast to the place occupied by Latinos in the United States. And yet, collectively speaking, it is only recently that Latin Americans in Israel have began to assert their communal cultural identity. It was not until May 2002 that the ﬁ rst public congress on the contribution of Latin American immigration to Israel was held. In the past decade there has been a stream of autobiographies, biographies, and books documenting the history of Zionist organizations in Latin America and the contributions of immigrants from Latin America to the kibbutz movement.55 Another measure intended to raise the public proﬁ le of Latin Ameri- can Israelis was the ceremony that took place in February 2006, on which occasion honorary membership in the Organization of Latin America, Spain and Portugal in Israel (OLEI), which has 25 branches around the country, was given to two immigrants of Argentine background. The honorees were neurosurgeon Dr. José Cohen, a leading member of the team that operated on former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem (and which included another Argentine-Israeli, Félix Umansky); and singer Pablo Rosenberg, who, born in Rosario, Argentina, in 1965, had arrived in Israel with his parents at the age of 10. Music, along with language56 and sports, has always been a major element of collective identity among Latin Americans in Israel, legal

Internacional de ASELE, ed. Francisco Javier Grande Alija et al. (León, Spain, 1996), 245–247. 54 Hurovitz, “The Jewish Community and Aliyah from Argentina, 1962–1973.” 55 See, for example, Dvora Grokop Shechner, A Political Girl [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 2002); Noemi Kitron, A Personal Saga: The Life of Moshe Kitron [Hebrew] ( Jerusalem, 2005); David Hurovitz, ed., The Chalutz HaTzair Generation in Argentina [Hebrew] (n.p., n.d.); Irene Stoliar, Los Shomrim de los Andes: Historia del Movimiento Kidma-Hashomer Hatzair en Chile (Tel Aviv, 2007). 56 Graciela Spector-Bitan, “Spanish Is Well and Living in Israel: Spanish Mainte- nance among Second Generation of Latin Americans in Israel” (paper delivered at the searching for home abroad 45 and illegal, Jews and non-Jews alike. Research on migrant workers in Israel has shown that each community of foreign workers has a typical social activity that refl ects their cultural background and sense of identity: Filipinos—beauty contests; Africans (mainly from Ghana)— church and religion; Romanians—social drinking; Latinos—–religion, soccer and salsa.57 With respect to soccer, for example, mention must be made of the Israeli branch of the fans of the Atlanta soccer club in Buenos Aires. Atlanta has been the soccer club of Villa Crespo, the quintessential Jewish neighbourhood of Buenos Aires, since 1922. The Atlanta soccer club has been a central force in the popular culture and collective ethnic identity of many Jews, especially unaffi liated Jews.58 No wonder, then, that Atlanta was the fi rst Argentine soccer club to visit Israel (in April 1963)59 and that the fans of the club have an active branch in Israel.60 Finally, the Internet now provides the space where Latin American identity is asserted most noticeably. In recent years, there has been an exponential increase in the number of Latin-Israeli sites. Accessed by many non-Latinos, they serve simultaneously as an instrument of cohesion among Latinos and a means for their integration in Israel.

23rd Annual Conference of the Association for Israel Studies, The Open University of Israel, Raanana, June 2007). 57 Yitzhak Schnell, Foreign Workers in Southern Tel Aviv Yafo [Hebrew] ( Jerusalem, 1999), 42; Moshe Morad, “Salsa and Falafel—Music and Identity among Illegal Latino Immigrants in Tel Aviv,” http://www.moshemorad.com/Hobby.html 58 See Raanan Rein, “On the Trail of Buenos Aires´ Atlanta Soccer Club: Jewish Argentine Popular Culture and its Place in the Historiography of Latin American Jewry” (work in progress). 59 See http://www.sentimientobohemio.com.ar/produccion_giraisrael.htm 60 Clarín, 25 Sept. 2003; Marcelo Fleker, “El centenario también se festejó en Israel,” Planeta Bohemio, http://www.planetabohemio.com.ar/centenario/centeisrael.htm; Edu- ardo de Holon, “La legión israelí ya es ofﬁ cial,” Sentimiento Bohemio 7, no. 104 (5 June 2005), http://www.sentimientobohemio.com.ar/104_ﬁ lial.htm

CHAPTER THREE

COMPLEMENTARY IDENTITIES: SEPHARDIM, ZIONISTS, AND ARGENTINES IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD

“For practical reasons,” Argentine Jews should not immigrate to Palestine, declared a contributor to the Sephardic Zionist newspaper Israel, because the arrival of too many people could cause both a moral and an economic catastrophe in that Middle Eastern territory.1 Like other articles in Israel, a newspaper founded by Moroccan Sephardim in Buenos Aires, not only did this one explicitly not call for readers to emigrate, but it even went so far as to suggest that Argentina was preferable to Palestine.2 Jews had made Argentina their home, and wanted other Argentines to recognize them as members of the nation. Sometimes Zionism was not about Palestine—it was about creating identities in the Diaspora. For the editors and contributors to Israel, Zionism was about their lives in Argentina. Even though it was a global movement, Sephardim and Ashkenazim in Israel united around an apolitical strain of Zion- ism that emphasized their place in Argentina. Between 1917 and the late 1930s, these Jews of diverse backgrounds used Zionism to create a new Jewish identity, based as much on a common mythic past as on the hope of a shared future in Argentina. Hence, the Zionism of those surrounding Israel did not suggest that Argentine Jews should return to Palestine, the historic home of the Jews, but rather that Argentina could become the homeland of both Sephardim and Ashkenazim, just as Zionism could unite the Jews of the Diaspora. On one hand, then, the new Zionism expressed in Israel reﬂ ected the desire of the contributors to be recognized as part of the Argentine nation and not as radical

1 “Una iniciativa plausible,” Israel, 12 Jan. 1920. The word Sephardim is used here for those Jews who descended from Jews expelled from Spain and who immigrated to Argentina from the Ottoman Empire and Arab countries. 2 One of the cases in which the newspaper showed its support for migration to Palestine was the publication of a manifesto, signed with the pseudonym Rubeni, in which the author called for the emigration of 100 Jewish Argentine families and included a detailed plan of implementation. The editor added words of support. See Israel, 1 April 1921. 48 chapter three or militant nationalist Jews; on the other, it presented a usable past for the Jews as well as a pattern for future unifi cation of Sephardim and Ashkenazim in that country. Through Zionism, the Sephardim and Ashkenazim involved with Israel created a common Jewish past as the basis for an imagined community. They created a nation of origin, allowing them to fi t in with other immigrant groups. In this sense, Palestine fulfi lled the same role for Jews that Italy did for Italian immigrants. The idea of a place of origin was clearly more important than its actual existence. The Jews at Israel affi rmed their own national past through Zion- ism, yet the desire for a future Jewish state was less clear before the outbreak of World War II. The newspaper did include photographs of Palestine and requests for donations to the Zionist cause, yet despite the diffi culties that many immigrants faced in Argentina, few showed any sign of leaving.3 Both Palestine and the impetus to move there seemed remote. As Argentines, they were linked to daily life in their own country, not to some vague idea of a possible future Jewish state in the Middle East.

Studying Latin American Sephardic Jews

Many themes relating to Latin American Jews have yet to be studied in depth, particularly the history of those unafﬁ liated with communal organizations, and the roles of class and gender.4 In studies of Jews in Latin America, most scholars focus on the Ashkenazim. Those who do research on Sephardim have emphasized their differences from Ashkenazim, ranging from social contact zones to culture to ideology. Margalit Bejarano, an expert on Sephardim in Latin America, wrote that unlike the Ashkenazim, “Sephardi Judaism existed inside social circles and closed cultures, whose points of contact with the ‘other’ Jewish world were scarce.”5 Similarly, Silvia Schenkol- levsky-Kroll, a scholar of Argentine Zionist history, has written that

3 See, for example, in Israel, 13 Aug. 1920 and 3 Dec. 1920, information about the campaign to collect funds for the Zionist Federation of Argentina; and an account of the visit of Max Nordau, who came to Argentina to raise money for the construction of a Jewish home in Palestine, I. L. Dalidansky, Israel, 9 June 1920. 4 See chapter 1 in this volume. 5 Bejarano later qualifi ed her opinion and affi rmed that relations between Ashkenazim and Sephardim were more fl uid in the early years of immigration to Argentina, before complementary identities 49

the Sephardi public lived racked by internal divisions, and apart from the Ashkenazi public, because of differences in origin, mentality, and above all, language. The two groups only cooperated in moments of crisis or great achievement, such as fundraising for those affected by the disturbances [in Palestine] in 1929.6 Most research about ethnicity in Latin America tends to present ethnic groups as homogeneous and asserts that ethnic group members attach special importance to the imagined country of their ancestors. And yet the reality has often been quite different. The ‘Jewish’ community included Sephardim and Ashkenazim, who in turn were divided by country and city of origin.7 The ‘Arab’ community included Christians and Moslems from Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine, while Japanese, Chinese, and Indians all somehow ﬁ t into the ‘Asian’ category. Upon reading much of the historiography, we might get the impression that these ethnic groups, with their ties to the ‘old countries,’ did not contribute to the creation of national identity in their own country. Studies of Latin American Jews, for example, have tended to assume that support for the Zionist organizations has always been about the State of Israel and not an expression of hyphenated identities in their countries of residence.8 the establishment of the Sephardic organizational infrastructure, and in various cities of the interior: Margalit Bejarano, “Los Sefardíes de la Argentina,” Sefárdica 1, no. 2 (1984), 37–42; idem, “Los Sefaradíes en la Argentina: Particularismo étnico frente a tendencias de uniﬁ cación,” Rumbos en el judaísmo, el sionismo e Israel 17–18 (1986): 143–160. 6 Silvia Schenkolewski-Kroll, The Zionist Movement and the Zionist Parties in Argentina, 1935–1948 [Hebrew] ( Jerusalem, 1996), 33; see also Margalit Bejarano, “Sephardim in Argentina,” Dispersion and Unity [Hebrew], 85/86 (1977–78): 124–142. Contemporary works also complained about the lack of cooperation between Sephardim and Ashke- nazim; see, for example, León Schussheim, “Los judíos sefaradíes en la Argentina,” La Luz, 19 June 1931. The Ashkenazi weekly Mundo Israelita often referred to the relations between the groups. See, for example: 7 Feb. 1931, 20 June 1931, 16 Feb. 1935, 31 Nov. 1935, 22 Mar. 1941. 7 Two of the major Sephardic leaders in Argentina rightly complained about the simplistic generalizations that placed the Jews of Aleppo, Damascus, and North Africa and the speakers of Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) in the same category. See Rubén E. Beraja and Ernesto Slelatt, “Panorama Sefaradí en la Argentina,” La Luz, 26 Sept. 1980. Margalit Bejarano examines the limited Sephardic historiography in Latin America in her article “Sephardic Communities in Latin America—Past and Present,” in Judaica Latinoamericana: Estudios Histórico-sociales 5 (Jerusalem, 2005), 9–26. See also Liz Hamui de Halabe, Identidad colectiva. Rasgos culturales de los inmigrantes judeo alepinos en México (Mexico City, 1997); Adriana M. Brodsky, “The Contours of Identity: Sephardic Jews and the Construction of Jewish Communities in Argentina, 1880 to the Present” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 2003). 8 Silvia Schenkolewski-Kroll, The Zionist Movement; Haim Avni, “El sionismo en la Argentina: El aspecto ideológico,” in Judaica Latinoamericana: Estudios Histórico-sociales 50 chapter three

The Sephardi newspaper Israel, founded in 1917 and published irregularly (though uninterruptedly) until the 1970s, painted a more complete picture of the variety of Zionist identities in Argentina. My analysis of the content of this periodical questions whether participation in Zionist activities was necessarily linked to the imagined motherland of Jew- ish Palestine. Many scholars have asserted that Zionism was a central component of Jewish Argentine identity, and few have questioned this assumption. We need to re-examine Zionism and the varying attitudes toward it in Argentina. I suggest that ‘Zionist activity’ in Argentina, particularly in the early twentieth century, was a strategy that gave Jewish Argentines a mother country in the same way that Italian-Argentines were from Italy, or the Spanish-Argentines from Spain. Through their support for Zionism, Jews could become like other Argentines in this heterogeneous immigrant society. By studying Israel, a newspaper founded by Spanish-speaking Jews from Morocco, we explore the creation of an alternative collective Jew- ish identity in Argentina in the 1920s and 1930s. During this period, we argue, Jewish Argentines created both a historical narrative and a complementary or hyphenated identity within a continuum, with an ideal type of Jewish identity at one extreme and an ideal type of Argentine identity at the other.9 While such a contention may be new to Latin American Jewish historiography, it has recently been raised in debates on Jews in Arab countries, to judge from the works of Yaron Tsur and Hagar Hillel, who examined the Zionist publications Israel in Egypt and L’Avenir Illustré in Morocco. The authors described these newspapers as expressions of a Zionist identity that did not necessarily require immigration to the Holy Land. These Zionist identities acknowledged that readers and contributors would continue their lives in the places where they lived, integrating into the societies around them at the same time that they supported the national project developing in Palestine.10

( Jerusalem, 2005), 5: 145–168; Judit Liwerant de Bokser, “El movimiento nacional judío: el sionismo en México, 1922–1947” (Ph.D. diss., Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1991; Sigue Friesel, Bror Chail: História do Movimento e do Kibutz Brasileiro ( Jerusalem, 1956). 9 For an exhaustive debate on theories and research about group identity and collective memory, see Israel Gershoni, Pyramid for the Nation: Commemoration, Memory and Nationalism in Twentieth-Century Egypt [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 2006). 10 See Hagar Hillel, “Israel” in Cairo: a Zionist Newspaper in Egypt in the National Period, 1920–1939 [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 2004); Hagar Hillel, “Jewish-National Reform Put to complementary identities 51

Being Zionist was more important than origin, native language, or even whether one was Sephardic or Ashkenazi. Although Israel was founded by Jews from Morocco, its contributors were not clearly divided between Sephardim and Ashkenazim. For those associated with the newspaper, Zionism and being a good Argentine were central to their individual and collective identities. Their primary identity was as Zionists, and only after that as Sephardim or Ashkenazim. Israel demonstrated that the division between Sephardim and Ashkenazim in Argentina was not as deep as many researchers have claimed.11 Traditionally, the Sephardim from the Middle East and North Africa and the Ashkenazim from Central and Eastern Europe were described as groups with few points of contact and little interest in each other. Scholars explained the lack of interaction as being due to the differences in origin, language, and ways of practicing Judaism. Although these arguments were valid in a variety of contexts, Israel revealed another side of the story. As many Sephardim as Ashkenazim appeared in the newspaper as contributors as well as in the social pages, photographs, and advertisements. Obviously there was contact between the two groups—they read and wrote in the same newspaper, creating a social network of people who interacted with each other and attended the same social events and meetings of their common organization. Through Israel and their Zionist identities, Sephardim and Ashkenazim could unite around a common objective. Few scholars have attempted to study these heterogeneous groups together, partly because they expressed their Judaism in different ways. One of the main problems is the institutional documentation that historians have traditionally used to tell the story of Argentine Jews. The communal organizations where historians ﬁ nd their sources—mutual aid societies, hospitals, synagogues—were often formed by people who shared an origin or language, making links between groups difﬁ cult. For the Test: The Newspaper L’Avenir Illustrée, Casablanca 1926–1936” [Hebrew], in The Jews of Casablanca: Studies of the Modernization of Jewish Leadership in a Fragmenting Colony, ed. Yaron Tsur and Hagar Hillel (Tel Aviv, 1995); Yaron Tsur, A Torn Community: The Jews of Morocco, 1943–1954 [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 2001). 11 For a historiography of the Jews in Argentina that emphasizes the division between Sephardim and Ashkenazim (with little space dedicated to the former) see Haim Avni, Argentina and the Jews: A History of Jewish Immigration (Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1991); Victor Mirelman. Jewish Buenos Aires: In Search of an Identity, 1890–1930 (Detroit, 1990); Boleslao Lewin, Cómo fue la inmigración judía en la Argentina, 2nd ed. (Buenos Aires, 1983); Robert Weisbrot, The Jews of Argentina: From the Inquisition to Perón (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1979). 52 chapter three example, a synagogue created by natives of Damascus, or a political group whose meetings were held in Yiddish, used different languages and, being based on region of origin, necessarily attracted different groups. Consequently, the use of documents generated by each group led to the conclusion that Sephardim and Ashkenazim lived almost separately, with hardly any daily contact between members of the two groups. Scholars need to start looking at different sources—and at traditional sources in different ways—in order to begin to understand how Sephardim and Ashkenazim interacted on a daily basis. Historians have studied the organizations created by one group or the other, but they have paid little attention to the frameworks that could contain both groups. Perhaps if we begin to analyze frameworks of this kind, we will be able to locate new paths and documentation that will allow us to establish the extent of the interaction between the two groups. Moreover, the historiography mentions few links between Sep- hardim and Zionism, casting Zionism as an entirely Ashkenazi project.12 Scholars have contrasted the politically active Ashkenazim with the supposedly more conservative and religious Sephardim. Israel forces us to rethink these hypotheses and the place of Sephardim and Zionism in the Latin American context. Between 1890 and 1930, tens of thousands of Jews arrived in Argen- tina, the vast majority converging on the city of Buenos Aires and its surrounding areas. At the time of the 1936 census, 120,195 Jews lived in the capital, 86.9 percent of them Ashkenazim from the ‘Pale of Settle- ment,’ an area now contained in Poland and the Russian Federation. The remaining 13.1 percent were Sephardim from the Middle East

12 For discussion of Zionism in Latin America (with little mention of Sephardim) see Haim Avni, “The Origins of Zionism in Latin America,” in The Jewish Presence in Latin America, ed. Judith Laikin Elkin and Gilbert W. Merkx (Boston, 1987), 135–155; idem, “Territorialismo, colonialismo, y sionismo,” in Rumbos en el judaísmo, el sionismo e Israel 13 (1985), 57–80; Silvia Schenkolewski-Kroll, “Zionist Political Parties in Argentina from the Revolution of 1943 to the Establishment of the State of Israel,” in The Jew- ish Diaspora in Latin America: New Studies on History and Literature, ed. David Sheinin and Lois Baer Barr (New York, 1996), 239–249; idem, “La conquista de las comunidades: El movimiento sionista y la comunidad ashkenazí de Buenos Aires (1935–1949),” in Judaica Latinoamericana: Estudios Histórico-sociales 2 ( Jerusalem, 1993): 191–201; idem, “The Inﬂ uence of the Zionist Movement on the Organization of the Argentinean Jewish Community: The Case of the DAIA 1933–1946,” in Studies in Zionism 12, no. 1 (1991) 17–28. On Zionism among the Sephardim, see Bejarano, “Los sefardíes de la Argentina”; Victor Mirelman, “Sephardic Immigration prior to the Nazi Period,” in The Jewish Presence in Latin America, ed. Laikin Elkin and Merkx, 13–32. complementary identities 53 and North Africa who spoke Arabic, Spanish, or Judeo-Español (a Spanish- based language written with the Hebrew alphabet).13 The 5.4 percent who were Arabic-speakers came from Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, or Egypt, while the Ladino-speakers from Turkey, Greece, and Bulgaria made up 4.5 percent of the population. The Spanish-speakers from Morocco, Spain, Tangiers, Algeria, Gibraltar, Portugal, and Tunisia were a tiny minority of 420 people, that is, 0.6 percent of the Jewish population of Buenos Aires. Israel, then, was a publication started by a minority (Moroccans) within a minority (Sephardim) within another minority ( Jews). Moroc- can Sephardim were uniquely suited to building a bridge between the Sephardim and Ashkenazim, because they both spoke Spanish and had begun arriving in Argentina in the 1860s, far earlier than most other groups. Some even taught in the colony schools set up by the Jewish Colonization Association ( JCA) in rural areas in the interior of Argentina. It was also Jews from Morocco who spearheaded the creation of the Congregación Israelita Latina in 1891, the ﬁ rst effort to organize the Sephardim. Evidently, on account of their education and wealth, the situation of Jews from Morocco was better than that of other Sephardim.

Israel: More than Moroccan Sephardim

From the fi rst issue, in which one article expressed the desire to unify and refl ect the aspirations of the entire Jewish community, Israel was clearly not directed just at Moroccan Sephardim.14 One of the oldest Jewish publications in Spanish, and the fi rst Sephardic periodical in Argentina, Israel was founded by Samuel A. Levy and Jacobo Levy, two Jews of Moroccan origin who lived in Buenos Aires. The newspaper began as a monthly in 1917, became bi-monthly and by 1918 was published weekly from the Once neighborhood.15 Jacobo Levy’s death

13 Mirelman, Jewish Buenos Aires, 26; Diana Lía Epstein, “Los judeo-marroquíes en Buenos Aires: Pautas matrimoniales 1875–1910,” EIAL 6, no. 1 ( Jan.–June 1995); Susana Brauner Rodgers, “La comunidad judía alepina en Buenos Aires: De la ortodoxia a la apertura y de la apertura a la ortodoxia (1930–1953),” EIAL 11 no. 1 ( Jan.–June 2000); Brodsky, “The Contours of Identity”. 14 “Exposición de principios y nuestro programa,” Israel, April 1917. 15 Lázaro Schallman, “History of the Jewish Press in Argentina” [Hebrew], Gesher (Dec. 1971): 68–69, 200–212. In 1917 A. Sethon began publishing in Buenos Aires Al 54 chapter three left Samuel A. Levy, a prosperous accountant and Argentine-born son of immigrants from Morocco, as the sole owner soon after the founding of the newspaper.16 By the second half of the 1920s, Levy was joined by Zebulon Levy and José Libermann on the editorial staff. Zebulon Levy, the administrative manager between 1926 and 1935, often appeared in the social column, usually because of his many trips through the interior of Argentina and other South American countries to visit Jews in diverse towns and cities. In a way, Levy was a ‘pilgrim of the collective identity’ offered by the newspaper, helping connect the dispersed Jewish settlements and transform them into what is known as the Argentine Jewish community. At the same time, he was also a businessman in search of subscribers and advertisements for Israel. José Libermann, author of the book The Jews of Argentina, was editor- in-chief in 1927.17 Like Zebulon Levy, he was a constant contributor to the newspaper and often translated works from Yiddish into Spanish for Israel, including novels and even a fragment of a play by Scholem Asch. During the 1920s and 1930s, the two Levys and Libermann ran the newspaper, yet in his book Libermann makes no mention of his work there. Did he argue with the Levy family? Was he unwilling by the 1960s (when the book was published) to acknowledge his role in a newspaper created and run by Sephardim? Perhaps the Zionist identity offered by Israel in the 1920s and 1930s was considered less legitimate in the world that had seen the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel—reason enough for Libermann to want to forget his work in Israel. Whatever the reason, it seems that both Sephardim and Ashkenazim were interested in keeping silent about the existence of the publication and its signiﬁ cance. There was no place in their collective memories for a Sephardic periodical with a distinct Zionist message. Israel was part of a rich print culture in early twentieth-century Bue- nos Aires that taught recently arrived immigrants about their new social context and served as a point of contact for those who had already integrated into the immigrant society.18 Immigrants from a variety of backgrounds used periodicals to create their imagined community,

Gala, a short-lived Zionist newspaper in Arabic. See Dov Siskal, “A Zionist Newspaper in Arabic in Argentina [Hebrew],” Kesher 10 (1991): 80–85. 16 Levy was born in Argentina in 1886; see Mirelman, “Sephardic Immigration to Argentina,” 18. 17 José Libermann, Los judíos en la Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1966), 117. 18 Eduardo José Miguez, “Introduction: Foreign Mass Migration to Latin America in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries—An Overview,” in Mass Migration to complementary identities 55 communicate with each other, and attempt to forge common interests between diverse subgroups within the community. Usually, periodicals tried to appeal to groups with shared ethnic backgrounds or a similar political orientation. Jews were no exception.19 Israel did not fi t easily into the world of the Jewish press, which was dominated by political newspapers and bourgeois magazines; it fell somewhere in between. With its articles about Zionism, Zionist congresses, and famous Zionists, Israel mirrored other political publications, mostly in Yiddish, that combined in various measures Zionism, socialism, communism, and the workers’ movement.20 Yet like the bourgeois newspapers, it also included social pages and photographs of community members, often at weddings or celebrations. Israel’s inclusion of elements of both political newspapers and bourgeois magazines made it unique in its period. As we have established, Israel directed itself toward a much larger readership than the Moroccan Jews in Buenos Aires, a group that was not large enough to maintain the 10,000 subscribers that the newspaper claimed it had.21 In 1925, two different announcements appeared in the paper asserting that it was read by 60,000 people, because each of the 10,000 copies was read by six other people.22 Although it is impossible to check those fi gures, which were surely exaggerated, neither can one assume the opposite, that there were only a few hundred subscribers. In addition to the Sephardim from Spanish Morocco, Algeria, and Turkey, the newspaper would also have attracted Jewish immigrants who were learning Spanish, those who had immigrated to Argentina as children and were by now fl uent in Spanish, as well as second- generation Ashkenazim who knew the language already, even though their parents spoke primarily Yiddish.23

Modern Latin America, ed. Samuel Baily and Eduardo José Miguez (Wilmington, Del., 2003), xix. 19 On the press as an instrument for the creation of communities, see Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London, 1991). 20 Daniel Fainstein, “Al gran pueblo argentino, Shalom:” El proyecto integracionista de ‘Judaica’ frente al nacionalismo argentino, 1933–1943,” in Ensayos sobre Judaísmo Latinoamericano (Buenos Aires, 1990), 59–83. 21 Mirelman, Jewish Buenos Aires, 26. 22 Israel, 3 July 1925; 2 and 9 Oct. 1925. 23 Israel, 2 April 1920. Other contemporary Zionist publications in Spanish included El Sionista, published bimonthly from June of 1904 and lasting 47 editions. El Macabeo appeared for a short while in 1920, and El Semanario Hebreo from 1923–1933, though irregularly. 56 chapter three

In January 1920, Israel became a daily newspaper, presenting itself as the ﬁ rst and only Jewish daily in Spanish in the world, and as an expression of progress and modernity.24 Israel must have had some success (and money) to attempt expansion, yet the experiment failed after seven months; citing problems with printing presses and the impossibility of replacing them, the newspaper reverted to being a weekly.25 As the only newspaper created by Sephardim in Argentina until the appearance of La Luz in the 1930s, Israel exempliﬁ ed the strategy of a political minority—Sephardic Zionists—within the Jewish minority in the larger immigrant society of Argentina.26 In the second issue of Israel as a daily, the editors published a sort of mission statement: “We consider it necessary to create a manifestation of the Jewish spirit in the Spanish language. We consider it necessary to make ourselves understood in the national language [Spanish] of this great people who have taken us in.”27 Already three years earlier, the editors had described their enterprise as a defense of ideals—Jewish, Argentine, and universal—and ended with the following phrase: “And, without tempering our assertion with any vanity, we would say that with our newspaper we have contributed to [fomenting] love of the Argen- tine nation.”28 Upon referring to themselves as Jewish Argentines, the directors of Israel had begun to use the hyphen, creating a hyphenated identity decades before the invention of this identity concept. It was impossible to discover how many subscribers and readers Israel had. Yet an analysis of the columnists, advertisers, social pages, and photographs indicates that Israel attracted Sephardim and Ash- kenazim as readers, both in Buenos Aires and in the interior (the newspaper had correspondents in all of the provinces), as well as in other Latin American capitals. In each anniversary issue, Sephardic Jews not involved in the writing or administration of the newspaper sent letters and notes with kind words about the good work carried out by Israel and its support of Sephardic Jews in Latin America in

24 During this period, a four-page version of Israel appeared only on weekdays, except for the Passover edition, which was entirely ﬁ lled with advertisements. 25 Israel, 13 July 1920. 26 La Luz was founded in March 1931 by David Elnecavé, who had previously edited a Zionist newspaper in Istanbul focused on bringing more Sephardim into the Zionist movement. It is interesting to note that the Jewish Egyptian Israel was published in three languages: Arabic, French, and, brieﬂ y, Hebrew. See Hillel, “Israel” in Cairo, 9–14. 27 Israel, 2 Jan. 1920. 28 “Exposición de principios y nuestro programa,” Israel, April 1917. complementary identities 57 general, and in Argentina in particular. Thus, Israel went beyond the borders of its country of origin. In addition, subscription lists for the newspaper always noted the prices for subscriptions outside Argentina, indicating that Israel had a public larger than just Moroccan Jews in Buenos Aires.

Sephardim and Ashkenazim: Will Zionism Unite Them?

Even though researchers have paid little attention to relations between Sephardim and Ashkenazim in Latin America, it was the preferred theme of the contributors to Israel. Numerous articles about Ashkenazim lamented the lack of interaction between the two Jewish groups and the impossibility of acting together. One article asked: “Isn’t it truly painful to see the divide that exists between the two groups?”29 Another declared that “The little interest [the Ashkenazim] show for certain co-religionists is lamentable.”30 Because the complaints appeared in Israel, they seem exaggerated, given the strong ties the newspaper had with Ashkenazim. The Sephardic contributors to Israel hoped to gain power and inﬂ uence by uniting with the Ashkenazi majority, for whom Zionism was important. When the Sephardic contributors identiﬁ ed themselves with the Ashkenazim, they sometimes found themselves in a position of inferi- ority. In an article dedicated to the lecture tour of a Sephardic Zion- ist speaker, they alluded to a condescending observation about the essence of Sephardim that had appeared in the Yiddish press. One journalist, supposedly very knowledgeable about Sephardic culture, had written: No one can ignore that, culturally, South American Sephardim are not in a good state, particularly in terms of national organization. Apart from its religion, Ashkenazi Judaism has a culture that elevates it: theater, press, literature . . . Sephardic Judaism, by contrast, has neither its own culture nor language, which fact facilitates assimilation. In Sephardim, national sentiment persists longer. Therefore it is vital to assimilate them into

29 “Sefaradim y aschkenazim,” Israel, 13 Feb. 1926. 30 “Maniﬁ esto de la Comunidad Israelita Sefaradi de Bs. As.” Israel, 30 March 1928, 6 April 1928. 58 chapter three

the cultural movement of Palestine, the spiritual center of nationalist Judaism.31 In response, the contributor from Israel replied: “very true.”32 From the safety of anonymity, the writer at Israel agreed with the argument put forward by the journalist in Yiddish that the Sephardim in Latin America lacked something, both as Jews and as Zionists, and thus were in need of culture on a level with the Ashkenazim. There were political reasons for including this quote in an article in Israel. The key to the consensus was in the last phrase, where Sep- hardim were urged to join the spiritual and cultural Zionist movement. Through Zionism, they could redeem themselves and convert themselves into ‘Jews’ on the same level as the Ashkenazim. By putting them on the defensive, the Yiddish writer demanded that the Sephardim demonstrate the force of their commitment. These debates raged among Sephardim in the mid-1920s, during the creation of the World Union of Sephardic Communities and the visit of Sephardic Zionist envoy Ariel Bensión to Buenos Aires.33 Israel proposed a variety of models for the relations between Sephardim and Ashkenazim. In 1931, one contributor related the story of the two groups in Rosario del Tala, who had come to ask themselves if there was an essential difference that was responsible for the divide between the two groups.34 According to the writer, there was no essential difference, judging by the rise in marriages between Sephardim and Ashkenazim, something that would have been unheard of earlier. Yet the contributor still saw a difference between the two groups, and wondered whether the separation was based on concrete reasons, or if it continued because of tradition. In the pages of Israel, Sephardim fought for a union with Ashkenazim through Zionism.

31 “El famoso sefaradí que visitará a los sefaradim de la América del Sur,” Israel, 22 Jan. 1926 32 Ibid. 33 Ariel Bensión, Los sefaradim y el sionismo (Buenos Aires, 1926). 34 “Sefaradim y Asquenazim en Rosario Tala,” Israel, 16 Oct. 1931. complementary identities 59

Writing and Connecting

As many Ashkenazim as Sephardim appeared in Israel, according to the four databases compiled by Mollie Lewis for this essay on contributors, advertisers, and people who appeared in the social pages and accompanying photographs. All told, these databases included about 5500 names, and clearly demonstrated that Ashkenazim and women both played a vital role in Israel, together with the Sephardic men who made up the core group of contributors.35 In addition, many Jews from outside Buenos Aires seem to have played a signiﬁ cant part in the life of the newspaper, particularly those from Rosario (Province of Santa Fe), Córdoba (Province of Córdoba), and Asunción and Montevideo, the capital cities of Paraguay and Uruguay. We paid particular attention to four important dates in the lives of Jews in Argentina—the two national holidays (May 25 and July 9), Rosh Hashanah (usually in September or October) and the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917 (which pledged British support for a Jewish home in Palestine). We selected these dates because of their importance in the expression of collective national and ethnic identities. Through them, we observed the ways people remembered and fostered these identities and memories.36 In the social pages, the lists of attendees at various events reveal that many were either exclusively Sephardim or exclusively Ashkenazim, although some did combine members of the two groups. When the Gluksman family’s son was circumcised in Buenos Aires, for example, or the Serfati wedding took place in Reconquista (Province of Santa Fe), members of both groups attended.37 In Entre Ríos, many of the

35 It was diffi cult to determine the exact number of Ashkenazim and Sephardim associated with the newspaper because of names like Cohen or Levi, for example, that could be from either group. Sometimes almost half of the names for a given year were diffi cult to categorize, distorting any attempt at exact numbers or percentages. 36 For fascinating examples of the ways Jews emphasized their patriotism for Argentina through eulogies of national heroes and enthusiasm for Independence, see “La colectividad está pronta a celebrar entusiastamente y con fervor patriótico con el pueblo de la R. Argentina la gloriosa fi esta de Mayo,” Israel, 25 May 1920; “Desde ayer la bandera israelita fl amea junto a la argentina en todo el país, asociándose a la gran fecha patria,” Israel, 9 July 1920; “Las próximas Fiestas Mayas,” Israel, 21 May 1921. Of particular interest is the issue dedicated to the 25 of May in 1926. The editors placed a photograph of the president of Argentina on the cover, who had autographed it specifi cally for Israel. 37 Israel, 12 Nov. 1920. 60 chapter three members of the Sephardic Cultural and Recreational Center were Ashkenazim. At the wedding of Rosa Nahon and Isaac Chocron, which, according to the announcement, was an event “in which the most select families of our community gathered,” most of the attendees were Ashkenazim, even though the bride and groom were Sephardim.38 Sometimes, as the Nahon-Chocron wedding illustrated, social status was more important than whether one was Sephardic or Ashkenazi.39 At most of the weddings noted in Israel, however, attendance seemed to be limited to one group or the other. In the social pages, unlike the other categories (contributors, advertisers, photographs), the lists of attendees revealed the interaction between the two groups. Even if there was no physical contact, each group read and learned about the other through the pages of Israel. Jewish identity, and Zionist identity in particular, was a force that united (not divided) in Israel, suggesting that the relations between Sephardim and Ashkenazim were not as strained as other scholars have hypothesized. While they might have had different ideas about what it meant to be Jewish and how to express it, in Israel they could adopt a common Jewish identity, and even though they came from different regions and traditions, through the newspaper they created a new group that sought to move away from divisive Sephardic or Ashkenazi identities.

Argentina as a ‘Zionist Homeland’

Israel was different from the other Jewish and Zionist publications in Argentina because of its particular Zionist orientation and because Zionism was not as ﬁ rmly rooted among Sephardim as it was among Ashkenazim. Unlike other Zionist newspapers, Israel had neither Pal- estine nor political Zionism as its focus. It ﬁ rst appeared on 24 March 1917, seven months before the Balfour Declaration (which reignited worldwide interest in Zionism), providing clear proof of the strong

38 “Noticias sociales,” Israel, 2 and 9 Oct. 1925. Also see the announcement of the Liberman-Segal wedding, at which the rabbi and many guests were Sefardim. (Israel, 4 June 1926). 39 “Noticias sociales,” Israel, 2 and 9 Oct. 1925; “Noticias sociales,” Israel, 30 Oct. 1925; “Noticias sociales,” Israel, 23 and 30 Sept. 1927; “Noticias sociales,” Israel, 20 May 1932. complementary identities 61

Zionist convictions of its founders, the Levys. Even though the First Zionist Congress in 1897 had generated interest in the Diaspora and Jews had formed two Zionist groups in Argentina—Tiferet Tzión (1905) and Poalei Tzión (1906)—dedication to the Zionist cause had hitherto been limited to very narrow circles.40 Many scholars have interpreted Zionist activities in Argentina very one-dimensionally, even though Israel demonstrates that the picture was much more complicated. At the First Argentine Jewish Congress in 1916, for example, Nakhman Gesang suggested that one of their aims should be to bring up the term ‘Jewish’ in gentile circles, so that Jews could be identiﬁ ed as such rather than as Germans, Russians, or members of any other nation; he did not exactly preach the need to populate Palestine.41 For both Sephardim and Ashkenazim, the international Zionist Congresses were an arena for meeting other Zionists, not necessarily a place for planning future emigration to Palestine.42 And while Israel reproduced speeches from the Congresses which proposed emigration, the idea did not appear in the articles written by regular contributors. Through the Zionist Congresses, Argentine Jews came into contact with Jews from other countries, particularly the United States and Europe. However, when the Argentine delegates to the World Congresses were mentioned in the articles in Israel, it was in the context of national pride, in order to emphasize their status as Argentines, and not because they had delivered a speech or proposed an initiative. Even though Zionism was a world movement, for the editors at Israel it was their own local context that mattered—they used Zionism and the Zionist Congresses to bring the Jews of Argentina closer to other Jews in the Diaspora. Choosing the name Israel, rather than a title that included ‘Zionism’ or ‘Zionist,’ demonstrated that the idea of a homeland for the Jews was more important than its location or how it would be established. Palestine was the ancient home of both Sephardim and Ashkenazim, and with the title Israel the founders expressed their hopes for a united Jewish future. However, there was no indication that the future necessarily had to be in Palestine. Jews could make their homes in the

40 For information on the early activities of the Poalei Tzión, see David Schers, “Inmigrantes y política: Los primeros pasos del Partido Sionista Socialista Poalei Sión en la Argentina, 1910–1916,” EIAL 3, no. 2 (1992): 75–88. 41 Cited in Schenkolewsky-Kroll, The Zionist Movement, p. 13. 42 See the report on the Sixth Zionist Congress, Israel, 12 and 19 Nov. 1920. 62 chapter three countries of the Diaspora, including Argentina, and Israel could be any country that welcomed and united the Jews. The editors added the phrase “Argentine Jewish World” under the masthead; in this way, the name and motto of the newspaper pointed to the complementary identities of the directors—Jews, Zionists, Argentines. Argentina had taken them in and it was their home, so that whenever they referred to “our country” in Israel, they meant Argentina. Thus, in the fourth anniversary issue, the newspaper emphasized that the founders of Israel had been inspired by the “democratic ideals of our country, the Argentine Republic”—a country that willingly took in the people of Israel. On the same page, they explained the need for publishing a Jewish daily in “the national language” of Spanish.43 The Zionism of Israel was interested in the creation of Argentine Jew- ish identities, not in a separate Jewish state. Sephardim and Ashkenazim could remember a mythic past and look to a common future that could occur anywhere. The fact that Argentina was part of the Diaspora did not mean that it could not be a home for Jews, and they wanted others to recognize them as members of the Argentine nation. Alhough Zion- ism was a political movement for other Argentine Jews, Israel revealed a group that chose Zionism as an identity, not a political manifesto. Obviously, not all Argentine Jews shared this conception. The editors of the newspaper often questioned political Zionism and its meanings, while asserting their own right to be Zionists. In an article reprinting quotes and comments about the Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemet) meeting in Argentina, the unidentiﬁ ed writer defended the right of Sephardim to be Zionists: “Many say that we Sephardim are not Zionists and are uninterested in the ideals of State, Nation, Culture, Language, and any number of other elements that ennoble a people.”44 The writer then proceeded to describe the differences between the Zionism of Sephardim and that of the Ashkenazi mainstream. “I can say, without fearing that I am wrong, that we are not militant Zionists.”45 He or she attributed this phenomenon to the much smaller number of Sephardim relative to Ashkenazim, and to the absence of pogroms or expulsions in the recent history of the Sephardim. To identify themselves as Zionists meant that Sephardim

43 Israel, 2 April 1920. 44 “Centro Sionista Sefaradí,” Israel, 22 Jan. 1926. 45 Ibid. complementary identities 63 had to defi ne themselves in comparison to the Ashkenazi majority, and many Ashkenazim did not consider them suffi ciently Zionist. The author of the article suggested a more comprehensive defi nition of a Zionist, one that took into account both Sephardim and Ashke- nazim. Like other articles that addressed Ashkenazi complaints, this particular one rejected the arguments about the lack of Sephardic vision in the creation of a Jewish homeland. According to the contributor, some Ashkenazim wanted to impose their own organization and ways of thinking on the Sephardim. Yet, in the author’s view, Sephardim had different, no less valid ways of expressing their Zionism. The communication problem stemmed partly from the different ways that the two groups implemented their policies. The writer analyzed these differences with concrete examples, but at the same time rejected the arguments that labeled Sephardim as less Zionist. In May 1927, the Sephardic Zionist group Bené Kedem instructed the readers of Israel to buy schekalim (fake coins) to show their support for Zionism and the Jewish settlement in Palestine.46 Those who bought the schekalim could vote for the representatives to the Zionist Congress. The full-page announcement told Sephardic readers that they should buy the schekalim because “around the world, particularly among the Ashkenazim, we have already sold and continue to sell millions of sheckalim.”47 In this case, when Zionist sentiment was measured in schekalim, the Ashkenazim had the advantage. The directors of the donation campaign attributed the Sephardim’s smaller purchases of schekalim to their lack of organization, and warned that if they waited, they might fi nd all the coins sold. Wanting their side to keep up with the competition and show their Zionist spirit, the members of Bené Kedem wrote that they intended to visit the homes and stores of all Sephardim to try to sell more schekalim.48 Here, the division between Sephardim and Ashkenazim seems clear: The Sephardim had to demonstrate their support to the Zionist cause to the Ashkenazim, who had already shown themselves to be good Zionists.

46 “Es necesario que todo sefaradí compre un ‘schekel,’ ” Israel, 27 May 1927. 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid. 64 chapter three

Conclusions

Through Israel, Sephardim expressed their Jewish and Argentine identities and demonstrated that some Sephardim did have social contact with Ashkenazim. In their new country, some adopted a hyphenated identity through Zionism, as Argentine-Jews or Jewish-Argentines. Between 1917 and the mid-1930s, the editors at Israel situated themselves within the Argentine nation while expressing multiple identities simultaneously—Sephardic or Ashkenazi, Zionist, and Argentine. Israel illuminated one piece of the mosaic of Jewish Argentine identity and its processes of creation and change. In this context, the newspaper should be seen as both an agent of change and an articulation of collective identity, or at least as a tool in the struggle of a group of Jews, headed by Moroccans, to integrate their own identity proposal within the larger Argentine-Jewish discourse. Since it was dealing with a young Jewish community in Argentina, Israel constituted a fascinating attempt at forging a new collective identity, with mythic roots in the common yet remote past of all the Jews of Argentina, and trying to connect it to the larger Argentine immigrant society. Throughout its existence, Israel negotiated with the collective memories and identities offered by different groups of Argentine Jews. Like other ethnic groups in the nation, Jews had to juggle competing identities and narratives that coexisted simultaneously. The Jews of Aleppo and Damascus, for example, the majority among Sephardim, were for the most part conservative and, in many cases, religious. Initially they were suspicious of Zionism. However, Susana Brauner has found that the 1930s marked a change in Sephardic attitudes towards Zionism, which became more pronounced after the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.49 The growing support for Zionism among Jews of Syrian origin did not challenge or conﬂ ict with their identities as Argentines. The multiple identities complemented each other—they did not clash. Israel leads us to rethink the essence of Zionism as well as the relations between Sephardim and Ashkenazim in Argentina and in Latin America in general. How did different groups of Jews interpret or deﬁ ne Zionism and Zionist identity? Zionism was a political movement,

49 See Susana Brauner, “Los judíos de origen sirio en Argentina: Identidad, liderazgo, participación política y alineamientos en el confl icto árabe-israelí, 1900–2000” (Ph.D. diss., Universidad del Salvador, 2008); Susana Brauner Rodgers, Los judíos de Alepo en Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires, 2002). complementary identities 65 yet Israel shows us that many Jews adopted it as an apolitical Jewish identity. This interaction between politics and identity demands more study, as do the zones of contact between Sephardim and Ashkenazim. The two groups related to each other in a variety of ways, sometimes competitively, sometimes cooperatively. It remains to be seen whether the interactions occurred between small groups of people or if contact was widespread in both offi cial and unoffi cial frameworks. Israel therefore forces us to re-examine the supposedly unbridgeable gap between the groups and demonstrates how Zionism could also serve as an apolitical strategy for both Sephardim and Ashkenazim to make Argentina a Jewish homeland.

CHAPTER FOUR

ARGENTINA, WORLD WAR II, AND THE ENTRY OF NAZI WAR CRIMINALS

The ghosts of World War II still haunt Argentine politics and affect the South American republic’s foreign relations even today. The fi rst visit of former president Fernando de la Rúa to the United States in the summer of 2000 was marked by his apology for his country’s absorption of Nazi war criminals following the defeat of the Third Reich. Yet, at the same time, de la Rúa refused to apologize for his country’s neutrality during the Second World War. The purpose of this essay is to explore briefl y the motives and the meaning of Argentine neutrality, as well as the scope and signifi cance of the entry of Third Reich war criminals and collaborators into the country. The last part of the essay is devoted to the kidnapping of the Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann, in Buenos Aires in May 1960 by Mossad agents—a move that precipitated a crisis that nearly severed the diplomatic ties between Argentina and Israel and threatened Argentine Jews’ sense of personal security.

Argentine Neutrality—Was It Really Support for the Axis?

Any discussion of Argentina’s position in World War II should begin with some emphasis on the fact that the Argentine policy of neutrality in the years 1939–1945 was implemented by four different presidents—two civilian and two military—and enjoyed wide public support in Argentina.1 The motives for this policy derived exclusively

1 A great deal has been written on Argentina in World War II and its relations with the US and Britain during those years. See, for example, Joseph S. Tulchin, Argentina and the United States—A Confl icted Relationship (Boston, 1990), ch. 6; Carlos Escudé, Gran Bretaña, Estados Unidos y la declinación argentina, 1942–1949 (Buenos Aires, 1983); Mario Rapoport, Gran Bretaña, Estados Unidos y las clases dirigentes argentinas, 1940–1945 (Buenos Aires, 1980); C. A. MacDonald, “The Politics of Intervention: The U.S. and Argentina, 1941–1946,” Journal of Latin American Studies 12, no. 2 (1980): 365–396. See also the relevant chapters in the most thorough and comprehensive study of the history of 68 chapter four from Argentine self-interest (especially its international trade and the export of its agricultural surpluses), Argentina’s geographical remoteness from the killing fi elds of the war,2 and a clear distinction between Argentina’s attitude towards Great Britain and its attitude towards the United States. Although it recoiled from the US and the idea of cooperating with it, Argentina maintained close relations with Britain. The large quantities of food and other essential goods that it sold to the British throughout the war aided Britain’s war effort and ability to withstand German aggression. Argentina’s neutrality was a product of its traditional economic and cultural ties with Europe and its opposition, also traditional, to US hegemonic aspirations on the American continent, an opposition that had been expressed at the various pan-American conferences since the end of the nineteenth century.3 The friction between Buenos Aires and Washington was also a function of commercial diffi culties between the two countries. These stemmed from the fact that their economies were by nature competitive, rather than complementary in the way the Argentine and British economies were. For long years the United States closed its doors to Argentine grain and meat, the South American republic’s main sources of income. The strong farm and ranch lobbies applied a great deal of pressure to block the importation of Argentine meat, corn, and other foodstuffs, and thus became key players in the shaping of US-Argentine bilateral relations. Memories of Argentina’s neutrality in World War I, linked in the minds of many Argentines with prosperity and economic development, also played a part. Quite a few citizens were ambivalent about the war but, according to various contemporary surveys, at the same time

Argentine foreign relations: Andrés Cisneros and Carlos Ecudé, Historia general de las relaciones exteriores de la República Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1998–2003), 15 vols. 2 See the explanation President Perón gave the US ambassador in 1953, and the comparison he drew between his country’s position and Sweden’s policy in the war: “Memorandum of a Conversation with President Perón,” 5 Feb. 1953, National Archives, Documents of the Department of State, Record Group 59, College Park, Md. [hereafter NA], 735.00/9–162, 611.35/2–553. 3 On the confl icts between Argentina and the United States at the pan-American conferences, see David Sheinin, Searching for Authority: Pan Americanism, Diplomacy and Politics in United States-Argentine Relations, 1910–1930 (New Orleans, 1998); Thomas F. McGann, Argentina, the United States and the Inter-American System, 1880–1914 (Cambridge, Mass., 1957); Gordon Connell-Smith, The Inter-American System (London, 1966); Harold F. Peterson, Argentina and the United States, 1810–1960 (New York, 1964); O. E. Smith, Yankee Diplomacy—U.S. Intervention in Argentina (Dallas, 1953). argentina, world war ii, and the entry of nazi war criminals 69 they believed that any Argentine support for the Allies should be tied to contracts for their country’s exports, or more specifi cally to a trade pact with the US. No wonder, then, that in the latter years of the world confl ict, wartime export-led growth made neutrality more popular. This is not, of course, to ignore the existence of Argentine nationalist groups sympathetic to the Axis, which, although a minority in Argentine society, still infl uenced the intellectual and political climate of those years.4 Other factors were the authoritarian and anti-communist attitudes prevalent in the Catholic Church and the ruling oligarchy, as well as pro-German sympathies and anti-Semitic attitudes in military circles. It must be remembered that from the end of the nineteenth century up until World War II, Germany was the foreign country that most infl uenced the Argentine army—although not the navy and air force.5 The German embassy in Buenos Aires, for its part, did its best to generate support and establish a strong base in Argentina. Efforts were made to proselytize in the German-speaking community and large sums of money were spent on bribing people in politics and the media to make sure that Argentina maintained its neutrality. With the outbreak of World War II all the American states declared their neutrality. Curiously enough, through mid-1940, when poor health drove President Roberto M. Ortiz from offi ce, Argentine authorities did their best to reach an agreement with the US. Such an agreement could help Argentina deal with the loss of markets in war-torn Europe and strengthen Ortiz’s democratizing political project. But the Ameri- can administration remained suspicious of Argentina and negotiations stalled repeatedly. Ortiz, considered an Allied supporter by both contemporaries and historians, also failed in his initiative to convince the US of the need for all the American republics to set aside neutrality in favor of nonbelliger- ency. As historian Joseph Tulchin has shown, Washington interpreted

4 On the nationalists in the 1930s and 1940s, see Federico Finchelstein, La Argentina fascista (Buenos Aires, 2008); Sandra McGee Deutsch, Las Derechas: The Extreme Right in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, 1890–1939 (Stanford, Calif., 1999); David Rock, Authoritarian Argentina—The Nationalist Movement, Its History and Its Impact (Berkeley, 1993); Enrique Zuleta Alvarez, El nacionalismo argentino (Buenos Aires, 1975); Marysa Navarro Gerassi, Los nacionalistas (Buenos Aires, 1968). 5 On German infl uence over the Argentine army, see Elizabeth B. White, German Infl uence in the Argentine Army, 1900–1945 (New York, 1991); G. P. Atkins and L. V. Thompson, “German Military Infl uence in Argentina, 1921–1940,” Journal of Latin American Studies 4, no. 2 (1972): 257–284. 70 chapter four this proposal as a challenge to its leadership in the hemisphere and the Argentine initiative came to nothing.6 American hardliners thus struck a blow—neither the fi rst one nor the last—against the many Argentine supporters of close ties with the US. Ironically, the Argentine nonbellig- erency proposal generated hostility from Germany as well. In May 1940 the German authorities accused Argentina of favoring the Allies. At any rate, in 1941, as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration moved from neutrality toward overt support for the Allies, friction between Argentina and the US increased—especially after illness forced President Ortiz to transfer the reins of government to Vice-President Ramón Castillo, a more energetic adherent of neutrality. Foreign Minister José María Cantilo, an admirer of the US, resigned and was replaced by Enrique Ruiz Guiñazú, a conservative Catholic politician and anti-Yanqui pro-Francoist Hispanophile. Before the war began, Argentina had already refused to join a pan-American defense alliance, and even the outbreak of hostilities in Europe did not budge it from its position. In January 1941 the US began to supply arms to the Latin American nations under the Lend- Lease program. Argentina did not receive a single shipment, whereas neighboring Brazil enjoyed the lion’s share of this military aid, arousing concern and anxiety in Buenos Aires. Relations between Argentina and the US reached open crisis after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and the US entry into the war. Washington expected solidarity from all the countries of the continent, even though, wanting to avoid sending a fl eet to defend their waters, it initially preferred that they settle for severing diplomatic relations with the Axis rather than go as far as declaring war. Argentina, however, was determined to remain neutral, and expressed its determination at the meeting of American foreign ministers held in Rio de Janeiro in January 1942.7 After the Rio conference, Argentina and Chile were the only states on the continent that had not severed ties with the Axis. At the beginning of 1943, Chile abandoned its neutrality and joined the other American nations. Argentina remained alone, stubbornly adhering to its policy.

6 Tulchin, Argentina and the United States, ch. 5. 7 See Sumner Welles, The Time for Decision (New York, 1944): 228–232; and R. A. Humphreys, Latin America and the Second World War (London, 1981), I: 165–181. argentina, world war ii, and the entry of nazi war criminals 71

The US responded to this recalcitrance by infl icting a series of painful economic and diplomatic sanctions on Argentina, to force it to step into line with the other states of the western hemisphere. These included an arms embargo, followed by a withholding of credit and a halt to shipments of machinery and oil tankers to Argentina. The government of President Castillo, who since Ortiz’s death in mid-1942 had been president de jure, was defi ned as fascist and pro-Nazi. The two countries seem to have consistently misunderstood each other’s foreign policy. Americans have frequently attributed the hard- ening Argentine position toward the United States as an expression of pro-Nazi attitudes. Argentines have believed that while Argentina traded actively with the Allies under unfavorable conditions, the US unreasonably sought to exert diplomatic and military leadership over their country. Great Britain, meanwhile, tried to moderate Washington’s pressure on Argentina, for several reasons. In London, Argentina’s neutrality was not perceived as damaging to British interests; after all, it ensured continued regular shipments of meat, grain, and other agricultural products and raw materials (needed so badly by Britain’s citizens and army), which passed unmolested by German submarines. Moreover, the British did not want to endanger their substantial investments in Argentina and the potential market for British exports in the post-war era. Wanting to protect its special status in Argentina, Britain was not eager to see that nation become too friendly with the US in the process of integrating into the inter-American system. In London, therefore, Argentine neutrality was not interpreted as support for the Axis. On the contrary, it seemed to be a pro-Allied neutrality.8 The military government established in Argentina by the coup of June 1943 was in confl ict over the foreign policy it should take.9 In August 1943, the foreign minister, Admiral Segundo Storni, hoping for better relations with the US, wrote to American secretary of state Cordell Hull asking that the US show some understanding of Argentina’s position in the international sphere and cancel the arms

8 On the British attitude towards Argentine neutrality, see, among others, Rapoport, Gran Bretaña, especially chapter 3, and the memoirs of the British ambassador to Buenos Aires during those years: David Kelly, The Ruling Few (London, 1952): 287–314. 9 On the June 1943 coup and its antecedents, see Robert A. Potash, The Army and Politics in Argentina, 1928–1945 (Stanford, Calif., 1969), ch. 7; Enrique Díaz Araujo, La conspiración del 43 (Buenos Aires, 1971); Alain Roquié, Poder militar y sociedad política en la Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1982), II: 13–27. 72 chapter four embargo. Hull angrily rejected the Argentine request and demanded that Buenos Aires fi rst cut off its diplomatic relations with the Fascist powers. Storni’s letter was leaked to the press, and this, with Hull’s response, forced Storni to resign and strengthened the nationalists in the government. Once again, Washington’s inconsideration of the domestic and international pressure on the Argentine government caused pro-Allied fi gures in Argentina to lose political ground. Relations with the US deteriorated still further. The military government’s adherence to neutrality and its dictatorial character drew unceasing criticism from Washington. General Pedro Pablo Ramírez’s government restricted political liberties, took steps against Liberals and Communists, and promoted Catholic and Hispanic values. When, at the end of 1943, a military coup took place in Bolivia, instituting a pro-Argentine, neutralist regime in La Paz, Washington accused Buenos Aires of fomenting the rebellion and supporting similar plots in other South American countries.10 Commercial and economic ties with Argentina, already limited, were reduced still further, and the US urged other Latin American states to follow its example. It even increased its arms shipments to Brazil, which, although ruled by the totally undemocratic government of Getulio Vargas, had a foreign policy congenial to the US.11 The commanders of the Argentine army, alarmed by the deteriorating balance of power between Argentina and neighboring Brazil, tried, among other things, to obtain arms and military equipment from Germany and from General Francisco Franco’s Spain, a country that maintained a neutrality favorable to the Axis.12 Although virtually nothing came of these plans, when they were revealed Washington increased its pressure on Argentina, this time seconded by the British. President Ramírez gave in, and on 26 January 1944, when World War II was already entering its fi nal stages, he announced the severance of

10 On relations between Argentina and Bolivia during World War II, see Beatríz Figallo, “Bolivia y la Argentina: Los confl ictos regionales durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial,” EIAL 7, no. 1 (1996): 107–125. 11 Frank D. McCann, “Brazil and World War II: The Forgotten Ally. What Did You Do in the War, Zé Carioca?” EIAL 6, no. 2 (1995): 35–70. 12 US Department of State, Consultation among the American Republics with Respect to the Argentine Situation (Washington, DC, 1946): 6–17; Potash, The Army, pp. 169–173, 222–223; Beatríz J. Figallo, “La Argentina y España durante la Segunda Guerra Mun- dial,” Res Gesta ( Jan.–June 1988): 69–83. On Argentina’s special relations with Spain during the 1940s, see Raanan Rein, The Franco-Perón Alliance (Pittsburgh, 1993). argentina, world war ii, and the entry of nazi war criminals 73 diplomatic relations with Berlin and Tokyo (Italy had already been liberated). Within a few weeks, however, Ramírez was ousted, for having “betrayed” Argentine neutrality. His place was taken by General Edelmiro J. Farrell—who was aided by the strong man in the government, Colonel Juan Perón, the new minister of war. Some months later, in June 1944, Perón was made vice-president as well. The US refused to recognize the new government, and imposed a diplomatic boycott. It recalled its ambassador from Buenos Aires, and many European and Latin American states followed its example. Only 10 nations continued to maintain normal diplomatic relations with Argentina. Hull accused the Buenos Aires government of offering refuge to Nazi fugitives from Europe and of entertaining expansionist ambitions in Latin America.13 In August Argentine gold reserves in the US were frozen, and in September the embargo on exports to Argen- tina was expanded to include equipment for trains and oil production, automobile parts, and other goods. Only Britain’s friendship prevented a total boycott of Argentina. At the beginning of 1945, the US softened its stand on Argentina following permutations in the upper echelons of the State Department. After Cordell Hull’s resignation, Edward Stettinius was appointed in his place, with Nelson Rockefeller as his assistant for Latin American affairs. The period from mid-1943 to mid-1947 saw a succession of four different US secretaries of state, fi ve assistant secretaries for Latin American affairs, and four ambassadors to Argentina. This, of course, contributed to the frequent upheavals and abrupt changes in relations between the two states during those years. In any case, at the end of March 1945, Argentina joined the signatories of the inter-American Final Act adopted at the Chapultepec conference, and even fi nally declared war on Germany (already defeated) and Japan. After that, the US granted full recognition to the Farrell government.14 It was a short-lived reconciliation, however. After Roosevelt died and Harry Truman moved into the White House, Washington resumed its stern tactics with Argentina. Again trade sanctions were imposed,

13 Cordell Hull, The Memoirs (New York, 1948), II, chs. 100–101; Ronald C. Newton, The “Nazi Menace” in Argentina, 1931–1947 (Stanford, Calif., 1992), part II. 14 With a degree of exaggeration that bore witness to his emotional attitude to the Argentine issue, Cordell Hull described in his memoirs the recognition of the Farrell government and Argentina’s admission to the UN as “the most colossal injury done to the Pan American movement in all its history.” See Hull, Memoirs, II: 1405–1408. 74 chapter four and the US refused to lift them unless general elections were held in Argentina. The hardliners in the US administration included the new American ambassador in Buenos Aires, Spruille Braden, who had formed his views on Argentina before he ever stepped on Argentine soil. Braden, who had earned prestige as an opponent of fascism while serving as ambassador to Colombia and to Cuba during World War II, raised US intervention in Argentina’s internal affairs to record heights. The Farrell-Perón government’s heavy-handed treatment of the opposition in April inspired a wave of harsh criticism in the US press, with the active encouragement of Ambassador Braden, and the State Department began to back away from its more conciliatory policy towards Argentina. Washington announced that Argentina would receive no arms shipments until its government expelled Nazi agents and eliminated German interests from its territory.15 Blatantly violating the rules of diplomatic behavior, Braden gave many public speeches which were interpreted as attacks on the Farrell-Perón government, and aligned himself with the civilian opposition.16 The pressure from outside and inside the military government led Farrell to announce that general elections would be held in February 1946. As election day approached, Braden, who since arriving in Buenos Aires had identifi ed with Perón’s enemies, made a last attempt to turn public support away from Perón and towards the united front of opposition parties known as the Unión Democrática (Democratic Union). Encouraged by Braden, who in August 1945 was promoted to the offi ce of assistant secretary of state for Latin American affairs, the State Department in Washington published the ‘Blue Book,’ a detailed document based on a variety of sources, including German documents seized by the Allies and interrogations of former German offi cers. The ‘Blue Book’ included accusations that the leaders of the outgoing military government, including Perón, had collaborated with the Axis countries during World War II. The document bore the title Consultation among the American Republics with Respect to the Argentine Situation,

15 On espionage and propaganda by German agents in Argentina, see Leslie B. Rout and John F. Bratzel, The Shadow War: German Espionage and United States Counterespionage in Latin America during World War II (Frederick, Md., 1986), chs. 7–8. 16 See McDonald, “The Politics of Intervention,” 386; Tulchin, Argentina and the United States, 92. According to the British ambassador to Buenos Aires, David Kelly, “Mr. Braden . . . came to Buenos Aires with the fi xed idea that he has been elected by Providence to overthrow the Farrell-Perón regime.” See Kelly, The Ruling Few, 307. argentina, world war ii, and the entry of nazi war criminals 75 but its appearance was not preceded by any consultations with any state south of the Rio Grande; and it was published solely in English.17 When John Cabot, acting ambassador at the US embassy in Buenos Aires, heard of the State Department’s intention to publish this document just before the Argentine elections, he warned that “[t]o throw ‘atomic bomb’ directly at Argentine government in present supercharged atmosphere is to court incalculable result. Opinion will be universal that we are trying to infl uence election results.”18 But his warning could not stop Braden’s anti-Peronist campaign, which the historian Joseph Tulchin describes in his book as a truly pathological obsession.19 The Argentine press, most of which was hostile to Perón, gave greater coverage to the ‘Blue Book’ than to any other event since the end of World War II. Day after day translated extracts from the document appeared in the press, accompanied by editorials and commentary. How- ever, the publication of the entire ‘Blue Book’ some two weeks before the election achieved just the opposite of what the State Department had hoped for. Perón was clever enough to turn this blatant intervention in Argentina’s internal affairs to his own advantage. He rejected the arguments in the “Blue and White Book” (the colors of the national fl ag) and explained to the Argentine public that in the upcoming election they would have to decide whom they preferred: “Braden or Perón.” In other words, they had a choice between electing the candidate who represented national sovereignty and the interests of the Republic, or submitting to the dictates of the US. Perón’s victory was perceived as a challenge to the policy of the US—the dominant military and economic power since the end of World War II—on the continent, and fi red the imaginations of nationalists all over Latin America.

17 US Department of State, Consultation. The Argentine foreign ministry’s detailed ofﬁ cial response to these accusations was published about a month after the elections: Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto, La República Argentina ante el “Libro Azul” (Buenos Aires, 1946). See also Gary Frank, Juan Perón vs. Spruille Braden: The Story behind the Blue Book (Lanham, MD, 1980); Spruille Braden, Diplomats and Demogogues (New Rochelle, N.Y., 1971). 18 Quoted in Robert A. Potash, The Army and Politics in Argentina, 1945–1962 (Stan- ford, Calif., 1980), 41. The Argentine government apparently considered breaking off diplomatic relations with the US following the publication of the Blue Book. See Alberto P. Vannucci, “Elected by Providence: Spruille Braden in Argentina in 1945,” in Ambassadors in Foreign Policy: The Inﬂ uence of Individuals on U.S.-Latin American Relations, ed. C. Neale Ronning and Albert P. Vannucci (New York, 1987), 62. 19 Tulchin, Argentina and the United States, 63. 76 chapter four

When the polling stations closed on 24 February 1946, the leaders of the Unión Democrática, certain of their victory, announced that these elections had been the freest and fairest ever known in Argentina.20 The Unión’s presidential candidate, the veteran Radical politician José Tamborini, congratulated the army for ensuring that the election was carried out properly and for achieving a “renewed fraternity between the people and the armed forces.” A few days later, when the slow and nerve-wracking vote-counting process had been completed, it was, surprisingly, Perón who proved to be the winner, with 52.4 percent of the 2,839,507 valid votes cast. It was a dramatic, albeit close, victory. Only 280,806 votes separated the supporters of Perón-Quijano from those who cast their ballots for Tamborini and Enrique Mosca, the Unión Democrática candidate for vice-president. Thus, the US had failed to prevent Perón’s election, and was obliged to recognize the new government. Nevertheless, Perón’s image remained negative. His regime was regarded as fascist, and the entry of Nazi criminals into the country during his presidency aroused fears about a possible neo-Nazi revival in Argentina.

Argentina: A Safe Haven for Nazi Criminals?

In his book Justice Not Vengeance, published in 1989, Simon Wiesenthal wrote the following: In Perón’s Argentina the Nazis exercised considerable power, they were the organizers of the Argentinian army, experts in Argentinian industrialization, and their money added to the liquidity of Argentinian banks. Eichmann could feel secure in Argentina.21 These words reﬂ ected the view, prevalent for many years, that Argen- tina in general, and particularly under General Perón’s regime, was a primary place of refuge for Nazi criminals after the defeat of the Third Reich in World War II. Various essays and articles, particularly those of a journalistic nature, have put the number of Nazi war criminals

20 Cabot to State Department, 25 Feb. 1946, in Foreign Relations of the United States (1946), XI: 221–222, 233–234. 21 Simon Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance (New York, 1989), 76. argentina, world war ii, and the entry of nazi war criminals 77

fi nding shelter in Argentina in the tens of thousands.22 Such exaggera- tions drove Perón’s supporters to virtually blanket denials concerning the protection that Argentina offered in the second half of the 1940s to people who had played some role in the annihilation of European Jews, in the German war machine, or in propagandizing for the Nazi regime. The Peronist historian Fermín Chavez, for example, was quoted in the press in 1992 as having said that Adolf Eichmann “was the sole war criminal who was here.”23 A series of studies published during the 1990s, together with the fi ndings of the international Commis- sion of Enquiry into the Activities of Nazism in Argentina (known by its acronym CEANA) established by President Carlos Saul Menem’s government, has provided a clearer picture of the number of Nazi criminals and collaborators who entered Argentina, although many questions remain unanswered, and many documents have not yet been found or disclosed.24 Any discussion of this sensitive issue must begin with four essential points. First, at that time Argentina, like other countries, was trying to encourage the immigration of scientists, engineers, technicians, and military experts who, trained and employed in Germany up to 1945, had the skills needed to advance Argentina’s development, industrialization, and modernization program.25 In this respect, as in many others, President Perón was motivated more by practical considerations than ideological affi nities, although like many Argentine military men he admired all things German. In his recorded memoirs Perón said

22 In journalistic publications at the end of World War II, reporters wrote not only that the Fourth Reich would arise in Argentina, but that “concentration camps” had been established under the military regime. See, for example, Ray Josephs, Argentine Diary: The Inside Story of the Coming of Fascism (London, 1945), 193. 23 Ignacio Klich, “The Nazis in Argentina: Deconstructing Some Myths,” Patterns of Prejudice 29, no. 4 (1995): 55n4. 24 Ignacio Klich, chair of the Commission, has edited several volumes on this topic. See, for example, Ignacio Klich, ed., Sobre nazis y nazismo en la cultura argentina (Buenos Aires, 2002). The Commission worked between 1997–2005 and enjoyed the support of the Argentine foreign ministry. 25 At the end of the war, many states tried to recruit the best of German expertise. To that end the US carried out Project Paperclip and the USSR implemented Opera- tion Osvakim. See, for example, Carlos De Nápoli, Los científi cos Nazis en la Argentina (Buenos Aires, 2008); Linda Hunt, Secret Agenda: The United States Government, Nazi Scientists, and Project Paperclip, 1945 to 1990 (New York, 1991); Tom Bower, The Paperclip Conspiracy: The Hunt for Nazi Scientists (Boston, 1987); Christopher Simpson, Blowback: America’s Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War (New York, 1988). Of the Latin American countries, Argentina and Brazil were in the forefront of efforts to exploit this human capital. 78 chapter four simply, and apparently with no moral misgivings: “What better bargain could the Argentine Republic have made, than to bring these scientists and technicians here? All we paid for was their plane tickets, whereas Germany had invested millions of marks in their training.”26 Perón set up offi ces in Switzerland and Sweden in order to recruit these desirable professionals.27 The latter included, of course, former Nazis and supporters of the Third Reich. The German scientists and technicians quickly integrated into Argentina’s civilian and military industries and academic institutions. German scientists helped develop and produce arms and build the infrastructure for Argentina’s nuclear research program. The nuclear program on Huemul Island near Bariloche, in the western part of the country, was begun by the Austrian physicist Ronald Richter, who arrived in Argentina in 1948.28 The most eminent of these immigrant scientists was Kurt Tank, a former aerody- namics expert for the Luftwaffe, who set up a military aircraft factory in Córdoba and imported his entire staff to run it.29 A few German ex-air-force offi cers—notably Hans Ulrich Rudel, Germany’s most highly decorated fi ghter pilot30—worked as test pilots for Argentina’s

26 Torcuato Luca de Tena et al., Yo Juan Domingo Perón (Barcelona, 1976), 86; Eugenio P. Rom, Así hablaba Juan Perón (Buenos Aires, 1980): 107–108. 27 Holger M. Meding, “Refugio seguro. La emigración alemana de la posguerra al Río de la Plata,” in El genocidio ante la historia y la naturaleza humana, ed. Beatríz Gurevich and Carlos Escudé (Buenos Aires, 1994): 254–255; Leonardo Senkman, “Perón y la entrada de técnicos alemanes y colaboracionistas con los nazis, 1947–1949: Un caso de cadena migratoria,” Estudios Migratorios Latinoamericanos 31 (1995): 673–704. 28 At the beginning of the 1950s, Perón rushed to announce Argentina’s impressive achievements in nuclear production and the transformation of the country into a superpower in this ﬁ eld. Among other things, he declared that Argentina was now capable of selling atomic energy in 1.5-liter bottles “for family and industrial use.” These statements were quickly disproved, to the glee of the opposition. See Orestes D. Confalonieri, Perón contra Perón (Buenos Aires, 1956), 214; Joseph A. Page, Perón–A Biography (New York, 1983): 225–227; Newton, The “Nazi Menace,” 378–379; Mario Mariscotti, El secreto atómico de Huemul (Buenos Aires, 1985). Richter was secretly arrested at the end of 1952, and was not released from prison until after Perón’s regime was overthrown. 29 On Tank’s professional career, see Wolfgang Wagner, Kurt Tank: Focke Wulf’s Designer and Test Pilot (Atglen, Pa., 1999); Heinz Conradis, Design for Flight: The Kurt Tank Story (London, 1960). According to some reports, after the war Tank had received offers to move to Britain and to the Soviet Union but chose Argentina, where he was assured of greater freedom of action. Tank’s aircraft enterprise failed in 1951–1952. See Newton, The “Nazi Menace,” 376, 378. 30 Rudel returned to Germany in 1952 and engaged in neo-Nazi activities there. He was grateful to Perón, whose “sympathy for Germany and everything German [was] genuine.” See Newton, The “Nazi Menace,” 381. argentina, world war ii, and the entry of nazi war criminals 79 new air industry (Fábrica Militar de Aviones).31 Others joined the various universities; during the 1950s about a third of the staff of the National University of Tucumán was of German origin.32 The second point to be considered is that in many cases the admission of new immigrants was based not on a clear and consistent policy formulated by the Argentine government, but rather on immigration visas granted by consuls and clerks in the immigration authority in response to various practical considerations, decisions handed down from the lower ranks of management, or, quite simply, bribes. The Argentine consul in Barcelona, for example, sold passports to German agents at the end of the war. Third, many of the Germans who moved to Argentina did so using false identities and counterfeit documents furnished them by church ofﬁ cials in Europe (such as the anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist Austrian bishop Alois Hudal, who had a position in Rome and believed fervently in the greatness of the German nation) or handed out haphazardly by the Inter- national Red Cross.33 A network of monasteries extending from upper Bavaria through Austria and as far as Genoa, Rome, and Naples was one of the channels by which these Germans were smuggled out of Europe. There was also pressure on Argentina from various foreign sources to accept certain immigrants, even if they supported Hitler, because their lives were in danger in Eastern Europe and the areas occupied by the Red Army. From at least 1947 onwards the US, preoccupied with Europe’s

31 Ricardo Burzaco, “Los científi cos alemanes y Perón,” Todo es Historia (May 1995): 14–15; Ignacio Klich, “La pericia científi ca alemana en el amanecer del proyecto nuclear argentino y el papel de los inmigrantes judíos,” Boletín del Instituto de Historia Argentina y Americana “Dr. Emilio Ravignani” 10 (1994): 61–89. 32 Judith Laikin Elkin, The Jews of Latin America (New York, 1998), 83. One of the better-known names was that of Dr. Heinz Brückner, who was professor of genetics at the University of Buenos Aires. Apparently an effort was even made to recruit Hitler’s fi nancial wizard, Hjalmar Schacht. See Newton, The “Nazi Menace,” 376. 33 See Mark Aarons and John Loftus, Unholy Trinity (New York, 1991), ch. 2; Fernando Devoto, “Inmigrantes, refugiados y criminales en la ‘vía italiana’ hacia la Argentina en la segunda posguerra,” Ciclos 19 (2000): 151–175. A report that Ambassador Conrado Traverso sent to the Argentine foreign ministry in 1947 mentioned Pope Pius XII’s satisfaction over the readiness of the Argentine government and people to take in those refugees who were forced to leave Europe after the defeat of fascism. See Beatríz Gurevich, ed., Proyecto testimonio: Revelaciones de los archivos argentinos sobre la política ofi cial en la era nazi-fascista (Buenos Aires, 1998), 55. According to some versions, Hudal belonged to a group of Catholic clergy who had urged Pope Pius XI and his successor Pius XII to recognize the legitimacy of Hitler’s regime and to view Germany as a barrier against the Bolshevik threat. See Hella Pick, Simon Wiesenthal: A Life in Search of Justice (Boston, 1996): 128–129. 80 chapter four rehabilitation and guarding against the Communist threat, lost interest in tracking down war criminals and Nazi collaborators.34 Finally, it should be remembered that even back in the nineteenth century the liberal élites in Argentina had given preference to immigrants from Northern Europe, hoping that they would “improve” the Argentine population stock.35 In this respect at least Argentina’s immigration patterns during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in fact remained quite consistent. According to meticulous research by the German historian Holger Meding, about 80,000 Germans and Austrians arrived in Argentina during the fi rst decade following World War II. About three-fourths of them continued on to other destinations in South America, such as Bolivia, Chile, and Paraguay, or else returned to Europe, disappointed by life in Argentina. At least 19,000 Germans and Austrians, however, settled in Argentina during the years of Perón’s regime. This number increases to 30,000–40,000 if we include people of German origin who immigrated from other countries in Eastern and Central Europe, especially from the areas that fell under Soviet control. The integration of many of these immigrants was facilitated by the Ger- man community already established in Argentina, which on the eve of World War II numbered about a quarter of a million people and enjoyed signifi cant infl uence in industry, trade, the military, and the academic world.36 During World War II this community included Nazis and anti-Nazis, as well as people whose political involvement was minimal. Nazi propaganda and funds, channeled directly from Germany or through the embassy in Buenos Aires, led a substantial sector of the community to support the Third Reich openly, especially

34 In February 1947 Major General John Hildring, the US assistant secretary of state for occupied areas, explained to one of Argentina’s representatives in Washington that “the US government believed that every American nation should have complete freedom of action and independence to resolve the question of the refugees in the form it believed most appropriate to its interests.” Quoted in Leonardo Senkman, “Las Relaciones EE.UU.-Argentina y la cuestión de los refugiados de la post-guerra, 1945–1948,” Judaica Latinoamerica ( Jerusalem, 1988), 91. 35 See Carl Solberg, Immigration and Nationalism: Argentina and Chile, 1890–1914 (Austin, TX, 1970). 36 See Ronald C. Newton, German Buenos Aires, 1900–1930: Social Change and Cultural Crisis (Austin, 1977). argentina, world war ii, and the entry of nazi war criminals 81 during the fi rst years of the war, when the Axis countries seemed to have a good chance of victory.37 In any case, a distinction should be made between war criminals and German immigrants who were sympathizers of the Third Reich and/ or members of the National-Socialist Party. The commonly accepted estimate today is that about 50 of these immigrants were war criminals (the number rises to around 180 when it includes collaborators with the Nazi regime). The most notorious ones were Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele, “the angel of Death of Auschwitz,” who used children, young twins, and dwarfs as guinea pigs for his “medical” experiments. Mengele arrived in Argentina in June 1949 under the name Helmut Gregor, and moved to Paraguay at the end of the 1950s.38 Eichmann, an SS offi cer who had come to symbolize the horrors of the cold bureaucratic system that had carried out “the fi nal solution to the Jewish question,” arrived in Italy in 1950 with the assistance of Catholic Church offi cials. Shortly afterwards he moved to Argentina.39 Ten years later he was kidnapped by Israeli Mossad agents and brought to trial in Israel.

Eichmann and the Belated Interest in the Fate of Nazi War Criminals

The story of how Adolf Eichmann was found, captured, and taken to Israel has already been exhaustively recounted more than once,40 as has the narrative of his trial, which was in some sort a seminal event for Israeli society in its efforts to come to grips with the Holocaust.41 Accordingly, a very brief description of these events will sufﬁ ce here.

37 Stewart Edward Sutin, “The Impact of Nazism on the Germans of Argentina” (Ph.D. diss., University of Texas, 1975); Carlota Jackisch, El nazismo y los refugiados alemanes en la Argentina, 1933–1945 (Buenos Aires, 1989). 38 Gerald L. Posner and John Ware, Mengele—The Complete Story (New York, 1986), especially chs. 5–7; Gerald Astor, The “Last” Nazi: The Life and Times of Dr. Joseph Mengele (New York, 1985), ch. 10. 39 On Eichmann’s life in Argentina, see Alvaro Abós, Eichmann en Argentina (Buenos Aires, 2007). 40 On this operation see the book by the former head of the Israeli secret service (the Mossad), Isser Harel, The House on Garibaldi Street [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1990); also, Zvi Aharoni and Wilhelm Dietl, Operation Eichmann: The Truth about the Pursuit, Capture and Trial (New York, 1997); Peter Z. Malkin, Eichmann in My Hands (New York, 1990); Moshe Pearlman, The Capture and Trial of Adolf Eichmann (London, 1963). 41 On the Eichmann trial, see Tom Segev, The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust [Hebrew] ( Jerusalem, 1991; English version published New York, 1993), part 1, ch. 1; AJYB 63 (1962): 3–131; Hanna Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the 82 chapter four

The pioneer of efforts to locate Eichmann after the end of World War II was the Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal.42 Israel did not devote much effort to bringing Nazi criminals to trial until the end of the 1950s. In the fi rst decade following its birth, the new state had more urgent tasks to attend to, such as establishing the state institutions, absorbing fl oods of new immigrants, and dealing with hostile Arab neighbors. It was only after the Sinai war in 1956 that Israelis began to take a growing interest in the holocaust of European Jews and the hunt for its perpetrators. Although some war criminals were prosecuted at the Nuremberg trials of 1946, thousands of others, together with Third Reich collaborators, escaped and were not brought to account for their deeds. Two of the people at the top of the Nazi hunters’ ‘wanted’ list were Adolf Eichmann and Dr. Josef Mengele, infamous for the cruel ‘medical’ experiments that he had performed in the Auschwitz death camp. Both men fl ed to Argentina. Eichmann arrived in Italy in 1950 with the assistance of Catholic offi cials, and on 14 June the Argentine consulate in Genoa provided him with an entry visa for Argentina. He embarked on the Giovanna C and arrived in Buenos Aires in mid-July. In Argentina he was registered as a bachelor by the name of Ricardo Klement. His wife Vera and his children joined him two years later. Eichmann tried his hand at a series of jobs, the last of them at a branch of the Mercedes-Benz company in Buenos Aires. By the end of 1959 he was apparently feeling confi dent enough that he no longer made much effort to conceal his true identity. Although rumors that he had found refuge in South America were rife throughout the 1950s, it was only at the end of 1957 that Isser Harel, head of the Israeli secret service (Mossad), received the fi rst solid piece of information concerning Eichmann’s presence in Buenos Aires. Its source was Fritz Bauer, the Jewish public prosecutor of the province of Hesse in West Germany, who had received the information from Lothar Hermann, a retired half-Jew in Argentina whose parents had been killed in the Holocaust. Hermann’s daughter had become friendly with one of Eichmann’s sons.

Banality of Evil (New York, 1963); Gideon Hausner, Justice in Jerusalem (London, 1967); Y. Weitz, “The Holocaust on Trial: The Impact of the Kasztner and Eichmann Trials on Israeli Society,” Israel Studies 2 (Fall 1996). 42 On Wiesenthal’s efforts to locate Eichmann over a period of a decade and a half, see Pick, Simon Wiesenthal: A Life in Search of Justice, especially chs. 8–10; Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance, especially ch. 8; Alan Levy, The Wiesenthal File (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1994), especially ch. 15. argentina, world war ii, and the entry of nazi war criminals 83

The Mossad’s fi rst efforts to verify this information were fruitless. Two years passed before Harel sent Zvi Aharoni to Argentina, where he managed to confi rm that the man in question was indeed the wanted Nazi criminal. At the beginning of 1960, ‘Klement’ was tracked to San Fernando, a modest neighborhood in the Buenos Aires suburbs, where he was living with his wife and four children. Harel reported this discovery to David Ben-Gurion, who was once again prime minister, and received his authorization to kidnap Eichmann and take him to Israel for trial. By the norms of international relations, Israel should have notifi ed the Argentine authorities of its suspicion that one of the German immigrants living in the suburbs of Buenos Aires was none other than the war criminal Adolf Eichmann. If it had done so, it would have had to wait through the lengthy process involved in extraditing Eichmann to West Germany or one of the other countries in which he was sought. Israel feared that this process, if it took place, would lead to nothing, or that Israel’s application itself would give Eichmann the warning he needed to disappear before extradition proceedings could be undertaken. Although, ironically enough, Israel and Argentina signed an extradition treaty just two days before Eichmann was kidnapped, crimes such as Eichmann had committed were not covered by it—among other reasons, because the offenses had not been committed on the territory of one of the two signatory states or by a citizen of one of them. Moreover, at the time of the kidnapping the treaty had not yet been ratifi ed by the Argentine Congress, and in any case would not have applied to offenses committed before the establishment of the State of Israel.43 It should be remembered that a request for the extradition of Josef Mengele submitted by the Federal Republic of Germany to the government of Argentina resulted in Mengele’s disappearance shortly before he could be apprehended. According to Israeli ambassador Arye Levavi, “this was a sort of preamble to the Eichmann affair, because the lesson from the Mengele case was that legal channels would not work.”44 In the

43 Weekly Report by the American Embassy in Buenos Aires, 10 May 1960, NA, 735.00(w)/5–1060; “Editorial Comment,” Jewish Frontier ( July, 1960): 3; Levavi’s testimony, Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Oral History Division, Hebrew University of Jerusalem [hereafter ICJ/OHD], 11–12; Joel Barromi’s testimony, ICJ/OHD, 27–28; Ha’aretz, 26 April 1960, 6 May 1960, 10 May 1960. In any case, some Argentines, looking back, saw the signature of the extradition treaty shortly before the kidnapping as part of Israel’s diversionary tactics—a stratagem designed to deceive. 44 See Levavi’s testimony, ICJ/OHD, 7–9; Robert Weisbrot, The Jews of Argentina: From the Inquisition to Perón (Philadelphia, 1979), 244. 84 chapter four

fi rst decade following the end of World War II, Argentina turned down requests from Yugoslavia, West Germany, France, Belgium, Czechoslo- vakia, and Hungary to extradite Ante Pavelic and the members of his government, who had headed Croatia’s Ustashi regime; Jan Durcansky, who had been a minister in the Slovakian government; and other Nazi collaborators, such as Charles Lescat and Pierre Daye.45 Consequently, once David Ben-Gurion had decided that the moral and historical aspects, as he understood them, were compelling, he gave Isser Harel, the director of the Mossad, the go-ahead to kidnap Eichmann, despite the diplomatic risk involved. The decision was his alone; there was no cabinet meeting or governmental resolution on this important issue.46 More than 20 people were recruited from the Mossad and the security forces for the purposes of the mission. Because of the diplomatic delicacy of this illegal operation in a friendly country, the participants in the mission were defi ned as ‘volunteers.’ Whatever their real status, they all acted without hesitation. Most of them were Holocaust survivors themselves or had lost family members in the genocidal inferno.47 While briefi ng the task force in Buenos Aires, Isser Harel explained to these agents the responsibility they bore: For the fi rst time Jews would judge their murderers, and the whole world, including the younger generation in Israel, would hear the details of what had happened in the Holocaust. “[I]t is sad,” he said, “that when we come to fulfi ll such a lofty national and moral mission, we must resort to force, and hurt a friendly state. We are not happy about this deed, but necessity knows no law.”48 The Mossad agents arrived in Buenos Aires in disguise, on separate fl ights from different places and carrying false documents. Harel himself

45 For a detailed discussion and extensive documentation, see Paul Warzawski, ed., Proyecto testimonio: Respuestas del estado argentino ante los pedidos de extradición de criminales de guerra y reos del delito contra la humanidad bajo el Tercer Reich (Buenos Aires, 1998). 46 Levavi’s testimony, ICJ/OHD, 15. When Isser Harel and the government legal advisor, Haim Cohen, told Ben-Gurion that the Jewish public prosecutor of Hesse intended to ask the German government to request Eichmann’s extradition from Argentina, Ben-Gurion responded: “I suggest asking him not to tell anyone and not to request [Eichmann’s] extradition, but to furnish us with his address, and if we fi nd he is there—we will catch him and bring him here. Isser will deal with it.” See Michael Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1978), III: 1374. 47 For a detailed description of the operation, see the accounts by Mossad members Harel, Aharoni, and Malkin. For a more succinct description, see Ian Black and Benny Morris, Israel’s Secret Wars: A History of Israel’s Intelligence Services (New York, 1991): 188–191; Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman, Every Spy a Prince: A Complete History of Israel’s Intelligence Community (Boston, 1990): 114–119. 48 Harel, The House on Garibaldi Street, 169. argentina, world war ii, and the entry of nazi war criminals 85 went to Argentina to supervise the complex logistical operation personally. The Israeli foreign ministry had not been apprised of the mission, but some of the staff of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, including the security offi cer, knew in the later stages what was going on. A few local Jews also contributed to the success of the operation—a contribution that has never been adequately clarifi ed.49 Eichmann was seized on 11 May in Garibaldi Street, near his home, and hustled into the back seat of one of the cars hired for the operation. For nine days he was held in one of seven houses rented in Buenos Aires for the purpose. Early in the planning stages of the operation the security services had been obliged to confront the question of how to transfer Eichmann to Israel once they had caught him. At the time, Israeli planes did not yet make commercial fl ights to South America. Accordingly, the planners in Jerusalem decided that the Israeli delegation attending the festivities marking 150 years of Argentine independence would travel to Buenos Aires in a special El Al plane, under the pre- tense of examining the possibility of instituting a commercial air link between Tel Aviv and Buenos Aires. On the eve of the departure of Flight 601 for Argentina, Ben-Gurion summoned the head of the delegation, Abba Eban, to his offi ce and told him the secret: Adolf Eichmann had been kidnapped in Buenos Aires and the real reason for the special plane was to transport him to Israel in secret.50 The plane landed in the Argentine capital on 19 May, and in the late hours of the following night Eichmann was bundled on board, shortly before it took off again for Tel Aviv. On the morning of 22 May, the plane landed in the Lod airport.

A Provisional Balance

Eichmann was not, as we have seen, the only Nazi criminal to ﬁ nd shelter in Argentina.51 The dubious list of war criminals who found refuge

49 A biography of José Bar Gelbard, the Peronist businessman, hints that he cooperated with the Mossad in searching for and kidnapping Eichmann. See María Seoane, El burgués maldito (Buenos Aires, 1998): 61, 112, 116, 332. 50 Abba Eban, Personal Witness: Israel through My Eyes (New York, 1992): 312–313; Robert St. John, Eban (Garden City, N.Y., 1972), 365–366. 51 There is an extensive literature, at least some of it academically and politically controversial, on the entry of Nazi criminals into Argentina. See, for example, Holger M. Meding, La ruta de los nazis en tiempos de Perón (Buenos Aires, 1999); Uki Goñi, Perón 86 chapter four in the River Plate Republic also included Walter Kutschmann, an SS ofﬁ cer and member of the Gestapo in Galicia, who arrived in January 1948 with a Spanish passport in the name of Andrés Ricardo Olmo; Edouard Roschmann, commander of the ghetto of Riga, known as ‘the hangman from Riga,’ who entered Argentina in October 1948 under the name of Federico Wegner; Erich Priebke, an SS ofﬁ cer involved in the execution of 335 Italians near Rome in 1944, who moved to Argentina in November 1948; Josef Schwammberger, commander of the Przemysl ghetto, who arrived in March 1949;52 Gerhard Bohne, who participated in the ‘mercy killing’ (euthanasia) of mentally ill and handicapped individuals, and moved to Argentina in 1949; and Klaus Barbie, ‘the butcher of Lyons,’ who passed through Buenos Aires on his way to Bolivia in 1951.53 Some of these men were sought by the ‘Nazi hunters’ for many years before being extradited to Germany, France, or Italy to stand trial for their crimes against humanity. The Argentine authorities did not make any special effort to locate these people and deport them, neither during Perón’s regime nor during the other regimes that governed Argentina in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. On the contrary, on many occasions they obstructed the extradition process.54 Not only Germans immigrated to Argentina after the defeat of the Axis.55 Thousands of Ukrainians, Croatians, Poles, Belorussians, Serbs,

y los alemanes: la verdad sobre el espionaje nazi y los fugitivos del Reich (Buenos Aires, 1998); Gurevich, ed., Proyecto testimonio; Jorge Camarasa, Odessa al sur. La Argentina como refugio de nazis y criminales de guerra (Buenos Aires, 1995); idem, Los nazis en la Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1992); Emilio Corbiere, Estaban entre nosotros (Buenos Aires, 1992); Newton, The “Nazi Menace” in Argentina; Tomás Eloy Martínez, “Perón y los nazis,” in Las memorias del general (Buenos Aires, 1996); and Carlota Jackisch, El nazismo y los refugiados alemanes en la Argentina, 1933–1945 (Buenos Aires, 1989). 52 See Aaron Freiwald with Martin Mendelsohn, The Last Nazi: Josef Schwammberger and the Nazi Past (New York, 1994), especially chs. 9–10. 53 Tom Bower, Klaus Barbie—The Butcher of Lyons (New York, 1984). Barbie was ﬁ nally extradited to France. Walter Rauff, another Nazi war criminal, passed through Argentina on his way to Chile, where the various governments in power refused to extradite him; he eventually died of lung cancer in Santiago. 54 In 1966 Bohne became the ﬁ rst war criminal Argentina had ever extradited (to West Germany). Kutschmann, whose residence in Argentina was not revealed in the press until the mid-1970s, died in 1986 before he could be deported to West Germany to stand trial for his involvement in the murder of Jews in 1941. The Federal Republic of Germany also requested the extradition of Schwammberger in 1973, but it took nearly two decades of a prolonged court battle before he was actually sent off to stand trial in Germany. Priebke was extradited to Italy 50 years after the crimes he had committed. For details, see Warzawski, ed., Proyecto testimonio. 55 “Activities of the European Fascists in Argentina [Hebrew],” 24 May 1951, Israel State Archives ( Jerusalem), 2575/3. argentina, world war ii, and the entry of nazi war criminals 87

Slovenians, and others took to their heels as the Russian tanks advanced, initially seeking refuge in Italy. With the aid of their compatriots in Argentina, the Vatican, and sometimes US or British intervention, more than 20,000 of them headed for Argentina, then ruled by Perón’s anti-communist regime. Many of them were Nazi collaborators. But the world was changing; as the Cold War gathered momentum, the fascism-democracy dichotomy that had governed the period of World War II gave way to the communism-democracy dichotomy. Under these circumstances, too many people were willing to forget the past sins of those who had collaborated with the Third Reich. An estimated 10,000 Yugoslavs (about half of them Croatians), 6,000 Poles and the same number of Russians and Ukrainians entered Argentina. Especially notable in this group of immigrants were Ante Pavelic and the senior offi cials of the Ustashi government of Croatia, who reached the shores of the Río de la Plata in 1948; Jan Durkansky, the Slovakian leader who had been responsible for the murder of thousands of Czech citizens from November 1944 on; and Radislaw Ostrowski, head of the Nazi puppet government in Belorussia.56 In 1970, during his exile in Franco’s Spain, Perón confi rmed that he had provided refuge for thousands “out of humanitarian feeling,” and permitted the entry of “5,000 Croatians whose lives were in danger from Tito.”57 Another notable group that emigrated to Argentina at the close of the war consisted in Italian Fascists, including Mussolini’s son Vittorio, party offi cials such as Carlo Scorza, Dino Grandi, General Mario Roatta (commander of the troop of Italian ‘volunteers’ who helped the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War), and others.58 To conclude, President de la Rúa’s refusal to apologize for his country’s neutrality during the Second World War is perfectly understandable. The policy enjoyed widespread public support in Argentina. Furthermore, it did not serve the interests of the Axis countries, since it contributed to Great Britain’s ability to withstand German aggression.

56 Pavelic lived in Argentina for about a decade, and then moved to Francoist Spain where he was wounded in an attempt on his life, dying from the effects of his injuries about two years later. See Ignacio Klich, “El ingreso a la Argentina de nazis y colaboracionistas,” in Discriminación y racismo en América Latina, ed. Ignacio Klich and Mario Rapoport (Buenos Aires, 1997); Vladimir Dedijer, The Yugoslav Auschwitz and the Vatican (Buffalo, N.Y., 1992). In this respect, Father Krunoslav Draganovic, secretary of the Croatian Institute of San Girolano in Italy, played an important role. 57 Luca de Tena et al., Yo, Juan Domingo Perón, 85–86. 58 Newton, The “Nazi Menace,” 375. 88 chapter four

Here I concur with the assessment of David Sheinin, an expert in the history of US-Argentine relations: Growing concern through the war that Argentine authority, particularly the generals, were close to Germany culminated in an irrational series of assumptions about Nazis in Argentina. Not all US offi cials subscribed to simplistic arguments that Argentina was ‘pro-Nazi’. That line was accepted too readily by the State Department, which led directly into false assessments of Perón as a fascist, presaging the cold war ideological blinders that would help dispense with any nuance in how Americans understood governments in many parts of Latin America.59 In the continuing debate over the Nazi presence in post-World-War-II Argentina, two scholars have represented the opposing poles. Historian Ronald C. Newton, in his impressively researched The “Nazi” Menace’ in Argentina, 1931–1947, argues convincingly that there has been much exaggeration in both the contemporary discourse of American diplomats and journalists and the later historiography of Argentina in the 1940s as to the supposed Nazi menace in this South American republic. The opposing view was taken by journalist Uki Goñi in his best-selling books60 and many articles and interviews. He has rejected Newton’s claim that the United States dramatically overestimated the importance of Nazi infl uence in Argentina and instead claims that in fact the Americans underestimated the presence and infl uence of Nazis in his country. As the reader of this volume has surely noticed, I tend to Newton’s view. It does seem that the description over the years of Argentina as a “paradise for Nazi criminals” has been somewhat excessive. At the same time, I believe that de la Rúa was right to apologize for the permission given to Nazi war criminals and collaborators to enter Argentina at the end of the world confl ict and in the post-war period. Although the criticism leveled at Argentina over the years has tended to ignore similar behavior by other countries, still there was no moral justifi cation for a policy that allowed so many criminals to enter this South American republic.

59 David M. K. Sheinin, Argentina and the United States: An Alliance Contained (Athens, Ga., 2006), 79–80. 60 Uki Goñi, Perón y los alemanes: La verdad sobre el espionaje nazi y los fugitivos del Reich (Buenos Aires, 1999); idem, The Real Odessa: How Perón Brought the Nazi War Criminals to Argentina (London, 2002). CHAPTER FIVE

NATIONALISM, EDUCATION, AND IDENTITY: ARGENTINE JEWS AND CATHOLIC RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION

In the midst of World War II, as they struggled against the limitations imposed on Jewish immigration while their brothers were being sent to the death camps in Europe,1 Argentine Jews were forced to face yet another challenge. In December 1943 the military government that had taken power in Buenos Aires six months earlier published a decree instituting Catholic education in all state schools. In the next decade, the Jewish community of this South American republic had to contend with governments that regarded Catholicism as a basic ingredient of Argentine nationalism. Non-Catholic Argentines, therefore, found themselves in a peculiar situation in which they were not considered ‘good Argentines.’ This brief essay seeks to analyze the reaction of Argentine Jews to the growing infl uence of the Catholic Church in Argentina in general, and in the fi eld of education in particular, during the 1940s and 1950s. What I mistook at fi rst for Jewish passivity I later recognized as the moderation, sense of proportion, and pragmatic strategy of Jewish leaders in times of rapidly and radically changing political and social circumstances. At the same time, I became more aware of the gap that existed between anti-Semitic public discourse and its actual infl uence on the daily lives of most Argentine Jews in Argentina.

Military Ofﬁ cers and Catholic Bishops

The religious education decree was sponsored by the then justice and education minister, Gustavo Martínez Zuviría.2 He was an extreme anti-Semitic, Catholic nationalist and a leading activist in the

1 Leonardo Senkman, Argentina, la segunda guerra mundial y los refugiados indeseables, 1933–1945 (Buenos Aires, 1991). 2 This move had its roots in Pope Pius XI’s encyclical of December 1928, emphasizing the importance of Christian education for all children and young adults. 90 chapter five organization Acción Católica (Catholic Action), whom the Uriburu government appointed as director of the National Library in 1931. Martínez Zuviría was known for the novels he had written under the pseudonym of Hugo Wast, two of which, El Kahal and Oro, published in the mid-1930s, were venomously anti-Semitic. These two novels, inspired by such writings as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, were widely disseminated, despite anxious attempts by the local Jewish community to prevent their distribution.3 The religious education decree underscored the alliance between the army offi cers in power and the church bishops. Signed on 31 December, the day that the military government dissolved all political parties, it instituted compulsory lessons in the Catholic religion in all state-run schools. The Argentine Church had fought to achieve this goal for more than half a century. In 1884, Law 1420 established that education in Argentina would be secular in nature and that religion classes could be taught only by religious personnel outside offi cial school hours. Schoolteachers were forbidden to teach religion. This law refl ected the secularization process that took place in Argentina in the second half of the nineteenth century, and the views of the liberal élites, who were strongly infl uenced by developments in state-church relations in Third-Republic France. Since the 1880s the Church had striven to restore religious education to the public schools and to take a hand in the spiritual formation of Argentine youth.4 After a few decades, the Church’s efforts began to bear fruit. In the 1930s, in the context of economic diffi culties engendered by the world depression, a retreat from political freedom following President Hipólito Yrigoyen’s ouster in September 1930, and growing conservatism, the

3 The German embassy in Buenos Aires bought 40,000 copies of these novels in order to distribute them free of charge among inﬂ uential Argentines. See Newton, The “Nazi Menace” in Argentina, 138. By 1955 Kahal had gone through 22 printings, a total of 107,000 copies. Oro went through 21 impressions, totaling 104,000 copies. The books were also translated into many other languages. See Graciela Ben-Dror, Católicos, nazis y judíos: La iglesia argentina en los tiempos del Tercer Reich (Buenos Aires, 2003): 108–114. On Martínez Zuviría and his nationalist and anti-Semitic views, see J. C. Moreno, Genio y ﬁ gura de Hugo Wast (Buenos Aires, 1969); César Tiempo [Israel Zeitlin], La campaña antisemita y el director de la biblioteca nacional (Buenos Aires, 1935); Daniel Lvovich, Nacio- nalismo y antisemitismo en la Argentina (Buenos Aires, 2003); Mundo Israelita [Buenos Aires] 8 June 1935, 15 June 1935, and 22 June 1935. 4 On the struggle over the place of religion in the schools, see among others José S. Campobassi, Ataque y defensa del laicismo escolar en la Argentina (1884–1963) (Buenos Aires, 1964); Susana Bianchi, Historia de las religiones en la Argentina: Las minorías religiosas (Buenos Aires, 2004). nationalism, education, and identity 91

Church became notably stronger and more inﬂ uential. The number of religious communities in the capital increased from 39 in 1929 to 105 a decade later. Acción Católica, an activist organization for lay Catholics, was established in 1928, and boasted 80,000 members by 1940. At the International Eucharistic Congress in Buenos Aires in 1934, more than a million people attended the masses and took communion.5 Several provinces decided to reinstate religious education in the schools under their jurisdiction. However, provincial legislation affected a relatively small number of pupils, since most schools were controlled by the national government. The cancellation of Law 1420 and the institution of religious instruction in all state schools in December 1943 therefore constituted an enormously important achievement for the Church. The new decree made religious lessons part of the compulsory curriculum for all pupils, and, in its preamble, characterized the previous education law as absurd because it ran counter to the “Catholic nature of the Republic.” This pro-Church legislation was one form of ammunition in the military regime’s battle against the various manifestations of liberalism and Marxism, and it brought the unconstitutionally instituted regime support and legitimization from the religious establishment. In this way, relations of mutual dependency were forged between the military and the clergy, providing the basis for the alliance that would help the charismatic colonel, Juan Perón, take power in the general elections of February 1946. Under the terms of the decree, the only pupils exempted from religious instruction were “those pupils whose parents have explicitly expressed their opposition because of their adherence to another religion—and thus freedom of conscience shall be respected.” Such pupils had to attend “morality” lessons instead. Other articles in the decree authorized Church authorities to control the religious curriculum and textbooks, and to participate in a supervisory capacity in the special division set up in the education ministry to organize the teaching of Catholic religion and morality. In Catholic circles, the religious instruction decree was naturally greeted with delight. The central committee of Acción Católica was

5 David Rock, Authoritarian Argentina: The Nationalist Movement, Its History and Its Impact (Berkeley, 1993), 101; Alberto Ciria, Partidos y poder en la Argentina moderna (1930–1946) (1975; reprinted Buenos Aires, 1985): 228–234; Ernesto J. A. Maeder, “La enseñanza religiosa en la década del 30,” Todo es Historia 227 (1986): 80–92. 92 chapter five quick to thank President Pedro Pablo Ramírez and his government for having had the sense to restore to the children of Argentina the “authentic” patrimony of their forefathers, by “returning Jesus to our school and our school to Jesus.” The Argentine bishops’ conference also praised the decree in February 1944, because it “strengthens the spiritual unity of the nation, by harmoniously linking its present with its past.” The decree was criticized by Protestants and Jews, of course (each of these communities constituted roughly 2 percent of the population at that time); although their children were not compelled to receive Catholic religious instruction, they felt pushed to the sidelines by this identiﬁ cation of Argentina with Catholicism.6 Complaints were also heard from organizations of secular teachers, Liberals, Socialists, and Communists. Interestingly, although some Protestant communities organized public protests, the organized Jewish public did not do so, and would not cooperate with the Protestants on this issue. The DAIA, or Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas (Delegation of Argentine Jewish Associations), the political umbrella organization of Argentine Jews, settled for approving the draft of a manifesto on 23 March 1944: The executive branch of the nation has thus left intact the constitutional precept that mandated the duty to respect freedom of conscience; consequently all Jewish parents have the ineluctable duty to inform the school administration that they wish their children to be exempted from Catholic religion classes. If they failed to do so, “they [would] commit a serious breach of ethics, since such conduct is intolerably hypocritical or outright deceitful.”7 Why didn’t the Jewish leadership adopt a more combative attitude toward a military regime that considered only Catholics to be ‘good Argentines’? It seems that this generation of Jewish leaders, born mostly in Eastern and Central Europe, were accustomed to quiet lobbying and requests for government protection, and not to public protests or the mobilization of public opinion to put direct pressure on the authorities. Furthermore, being at least partially aware of the fate of their brothers in the Old World, they did not lose their sense of proportion. The

6 Lightman to JDC, 17 July 1944, American Jewish Committee Files, Argentine Anti- Semitism (YIVO, New York), Box 2; Loris Zanatta, Perón y el mito de la nación católica: Iglesia y Ejército en los orígenes del peronismo (1943–1946) (Buenos Aires, 1999): 115–190. 7 Quoted in Haim Avni, Emancipation and Jewish Education: A Century of Argentinian Jewry’s Experience, 1884–1984 [Hebrew] ( Jerusalem, 1985), 95. nationalism, education, and identity 93 institution of religious instruction in state schools did not seem to pose too serious a threat to Jewish life in Argentina. In the following months, the DAIA waged a campaign to persuade Jewish parents to defend their children’s right to the exemption. Many parents did not take advantage of this right, whether because they wanted to avoid conﬂ ict with school administrators, because they did not want their children isolated from the other pupils, or simply because they did not care.8 The education minister, Martínez Zuviría, and his even more nationalistic successor, Alberto Baldrich, now began to staff the ministry with nationalists and Catholics, and the same process took place in the university and teacher-training institutions. The military regime also increased the salaries of Church employees, and transferred large sums of money to various Catholic institutions.

Religious Issues during the Presidential Campaign

In the course of his campaign for president in late 1945 and early 1946, Perón made statements indicating that, if elected, he would pass a law ratifying the temporary decree instituting religious instruction in all the schools—the decree so dear to the Church establishment. There were a few liberal priests who had expressed support for the Allies during World War II and who now warned against the Colonel “with the fascist and totalitarian tendencies,” but the Church authorities saw Perón as the lesser evil when compared with the bloc of parties running against him within the framework of the Unión Democrática. A third possibility, the National Democratic Party—a conservative party that represented the oligarchy and on which the Church had depended in the past—was, to all intents and purposes, defunct. Accordingly, some time before the elections, the heads of the Church published a pastoral letter calling on Catholics not to vote for parties that advocated such principles as the separation of church and state, the elimination of religion from the public schools, and divorce. In other words, they were not to vote for the Unión Democrática, which included the Radicals, the Socialists, and the Communists, three groups whose

8 The same was true after the decree became law in the second half of the 1940s. See American Jewish Yearbook 51 (1950): 265. 94 chapter five position on religious matters was well known.9 Years later, Church offi cials would claim that this pastoral letter should not have been interpreted as support for Perón, emphasizing that a similar letter had been published at the beginning of the 1930s, when General Agustín P. Justo was running for president against the leader of the Progressive-Democratic Party, Lisandro de la Torre. In the stormy atmosphere of those last months of 1945, however, the letter was perceived as a declaration of support for Perón’s candidacy by the Catholic hierarchy. Most of the Jews, needless to say, supported the Unión Democrática. In the aftermath of World War II, as the extent of the Jewish Holocaust in Europe became clear, Argentine Jews, who were mostly of European origin, were suspicious of a charismatic leader who reminded them of the Führer and the Duce of the defeated Axis regimes. The support Perón received from the Catholic Church and from Nationalist organizations such as the Alianza Libertadora Nacionalista only reinforced their suspicions. At the same time, both the political identity (generally liberal or left-wing) and class identity (primarily middle-class) of many Jews disposed them to remain aloof from a military leader whose candidacy was identifi ed with benefi ts for the Argentine working class. A look at the various positions that different people in the Church took with respect to this pastoral letter shows that the liberals who counseled against its publication were a minority in the Catholic camp. Most of the clergy preferred to maintain some degree of neutrality, and not a few believed that the interests of the Church required it to identify itself with one of the candidates—Perón.10 “This is our opportunity, we must not miss the boat,” as Archbishop Antonio Caggiano put it. Some priests went much further, and in their Sunday sermons explicitly told their congregations to vote for Perón. Some churches became Peronist propaganda centers, essentially serving as emissaries for candidate Perón in even the most remote parts of the Republic. In view of the small majority that gave him the victory in February 1946, we can assume that the Church’s contribution to his election was signifi cant. Perón needed the Church for more than simply votes and support, however. The Peronist doctrine had not yet been formulated, and Perón

9 On this pastoral letter and on the Church’s position during the election campaign, see Criterio (Buenos Aires), 22 Nov. 1945; Lila Caimari, Perón y la Iglesia Católica (Buenos Aires, 1994): 94–100; Zanatta, Perón y el mito de la nación Católica, 400–438. 10 On reactions within the Church to the pastoral letter, see Susana Bianchi, “La Iglesia Católica en los orígenes del peronismo,” Anuario del IEHS 5 (1990): 71–89. nationalism, education, and identity 95 sought to use Catholic values to unify his supporters. In his election propaganda, he portrayed himself as ‘the Catholic candidate,’ and associated his social message with the social doctrine of ‘the true Church.’ That doctrine had been expressed in a number of socially oriented papal bulls, notably those issued by Leo XIII and Pius XI, which sought to deﬁ ne a ‘third way’ between Marxism and liberalism.11

Peronist Populism and the Changing Attitude toward Religious Minorities

After Perón’s victory, he and his wife made various gestures towards the Church, including frequent appearances at offi cial religious ceremonies and a mass performed as part of the celebration of ‘Loyalty Day’ (Día de la Lealtad Popular) on 17 October 1947, the second anniversary of the historic mass demonstration of Perón’s supporters in the Plaza de Mayo. The Day of the Virgin of Luján, whose cult dated back to the colonial era, was declared a holiday. These gestures probably refl ected Perón’s recognition of political necessity more than they did any deep personal faith. The Church repaid Perón in various ways: by suppressing critics of the regime among its own ranks, and through the participation of the primate of the Argentine Church, Cardinal Santiago Luis Copello, in blatantly political and partisan ceremonies and events sponsored by the regime. With good reason, the Argentine historian Lila Caimari has designated the years 1946–1949 as ‘the Catholic period’ of Peronism and ‘the Peronist period’ of the Church. About nine months after moving into the presidential palace, in March 1947, Perón kept his promise: The Congress passed the law instituting religious education in all schools. This was no easy task; Perón had to bring all his infl uence to bear on the members of the Peronist majority in the Chamber of Deputies, since some of them, coming from solidly unionist and leftist backgrounds, were inclined to oppose it.12 The new justice and education minister, Belisario Gache Pirán, was

11 On Peronism and the Church’s social doctrine, see Cristián Buchrucker, Nacio- nalismo y peronismo: La Argentina en la crisis ideológica mundial (1927–1955) (Buenos Aires, 1987): 305–308. 12 Author’s interviews with Joaquín Díaz de Vivar, who conducted the congressional debate on behalf of the majority faction (Buenos Aires, 22 June 1989); with Rodolfo Decker, chairman of the Peronist majority faction (Buenos Aires, 31 Aug. 1989); and with Cipriano Reyes, who at that time had already left the Peronist camp and of course opposed the law (Quilmes, 15 Sept. 1989). 96 chapter five sent to the Congress to refute the opposition’s arguments and insist that the decree for religious education had worked out well. At any rate, Perón’s interest lay in ensuring the Church’s support for his regime, and he believed that Catholic education would be an important tool for promoting national unity. On one occasion he declared: I think that in our country it is impossible to speak of an Argentine home that is not a Christian home. Under the cross we formed our ideas. Under the cross we recited our ABCs . . . Everything distinctive in our habits is Christian and Catholic.13 Thus, Peronism attempted to make religion a basic component of national identity, while presenting Communism—an ideology that was competing for the support of the working class—as atheism, foreign to the spirit of Argentina. This defi nition of the national identity was problematic for the Jewish community, as well as for other non-Catholic groups in Argentina, since it appeared to be shutting them out. As early as October 1946, in the course of a debate in one of the committees in the Chamber of Deputies concerning a Radical opposition proposal to cancel the military government’s religious education decree, the DAIA passed a memo to the president of the lower house of Congress, Ricardo Guardo, asking that the decree of December 1943 not be given the force of law. Moisés Goldman and Benjamin Rinsky, the memo’s signatories, asserted that a religious education law of this kind violated the legal equality of the Jews of Argentina in both letter and spirit, created discrimination between Catholic and non-Catholic pupils, and limited the freedom of conscience that was guaranteed by the constitution. They stressed that Law 1420, which permitted religious study outside of school, helped make all pupils feel united and bound to their homeland.14 Yet in the course of the public and parliamentary debate over the following months, nothing more was heard from the leaders of the Jewish public, in contrast to the various Protestant groups. Possibly, the Jewish leaders feared that taking an active stand might identify the community even more strongly with the opposition to the regime, making their own contacts with the authorities more diffi cult. As it turned out, this thinking would prove benefi cial later on.

13 See Orestes D. Confaloneri, Perón contra Perón (Buenos Aires, 1956): 254–255. 14 The full text of the memo appears in Avni, Emancipation and Jewish Education, Appendix B, Document 4, 186–187. nationalism, education, and identity 97

The deputies of the majority faction in the Congress accepted their leader’s will, and the decree became law in March 1947, after turbulent debates that raised basic questions concerning the nature and national identity of Argentina.15 Speaking out against the law’s supporters, a Radical deputy named Luis MacKay, who would later be a minister in the Arturo Frondizi government, called on his fellow deputies not to vote for a law that had the potential to divide Argentines: “Since they are children of so many races, religions, philosophies, and regimes, it is our duty to iron out the diffi culties between them with the help of mutual respect and tolerance, to forge the unity and harmony needed in this cosmos that is Argentina.”16 His words were not heeded. It was still the era of the melting-pot, not the multicultural project (and not only in Argentina). The bill was passed, and Perón was now able to send a letter to Pope Pius XII emphasizing the importance of the law and the Christian aspect of his social policy.17 The DAIA then launched a new campaign to persuade Jewish parents to have their offspring placed in the ‘morality’ classes rather than the Catholic religion classes.18 The morality lessons, however, were described by at least some of the Jewish children who attended them as strongly Catholic in nature. This is not surprising, since the textbooks and curricula in this fi eld were written by the religious—read Catholic—education division in the education ministry.19 Moreover, the exemption from Catholic religious instruction did not release the Jewish pupils from various school activities of a Christian nature—or from the need to refuse explicitly to participate in them. Often school fi eld trips included visits to churches, and many educational events incorporated religious content. Nonetheless, for the most part, available testimonies

15 On the education law and its ratifi cation, see República Argentina, Diario de Ses- iones de la Cámara de Diputados (1946), X: 568–879; Virginia Leonard, Politicians, Pupils, and Priests. Argentine Education since 1943 (New York, 1989): 82–90; and Susana Bianchi, “Iglesia Católica y peronismo: La cuestión de la enseñanza religiosa (1946–1955),” Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe 3, no. 2 (1992): 89–103. 16 Quoted in Avni, Emancipation and Jewish Education, 84. 17 Author’s interview with Father Hernán Benítez (Buenos Aires, 29 June 1989) and Perón’s letter to Pope Pius XII, dated 28 March 1947, a copy of which was furnished to the author by Father Benítez. 18 See, for example, their call quoted in Judaica [Buenos Aires] (1948): 164–165. 19 See Esti Rein, “The Struggle for Ideological Hegemony between the Cross and the Sword in the Perón Era [Hebrew],” in Society and Identity in Argentina, ed. Tzvi Medin and Raanan Rein (Tel Aviv, 1997), esp. 141–143; and “Collected Reminiscences of Former Pupils,” Appendix A in Avni’s Emancipation and Jewish Education, 169–174. 98 chapter five make no mention of tension, hostility, or systematic discrimination associated with the introduction of Catholic instruction. In the early 1980s historian Haim Avni sent several dozen question- naires to former pupils of state schools during the years 1944–1954. To the question about any problems they or their families had to face when asking for exemption from the religion classes, or whether such a petition was ever rejected, “all the respondents, without exception” answered that they had never heard of such a rejection or of any confl ict provoked by such a petition. Most respondents claimed that the exemption from religion classes had no negative effects on their relations with non-Jewish friends, or with teachers and school principals.20 During the early years of Perón’s regime, the Church refrained from criticizing the regime publicly, partly because it saw Peronism as an effective barrier against Communism and hoped to use the regime’s popularity to rehabilitate its own status among the masses. It was a case of quid pro quo, with each side using the other to promote its own aims. The government gave subsidies to Catholic institutions every year, and continued to stress the Christian character of justicialismo, the Peronist social doctrine (from justicia, or ‘justice’). The new constitution drafted in 1949 preserved the Catholic religion’s privileged status. Nonetheless, the alliance between the Perón regime and the Catholic Church was not a solid one. Each side was suspicious of the other, and aware that its own camp included dissenters who opposed overly close cooperation. The Church was not happy with increasing state intervention in its traditional fi elds of activity, notably charity, welfare, and education, nor with Perón’s self-proclaimed status as sole interpreter of the social signifi cance of ‘true Christianity.’ In a speech in 1948, Perón tried to equate being a good Christian with being a Peronist, while in May 1950 he declared, in a speech before Catholic academics, that a 2,000-year-old doctrine—Christianity—needed to be updated to fi t modern life. It hardly needs to be said that such speeches aroused uneasiness and concern in the Church. At this stage, it was becoming increasingly clear that the bishops’ wish to maintain Catholicism’s privileged status with respect to other religions no longer had a consensus in the Peronist leadership. The government now showed no inclination to restrict the activities of non-Catholics. In fact, it was beginning to present respect for all religions as a feature of Peronism. The regime considered loyalty

20 Avni, Emancipation and Jewish Education, 169–172. nationalism, education, and identity 99 to Perón and his movement more important than loyalty to any other institution,21 and, moreover, sought to apply in the religious sphere the Peronist ambition of protecting the rights of minorities and weak, marginal groups from the encroachments of the privileged. Peronism was presented as a conglomerate that had a place for every decent Argentine who supported the Peronist project. As far as life in the public educational system was concerned, the replacement in the classroom of the ‘Catholicism-other religions’ dichotomy by the ‘Peronista-anti-Peronista’ one made life simpler for many Jewish pupils. It was easier to hide the anti-Peronist attitude of your parents than their Jewish identity. At the beginning of the 1950s, teachers were advised not to urge non- Catholics to participate in Catholic doctrine lessons, but to respect the principle of freedom of religion. The new Peronist textbooks published in the years 1953–1955 reﬂ ected the desire to defend this principle. In one second-grade reader, the following dialog appeared under the heading “Respect for All Religions”: Beatríz: Are you staying for the religion class, Esther? Esther: No. Dad is Jewish, and he has asked that I be taught Morality instead of religion. Beatríz: Oh, I am staying. This year I am taking my First Commu- nion. Esther: The teacher won’t mind, right? Since she is Catholic. Beatríz: No, Esther. The teacher says that each one of us should follow the religion of our parents. And we should respect each other’s religions. Esther: Oh! That is good education. Beatríz: Good education and also tolerance. Esther: Jews also respect the Catholic religion, and they are grateful to President Perón for allowing them to celebrate their holidays without counting the absences at school. Beatríz: They [the Jews] also make this country great. We are all brothers and sisters.

21 This is the thesis of Lila Caimari, “Peronist Christianity and Non-Catholic Religions: Politics and Ecumenism (1943–55),” Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 20, no. 39–40 (1995): 105–124. On the Peronization of the educational system, see Mónica Esti Rein, Politics and Education in Argentina, 1946–1962 (Armonk, N.Y., 1998); Mariano Plotkin, Mañana es San Perón. Propaganda, rituales políticos y educación en el regimen peronista (Buenos Aires, 1994); Jorge Luis Bernetti and Adriana Puiggrós, Peronismo: cultura política y educación (1945–1955) (Buenos Aires, 1993). 100 chapter five

Esther: Before, Jews used to feel like strangers in Argentina. That’s why they hid their religion. Beatríz: With the Social Justice [Peronism] we have even achieved harmony among all of us.22 This respect for religious pluralism that characterized the last years of the Peronist regime is refl ected in a statement that Perón made in the book he published in 1956, while in exile in Panama: During my government I received, without making any distinction between them, the heads of the Roman Catholic Church, Jewish rabbis, the representative of the Jerusalem Patriarch and head of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Greek Orthodox, Protestants, Mormons, Adven- tists, etc., because I believed it was my duty not to discriminate between the spiritual leaders of different sectors of the Argentine people.23 Catholic education apparently did not leave its mark in public schools. The Argentine middle class, to which most Jews belonged, attached much importance to the public educational system and its liberal tradition, and considered it a valuable space for social integration as well as professional and intellectual formation. Therefore, most middle class families kept sending their children to public schools. Among secular Jews, Zionists and progressive, affi liated and non-affi liated alike, the defense of public education was a cause worth fi ghting for, at least until the 1960s. Accordingly, Jewish schools at the time were only complementary and limited to the primary level.24

Walking a Thin Line

As I was researching Argentine Jewry in the 1930s-1950s, it became clear to me that historiography has so far devoted excessive attention to the question of anti-Semitism in this South American republic. Too often, therefore, the reader of essays on anti-Semitic manifestations in Argen- tina receives the false impression that all through the twentieth century the lives of Jews there were intolerable. Such was not the case. The

22 Celia Gómez Reynoso, El hada buena [second-grade reading text] (Buenos Aires, 1953), 54. See also Ana Lerdo de Tejeda, Un año más [second-grade reading text] (Buenos Aires, 1953), 12. English translation in Caimari, “Peronist Christianity,” 11–12. 23 Juan Perón, La fuerza es el derecho de las bestias (Buenos Aires, 1974), 62. 24 On the complementary Jewish schools, see Efraim Zadoff, Historia de la educación judía en Buenos Aires (1935–1957) (Buenos Aires, 1994). nationalism, education, and identity 101 anti-Semitic image of the Peronist regime is also largely unfounded. Dur- ing the Peronist decade, the Argentine government—trying to improve its image at home and abroad—gradually made the struggle against anti-Semitism an integral part of its policy. To some extent, this is not surprising. Peronist populism showed a greater readiness to promote the social and political integration of groups that had previously remained on the margins of the system. The principal benefi ciaries of this attitude were, of course, members of the working class, but immigrant groups, including Jews, also gained something by it. A number of Jewish fi gures reached positions that had never been open to Jews before, in both government ministries and the judicial system. Argentine populism was a multi-class coalition that included new industrialists—mainly producers of import substitutes for the local market—and provincial business elites. These groups incorporated Jewish businesspeople and entrepreneurs who had been able to advance economically as a result of Peronism and its policy of protecting local manufacture in various fi elds.25 Nonetheless, many Jewish (and non-Jewish) businesspeople continued to be strongly mistrustful of Perón. “Strange,” wrote Yaacov Tsur, the fi rst Israeli ambassador to Buenos Aires, in his memoirs, “many of these Jews have made a fortune since Perón came to power . . . but despite that it was evident that they did not believe the regime had a future, and feared the signs of extremism in it.”26 Contrary to the offi cial collective memory cultivated by the organized Jewish community, various oral history projects in Buenos Aires attest to the positive, even nostalgic, memory that many Jews retained of the Peronist decade. This is evident from the oral history archive of the prestigious Jewish high school Ort. Its director Laura Benadiba, claimed that the accounts of many of the 500 interviewees “contradict the offi cial Jewish Argentine discourse.”27 Some of them pointed to the contemporary economic opportunities offered to them, others to the professional training they received in adult schools. Many of the people interviewed by historian Nerina Visacovsky for her project on the Jew- ish Argentine Left criticized the Peronist regime but still referred to the

25 On Peronism as a populist movement, see, among others, Raanan Rein, Peronismo, populismo y política: Argentina 1943–1955 (Buenos Aires, 1998), ch. 1; idem, In the Shadow of Perón: Juan Atilio Bramuglia and the Second Line of Argentina’s Populist Movement (Stanford, Calif., 2008). 26 Yaacov Tsur, Credential No. 4: First Diplomatic Mission in South America [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1981). 27 Laura Benadiba, electronic correspondence with the author, August 2008. 102 chapter five years 1945–1955 as a ‘golden age’ of growth and expansion in Jewish life in general and culture and education in particular.28 Nevertheless, in assessing the overall performance of Argentine Jew- ish leaders during this fateful decade, we cannot fail to appreciate the adeptness the DAIA leaders showed in successfully navigating a period that divided Argentine society into two warring camps. They cultivated good relations with the president—all the time stressing that, as Jews, they were expressing their loyalty to the head of the state and the elected bodies of the Republic, not personal allegiance to any particular political party. They refrained from boycotting the small Jewish section of the Peronist party (the Organización Israelita Argentina, known by its acronym OIA), taking advantage of the channel of communication it provided to the upper echelons of the regime; but they did not allow the Peronist Jewish organization to expand its base of support in the Jewish community. Moreover, they managed to preserve their organization’s autonomy at a time when institutions, organizations, and entire social sectors were undergoing rapid Peronization. The Jewish papers praised the regime for its various measures favoring Jews and the State of Israel, but did not join in the toadyism and personality cult endemic in the rest of the Argentine media, most of which eventually jumped on the Peronist bandwagon, willingly or otherwise.

28 Nerina Visacovsky, “El discurso pedagógico de la izquierda judeo-argentina (1935–1968)” (Ph.D. diss. in progress, Universidad de Buenos Aires and Universidad Nacional de San Martín), ch. 2. CHAPTER SIX

DIPLOMATS AND JOURNALISTS: THE IMAGE OF PERONISM IN THE HEBREW PRESS

Juan Perón made substantial efforts at home and abroad to convince his critics and enemies that he was not a fascist leader. Even the children’s section in the weekly Mundo Peronista (Peronist World) was put to use: We give you permission to get mad and shout when you hear someone saying that General Perón is a dictator or a fascist. General Perón is the leader of an extraordinary popular movement. Dictators do not take the people into account, but enslave them. General Perón is an Argentine who loves his country. “Fascist” is a foreign word that has no relation to anything Argentine.1 Nonetheless, these efforts did not yield the desired results. Just as Euro- peans perceived the Spanish General Francisco Franco’s regime as an anachronistic remnant of the Fascist regimes that had been defeated in the World War, so Perón’s regime was seen by many as the rotten fruit of Nazi expansionism beyond the borders of Europe.2 Spruille Braden, US ambassador in Argentina (May–September 1945) and subsequently assistant secretary of state for Latin American affairs (November 1945–June 1947), and other like-minded individuals believed that the United States should not countenance the continued existence of governments that included people such as Perón. In an article published in April 1946, after Perón’s victory in democratic elections at the end of February that year, Braden wrote: With the defeat of Germany, Argentina remains under the bare dictatorship of uniformed men who drink at the same fountain where drank Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco. As long as the people of Argentina live under the heel of this dictatorship [. . .] none of us can sleep soundly nights.3

1 Mundo Peronista 21 (15 May 1952): 50. 2 For contemporary comparisons between Franco and Perón, see Raanan Rein, The Franco-Perón Alliance: Relations between Spain and Argentina, 1946–1955 (Pittsburgh, 1993). 3 Spruille Braden, “The Germans in Argentina,” Atlantic Monthly 27 (1946): 43. On Braden and his battle against Perón, see Spruille Braden, Diplomats and Demagogues 104 chapter six

At the beginning of the same year, The Nation, a progressive liberal weekly published in New York, had already claimed that Perón’s political strategy was “directly copied from his Nazi preceptor, Adolf Hit- ler.” In another article, it told its readers that the Perón regime had made anti-Semitism an integral part of its platform.4 This harsh view of Perón was based on the Germanophile attitudes that pervaded the Argentine army in the early 1900s, Argentina’s neutrality during World War II (in the face of US disapproval), and the immigration of Nazi criminals and Third Reich collaborators. In February 1946, the US State Department published a ‘Blue Book,’ hoping to ruin Perón’s chances in the upcoming Argentine presidential elections. The work described Germans in contemporary Argentina as having “the economic organization—industrial, commercial, and agricultural—which they need to provide a base for the reconstruction of German aggressive power.”5 Once Perón took offi ce in June 1946, he was eager to improve his image, especially in the United States. Early on he realized that improving relations with the United States would be essential to the success of his industrialization and modernization plan. He did his best to clear himself of any suspicion of anti-Semitism, and sought to win the sympathy of the Jewish community in Argentina and, later, of the new Jewish state. His idea was to change US Jews’ view of his regime, hoping that they would then exercise their great infl uence to alter the image of Argentina then prevailing in US public opinion and among the decision-makers in Washington.6 According to Israeli ambassador Yaacov Tsur, Perón “was convinced of the power of world Jewry and its infl uence on public opinion, especially in North America.”7

(New Rochelle, N.Y., 1971); Gary Frank, Juan Perón vs. Spruille Braden (Lanham, Md., 1980); Alberto P. Vannucci, “Elected by Providence: Spruille Braden in Argentina in 1945,” in Ambassadors in Foreign Policy: The Inﬂ uence of Individuals on U.S.-Latin American Relations, C. Neale Ronning and Albert P. Vannucci (New York, 1987): 49–73. 4 Quoted in Ignacio Klich, “A Background to Perón’s Discovery of Jewish National Aspirations,” Judaica Latinoamericana, I (1988): 202. On Argentina’s image in the US press during World War II, see also Jack E. Friedman, Los malos vecinos: Las relaciones entre Estados Unidos y la Argentina durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial (Cordoba, 1999). 5 Quoted in James Bruce, Those Perplexing Argentines (New York, 1953), 110. 6 Israeli representatives, of course, did their best to encourage this belief. See, for example, Tsur to Israeli Foreign Ministry, 14 Jan. 1952, Israel State Archives [hereafter ISA], 2578/22. However, Perón received the same impression from his talks with US diplomats. See Nufer to State Department, 5 Feb. 1953, National Archives, Col- lege Park, Md., Records of the Department of State [hereafter NA], 611.35/2-553. 7 Yaacov Tsur, Credential No. 4: First Diplomatic Mission in South America [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1981), 45. The press attaché at the Egyptian embassy in Argentina also diplomats and journalists 105

However, the Jews of Argentina, at least most of those afﬁ liated with community organizations, remained largely hostile toward Perón, and US Jews continued to be frostily suspicious of Argentina and Per- onism. In July 1945, Louis Lipsky, the chairman of the American Jew- ish Committee, wrote: The Fascist state of Argentina had written a shameless record of collaboration with the Axis during all years of the war; even while the [San Francisco] conference was being held it was engaged in proving its enduring friendship for Nazi Germans by providing a haven of refuge for the Nazi criminals and their stolen property.8 This view was common in those US communication media that were strongly inﬂ uenced by Jews9—a notable example being The New York Times. George Messersmith, the US ambassador in Argentina, who throughout his tour of duty struggled gamely to improve relations between Buenos Aires and Washington, expressed more than once his displeasure at the anti-Argentine hostility shown by some of the members of the State Department and the leading exponents of the US liberal press.10 Messersmith, having made friends with Perón, believed that “there [was] nothing totalitarian, fascist, or Nazi” in his regime. He was certain that Perón wished to strengthen his ties with the United States and to promote Argentina’s participation in the inter-American system. On many occasions Messersmith expressed great sorrow over a certain kind of inaccurate, tendentious reporting that continued to typify the more prominent US newspapers when they portrayed Perón’s regime as fascist and undemocratic. In a secret memo to the Secretary of State, the ambassador complained that

explained to US diplomats that it was Jewish control of the American media that prevented Buenos Aires and Washington from moving closer to each other. See Mar- tindale to State Department, 7 Dec. 1951, NA, 635.74/12-751. 8 Louis Lipsky, Memoirs in Proﬁ le (Philadelphia, 1975): 579–580. 9 For Perón’s image in the US, see Margaret O’Donnell, “How Time and News- week Covered the Argentine Story in 1947,” Inter-American Economic Affairs (Summer 1948): 3–15; and Irving G. Lewis, “American Opinion of Argentina, 1939–1949” (master’s thesis, Georgetown University, 1951), esp. chs. 6–9. For a recent contribution, see Nicolás Quiroga, “Corresponsales, editorialistas, turistas. Las representaciones sobre el peronismo en el New York Times, 1945–1951,” in Peronismo y prensa escrita: Abordajes, miradas e interpretaciones nacionales y extranjeras ed. Raanan Rein and Claudio Panella (La Plata, Argentina, 2008): 203–253. 10 On Messersmith’s term in Buenos Aires, see his biography: J. H. Stiller, George S. Messersmith—Diplomat of Democracy (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1987), ch. 7. 106 chapter six

so far as the American press is concerned, press comment and editorials increasingly are in the direction that the Argentine is a Fascist totalitarian state, unfriendly to the United States and with sinister designs on its neighbors. Some of our papers and some of our editorial writers speak of the Argentine as though we were in a sort of war with her and she is an enemy country.11 In fact, since 1942, Arnaldo Cortesi of The New York Times, Joseph Newman of the New York Herald Tribune, Virginia Prewett of the Chi- cago Sun, Ray Joseph of PM, and others had presented Argentina as a country controlled by Nazis and fascists. In this atmosphere, Messer- smith did not confi ne himself to sending memos and complaints to the secretary of state in Washington. Attempting to change Argentina’s image in the United States, the veteran diplomat appealed personally to such key fi gures in the American press as Arthur Sulzberger of The New York Times. “I know something about dictatorships,” wrote Messer- smith in a 43-page letter to Sulzberger, “and this is not [one] in the sense we understand the term.”12 The bad press Argentina received in the United States derived in part from the confl ict between Braden and Messersmith, and in part from disputes within the US diplomatic establishment over the policy to be adopted on the Peronist regime. Messersmith accused Braden of feeding the press with anti-Argentine reports.13 In a letter to the state department, the ambassador complained that there has been built up in recent years through distorted and inaccurate reporting by certain people a completely erroneous, distorted and inad- equate picture of developments in the Argentine.

11 Top-secret memo for the Secretary, “Inter-American Collaboration,” 10 Dec. 1946, p. 14, George S. Messersmith Papers, University of Delaware, Newark [hereafter GSM Papers]; personal letter to Little, 12 March 1947, and confi dential report, 29 April 1947. 12 See, for example, George Messersmith, personal and confi dential letter to Sulz- berger, 25 Sept. 1946 and 3 April 1947, GSM Papers. For a contemporary view by an American reporter in Buenos Aires, see Virginia Prewett, Beyond the Great Forest (New York, 1953), ch. 1. 13 On the Braden-Messersmith confl ict and its effects on US policy toward Argen- tina, see, for example, Time, 2 Dec. 1946; Roger R. Trask, “Spruille Braden Versus George Messersmith—World War II, the Cold War, and Argentine Policy, 1945– 1947,” Journal of Inter-American Studies and World Affairs 26, no. 1 (Feb. 1984): 69–95; Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1966; reprint, New York, 1987): 187–190. diplomats and journalists 107

This work was carried out, he said, by those “who have, with delib- eration, distorted developments in the Argentine to serve purposes of their own.”14 Whatever negative role Braden played in all this, it must be noted that even after he left his post most of the US press continued to be hostile to the Perón government until it was deposed. When Messersmith was appointed ambassador in Buenos Aires, the liberal press was delighted, since Messersmith “knows and hates Nazism from deep and intimate study.” He had, one reporter wrote, “an uncanny nose that can smell an S.O.B. as far as the wind can carry the scent,” and consequently would know how to deal with the danger presented by Perón’s leadership.15 A few months later, however, articles appeared about Messersmith’s conciliatory attitude toward the fascist dictator. In August 1946, Messer- smith received a message from one of Braden’s aides, reminding him that when Nelson Rockefeller had tried to appease Argentina in 1945, the vigorous opposition of The New York Times and the Washington Post had “blown him through the roof ” of the state department.16 The conﬂ ict between the two diplomats, which made the headlines of the leading US newspapers as well as the cover of Time, ultimately forced both Braden and Messersmith to leave their posts in mid-1947. Messersmith’s successors, James Bruce (1947–1949), Stanton Grifﬁ s (1949–1950), and Albert Nufer (1953–1955), were not pleased with US journalistic coverage of events in Peronist Argentina either. They, too, believed that the adverse news reports were an obstacle to the improvement of relations between the two countries.17 Shortly after being sworn in, Bruce praised the personalities of the Peróns, and was criticized for it in the US press.18 The Israeli diplomatic legation considered that the main problem was that the US press was incapable of understanding the unique circumstances then obtaining in Argentina:

14 Quoted in Klich, “Background,” 207. 15 U.S. News and World Report, 19 April 1946; Time, 15 April 1946. 16 Stiller, George S. Messersmith, 245. 17 Nufer to State Department, 5 Feb. 1953, NA, 611.35/2-553. The Argentine foreign minister, Remorino, had trouble accepting the fact that Tito’s communist dictatorship in Yugoslavia, Franco’s semi-fascist regime in Spain, and Trujillo’s administration in the Dominican Republic were not criticized in the US press as Perón’s democratically elected government was. 18 See press clippings from November 1947 in James Bruce Papers, Hornbake Library, University of Maryland, College Park, Md. 108 chapter six

The foreign press—and especially the US press—used to paint the president of Argentina in the exotic colors of a typical South American dictator, and some [ journalists] would try to stick him with the label of the well-known dogmas from the old world, communism on this side and fascism on that. That is one of the mistakes of democratic public opinion in the world, that it builds permanent molds and then tries to fi t any phenomenon it has trouble explaining into those molds.19 Stanton Griffi s’s position is particularly interesting, since, unlike Messer- smith, he viewed Perón as a dictator. Nevertheless, he did not believe that the articles and features in the US media contributed to an understanding of the complex situation in Argentina. In his memoirs, Griffi s complained about “the constant attacks” on him from the US press, and quoted a letter on the subject that he had sent to Harry Luce, owner of Life, Time, and Fortune.20 Griffi s attributed the hostility of the American press primarily to “Perón’s dictatorial relationship with the Argentine press.”21 Certainly the 10 years of Perón’s regime were notable for increasing restrictions on freedom of the press. From 1947 there was a clear trend toward Peronist government supervision and suppression of most of the media—or at least toward restrictions on the infl uence of the opposition press and independent media.22 At the beginning of that year only two of the six morning papers in the federal capital—Democracia and El Laborista—supported Perón, while Clarín, La Nación, La Prensa, and El Mundo supported his opponents. A similar ratio obtained among the evening papers. Three of them—La Razón (the most widely read), Crítica, and Noticias Gráfi cas—did not support

19 Tsur, Credential No. 4, 119. 20 Stanton Griffi s, Lying in State (Garden City, N.Y., 1952): 248–249. An exception in this time period was a feature published in The New Yorker in mid-1948, describing the impressions of an outside observer who, during a visit to Argentina, was unable to detect signs that the Republic was ruled by a dictator or a regime of terror; another exception was a sketch of Evita published in The New York Times Magazine. See Joseph A. Page, Perón—A Biography (New York, 1983), 217; and The New York Times Magazine, 10 Oct. 1948. 21 Griffi s, Lying in State, 247. See also “Memorandum of Conversation,” 11 Dec. 1948, in Foreign Relations of the United States [hereafter FRUS] (1948) IX: 307–308. 22 See Pablo Sirvén, Perón y los medios de comunicación (1943–1955) (Buenos Aires, 1984); Félix Luna, Perón y su tiempo (Buenos Aires, 1984), I: 121–140; Mariano Plotkin, Mañana es San Perón (Buenos Aires, 1993): 325–329. See also some of the articles published in the ‘History of Peronism’ series, in the weekly Primera Plana (21 and 28 Feb., 7 and 14 March, and 9 May 1967); and the interview with Carlos Aloé in Proyecto de Historia Oral, Instituto Di Tella (Buenos Aires). diplomats and journalists 109 the regime, and only La Epoca was pro-Peronist. Five years later, of the ten newspapers only La Nación was not identifi ed with the ruling party. One after the other, most of the capital’s newspapers came under the control of the regime, and foreign correspondents based in Buenos Aires found their activities restricted. The apogee of this process, or rather the nadir of freedom of the press in Argentina, came in April 1951. At that time, Perón seized the internationally recognized veteran conservative daily La Prensa (founded in 1869), which had been attacking his regime’s policies on a regular basis, and transferred its ownership to the labor union confederation, Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT). From the balcony of the presidential palace, Perón announced, over the cheers of his supporters, that La Prensa would now serve the workers of Argentina and Argentine nationalism and sovereignty. From that moment the daily joined the chorus of media singing the praises of the Peronist regime.23 In the US newspapers—especially The New York Times—this gradual suppression of the independent press was the subject of harsh criticism. In response to a resolution by the National Press Club in Washington, all the newspapers in the United States lowered the fl ags over their editorial offi ces to half-mast as a sign of mourning for the death of the Argentine opposition newspaper. Alberto Gainza Paz, the owner of La Prensa, fl ed fi rst to Uruguay and later to the United States. There he was feted and honored, and added fuel to the anger at Perón and the suppression of freedom of the press in Argentina.24 In a secret document written in October 1951, Secretary of State Dean Acheson

23 On this affair, see Tsur, Credential No. 4, 116–117; “Position Paper—‘La Prensa’ Problem,” FRUS (1951), II: 1089–1090; Time, 23 April 1951 and 17 Sept. 1951; Clau- dio Panella, La Prensa y el peronismo: Crítica, conﬂ icto, expropiación (La Plata, 1999); Edu- ardo Crawley, A House Divided: Argentina 1880–1980 (London, 1984): 139–141; Grifﬁ s, Lying in State, 250; and Bruce, Those Perplexing Argentines, 204–208. 24 George I. Blanksten, Perón’s Argentina (Chicago, 1953): 209–214. During his term as ambassador in Buenos Aires (1947–1949), James Bruce warned Perón against taking steps against the opposition daily, telling him that nothing he could do would create a worse impression. This remark, made publicly after the paper was closed, was quoted in a number of US papers. See press clippings in James Bruce Papers. Perhaps in order to clarify the United States’ attitude toward this newspaper, Bruce sent a letter of congratulations to the owners of La Prensa on 29 Oct. 1948, on the occasion of the 79th anniversary of the paper’s establishment. See this letter in James Bruce Papers. On US vacillation the year previously as to whether to send La Prensa con- gratulatory telegrams from the US secretaries of state and defense, see FRUS (1947), VIII: 319–325. 110 chapter six characterized the expropriation of La Prensa as “the hardest blow dealt to US-Argentine relations since World War II.”25 Although Britain wanted to maintain its former standing in Argen- tina in the post-World War II period, the London papers, too, in their extensive coverage of Peronist Argentina in the second half of the 1940s, painted a negative picture of the regime and the man who headed it. To the British left wing, especially the Labour Party, Perón was a fascist dictator who deserved opprobrium. To the right wing, especially the Conservative Party, Perón was a leftist dictator who was increasing state intervention in the country’s economic and social life and inciting his working-class supporters against employers and capitalists. Either way, the readers of The Times, The Economist, The Observer, The Herald, The Guardian, and The Mail all received a negative picture of what was going on in Argentina in those years. Often both right- wing and left-wing criticism of Perón provided ammunition for inter- party struggles in England.26

Israel’s More Complex Image of Peronism

In Israel, in contrast, Peronism had a more complex image in those years. This conclusion is borne out by analysis of the coverage of Argentine affairs in seven daily newspapers reﬂ ecting the gamut of views in Israeli society: Herut at the extreme right of the political spectrum, through Ma’ariv, Hatzofeh, Ha’aretz, Davar, and Al Hamishmar, all the way left to the Communist Kol Ha’am. I examined these newspapers’ attitudes to Peronism on the basis of the way they covered a number of central events in Israeli-Argentine relations and Argentine history during those years. These events include the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries (June–September 1949); the visit to Israel made by the chairman of the Argentine Senate foreign-affairs committee, Diego Luis Molinari (March 1950); the signing of the economic agreement between the two countries (April 1950); Knesset speaker Yosef Sprintzak’s visit to

25 “Policy Statement Prepared in the Department of State,” 26 Oct. 1951, in FRUS (1951), II: 1123. 26 See Gwyn Howells, “The British Press and the Peróns,” in The Land that England Lost: Argentina and Britain, a Special Relationship, ed. Alistair Hennessy and John King (London, 1992): 227–245. diplomats and journalists 111

Buenos Aires (May–June 1950); the Argentine presidential elections (November 1951); Evita Perón’s death (July 1952); Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett’s visit to Argentina (April 1953); and the fall of the Peronist regime (June–September 1955). The fi rst aspect of this analysis is the extent of coverage that Argen- tine subjects received in contemporary Israeli papers. The organ Mundo Peronista, always seeking to glorify and exalt the regime, was wont to claim that the whole world—including the Jewish state—looked up to the Peronist enterprise. It wrote that Perón has not only honored the Argentine Jewish community as part of the Argentine people. The transcendence of his doctrine and his accomplishments is worldwide, and has had a deep impact on the Israeli nation. The Peronist periodical attributed Perón’s supposed great popularity in Israel to the great sympathy El Líder had shown for the Jewish state, and explained that “Perón is as beloved . . . by the Israeli people as by our own.”27 Of course, such statements were considerably overblown and distorted. Justicialismo, the Peronist doctrine, did not excite much interest in Israeli society, which at the time felt it was fi ghting for its life against a hostile Arab world. The number of news items and features on Argentina that appeared in the Israeli press was relatively limited, though greater than might have been expected.28 More signifi cantly, when stories on Argentina did appear in Israeli newspapers, they did not present a uniform, one-dimensional image of the Peronist regime such as that which prevailed among the Jewish establishment of Argen- tina or the United States. Different circles in Israel viewed Peronism in varying ways.

27 “Un periodista extranjero,” Mundo Peronista 61 (15 March 1954); “Por la felicidad y la grandeza de todos los pueblos,” Mundo Peronista 80 (1 Feb. 1955). At the same time, perhaps to provide balance, the Peronist organ reported that Peronism also had many admirers in the Arab world. See “Eva Perón en el mundo árabe,” Mundo Peronista 63 (15 April 1953): 22–23; “La doctrina y el nombre de Perón resuenan al pie de las pirámides,” Mundo Peronista 49 (1 Sept. 1953): 18–21. 28 During those years, US press coverage of Latin American affairs, including those of Argentina, was also limited, and conﬁ ned mostly to three dailies (The New York Times, the New York Herald Tribune, and The Christian Science Monitor) and two weeklies (Time and Newsweek). In the entire year of 1947, for example, Time devoted about half an hour’s-worth of reading to Argentine news, a total of 1,965 lines. Over the same time period, Newsweek provided only 1,379 lines of copy on Argentina. See O’Donnell, “How Time and Newsweek Covered the Argentine Story.” 112 chapter six

This more complex outlook was shared by Israel’s fi rst diplomatic representative in Buenos Aires. In both his reports to the Israeli foreign ministry and his memoirs, Yaacov Tsur credited Perón’s government with signifi cant social reforms that assured him of popular support. At the same time, however, Tsur noted the denial of freedoms in Argen- tina and characterized the regime as being incompatible with a democratic system: From my arrival in this country I disagreed with the common view that saw only the negative in the regime that rules here. Perón’s hazy ideology and his style of leadership also had a positive side. The masses streamed after him for a reason: After decades the people had fi nally got a president who cared about their condition and their livelihood. Yet in this regime there was also much that was undefi ned, turbid, false, and hypocritical [. . .].29 Argentina extended de jure recognition to Israel early on, in February 1949. In May of that year, Perón’s government established diplomatic relations with the Jewish state, and then became the fi rst Latin Ameri- can country to open a diplomatic legation in Tel Aviv. The Hebrew press took relatively little note of the establishment of relations and the appointment of Yaacov Tsur as Israel’s minister in Buenos Aires and Pablo Manguel—leader of the Jewish wing of the Peronist party, the Organización Israelita Argentina (known by its acronym OIA)—as Argentina’s representative in Tel Aviv.30 None of the news reports made any mention of the nature of Perón’s regime, but they did remark that Argentina’s fi rst diplomatic representative in Israel was to be a Jew. Interestingly, the Communist Kol Ha’am did not mention the establishment of relations with Argentina at all. This silence refl ected the Communist disapproval of Perón’s regime. Although the Perón government had established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in June 1946, immediately after acceding to power, Perón had “stolen” the working class from the Argentine Communists and restricted the activity of the local Communist Party. Accordingly, Kol Ha’am remained antipathetic to Peronism for years. In April 1949 it ran an article on Latin American Jewry that included this comment:

29 Tsur, Credential No. 4, 62. See also pp. 115, 124–125. 30 Hatzofeh, 6 June 1949; Ma’ariv, 7 June 1949; Ha’aretz, 8 June 1949; Davar, 8 June 1949; Al Hamishmar, 8 June 1949. On the OIA see the next chapter in this volume. On Manguel, see the article by his grandaughter: Romina Manguel, “El abuelo Pablo,” Veintitres Internacional, May 2008, pp. 40–42. diplomats and journalists 113

Someone from another country who visits Argentina immediately senses its fascist-reactionary regime. He need only see the many military personnel in the streets, whose uniforms and way of walking will put him very forcibly in mind of those of Nazi soldiers. There are many Nazi immigrants in Argentina, who brought with them mostly stolen property, and who have become—so it is said—high-level advisors here, with inﬂ uence in ruling circles.31 The ceremony at which Tsur presented his credentials to Perón, however, did receive considerable coverage in the Hebrew press. Ha’aretz emphasized that the ceremony “was one of the most brilliant in Argen- tine history,” and Ma’ariv highlighted the speech that Yosef Sprintzak, the ﬁ rst Knesset speaker, made in appreciation of Argentina’s support for Israel’s admission to the United Nations and the warmth that the Perón government was showing for Israel. The inauguration of a direct shipping line between the two countries—which some said would allow Jews from South America to emigrate to Israel—was viewed as an expression of “good will between the two states.”32 Perhaps to dampen the enthusiasm, Al Hamishmar, the organ of the opposition party, MAPAM, reported that the Argentine consul in Bei- rut had warned that “Argentina [would] not maintain trade relations with Israel.” The paper explained, however, that this declaration was intended to keep Argentina in good standing with the Arab world.33 The trade agreement between Israel and Argentina was signed in Buenos Aires in April 1950, about four weeks before Eximbank issued credit to a group of banks in Argentina. The agreement—worth $10

31 “Greetings from the Jews of South America” [Hebrew], Kol Ha’am, 10 April 1949, 2–3. On relations between the Perón government and the Argentine Commu- nist Party, on one hand, and the Soviet Union, on the other, see Isidoro Gilbert, El oro de Moscú: La historia secreta de las relaciones argentino-soviéticas (Buenos Aires, 1994); Mario Rapoport, El laberinto argentino: Política internacional en un mundo confl ictivo (Buenos Aires, 1997), ch. 3; R. Siepe, M. Monserrat Llairó and N. Gale, Perón y las relaciones económicas con el Este, 1946–1955 (Buenos Aires, 1997). 32 Tsur’s arrival in Buenos Aires was also covered by all the Argentine press—for example, La Epoca, Democracia, Noticias Gráfi cas, La Prensa, and El Diario Israelita, 24 July 1949. 33 Al Hamishmar, 2 Aug. 1949. Five days later, Hatzofeh reported the economic talks that Israeli representatives were having in Argentina (7 Aug. 1949). On Peronist Argentina’s relations with the Arab world, see Ignacio Klich, “Towards an Arab-Latin American Bloc? The Genesis of Argentine–Middle Eastern Relations: Jordan 1945– 54,” Middle Eastern Studies 31, no. 3 (1995): 550–572; idem, “Equidistance and Gradu- alism in Argentine Foreign Policy towards Israel and the Arab World, 1949–1955,” in The Jewish Diaspora in Latin America, ed. David Sheinin and Lois Baer Barr (New York, 1996), 219–38. 114 chapter six million—was admittedly small in the overall context of Argentina’s foreign trade. But it was important to Israel, and Perón decided, for his own reasons, to hold the treaty-signing ceremony with full pomp and circumstance, in the presence of all the top-ranking offi cials of the regime. This was naturally a source of gratifi cation in Israel, refl ected in articles and features in the press. None of these articles made any direct reference to the nature of the regime that ruled Argentina, although Al Hamishmar preferred to stress Perón’s military background by referring to “President General Perón.” Hatzofeh, in contrast, expressed admiration of both Peróns. In the context of the economic negotiations and the strengthening of relations between the two countries, the Argentine senator Diego Luis Molinari was received with great honor in Israel. Molinari’s visit, which was defi ned as a mission intended to help his country formulate its position on the issue of Jerusalem, was given relatively wide and positive coverage in the press.34 After all, Molinari had expressed solidarity with the Zionists as early as the end of the 1920s. As a guest of the Israeli government, Molinari toured various cities and met with both the minister of foreign affairs, Moshe Sharett, and the minister of the economy, Eliezer Kaplan, who was acting prime minister at the time. Molinari was received with great honor in the Knesset, and he lectured on Argentine history before a large audience at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Among the Hebrew newspapers, Herut was notable for its sympathetic coverage. The paper stressed that Molinari as deputy foreign minister in the Yrigoyen government had helped 100 Jewish refugees immigrate to Argentina during the pogroms carried out in 1919 and 1920 by the troops of the nationalist Ukrainian leader, Symon Petly- ura—pogroms that had murdered thousands of Jews. Kol Ha’am, for its part, took the occasion of the visit to criticize Peronist Argentina’s anti-communist attitude. It should be noted that the original itinerary for Molinari’s trip had been limited to Arab and Moslem countries. When the Israeli foreign ministry heard of the plan, it lost no time in asking that the tour

34 Ha’aretz, 16 March 1950, 19–23 March 1950; Ma’ariv, 19, 21 March 1950; Davar, 19–20 March 1950; Kol Ha’am, 14 March 1950; Hatzofeh, 20 March 1950; Herut, 16 March 1950. On Molinari’s visit to Israel, see also Manguel to the Ministry, 22 March 1950, Archivo del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto (Buenos Aires) [hereafter AMREC], Departamento de Política, Israel (1950), caja 3, exp. 8. diplomats and journalists 115 include a stop in Israel. Foreign Minister Bramuglia and Molinari himself assented to this request, thereby maintaining a certain balance in Argentina’s Middle-Eastern policy.35 The visit to Israel made a great impression on Molinari, and upon returning to Buenos Aires he made a number of enthusiastic speeches about the example Israel could set for many nations. The fi rst offi cial Israeli guest to visit Argentina during that period was the fi rst Speaker of the Knesset, Yosef Sprintzak. Sprintzak was touring South America on business for the United Jewish Appeal, and his trip was a test of Israel’s status on the continent. His stay in Argentina at the end of May and the beginning of June 1950 was considered a great success. The Perón government declared him a guest of the state and paid him every mark of respect. He was greeted at the airport by a crowd of Jews and a large government delegation that included ministers and representatives of the Chamber of Depu- ties, the Senate, and the Supreme Court. The Israeli press proudly reported his meeting with President Perón, the special sessions held in Sprintzak’s honor in both chambers of the Argentine Congress, and the fact that his speech there was recorded both in Hebrew and in Spanish translation in the minutes of the Senate.36 In an account of his appearance before the Jewish community at the Luna Park Sta- dium, Davar highlighted the strongly pro-Israel speech that Senator Molinari made on that occasion. In an item on the congressional session held in Sprintzak’s honor, Davar proudly told its readers that the members of the Senate stood up at the mention of President Chaim Weizmann’s name and cheered at length.37

35 On Bramuglia and his positions on various contemporary issues of international relations, see Raanan Rein, In the Shadow of Perón: Juan Atilio Bramuglia and the Second Line of Argentina’s Populist Movement (Stanford, Calif., 2008), ch. 3. 36 On Sprintzak’s visit, see Ha’aretz, 19 May 1950, 28 May 1950, 30 May 1950, 4 June 1950, 11 June 1950; Ma’ariv, 18 May 1950, 29 May 1950, 2 June 1950; Davar, 30 May 1950, 4 June 1950; Al Hamishmar, 30 May 1950; Herut, 28 May 1950, 30 May 1950, 1 June 1950. See also reports in ISA, 2574/3; Tsur, Credential No. 4, 82–85; Diario de Sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados (1950), 1: 320–322; Manguel to Foreign Ministry, 4 July 1950, AMREC, Departamento de Política, Israel (1950), caja 3, exp. 8; Navas- qüés to MAE, 30 May 1950, 5 June 1950, Archivo del Ministerio de Asunto Exteriores (Madrid) [hereafter AMAE], Leg. R. 2439/26. 37 Other notable visitors during that period were Golda Meir, whose tour included visits to Eva Perón’s welfare enterprises; the minister of the postal system, Yosef Burg; Yitzhak Greenbaum, who had been interior minister in Israel’s ﬁ rst government; and Minister Zalman Shazar, who was later to become president of the state of Israel. At 116 chapter six

The most signiﬁ cant visit, also thoroughly covered in the Israeli press, was that of Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett, who arrived in Buenos Aires in April 1953 in the course of a tour of South Amer- ica that also included Chile, Brazil, and Uruguay. Initially Sharett had hesitated to accept the invitation to Argentina, fearing that this ‘improper friendship’ with Perón might hurt Israel’s relations with the United States. However, under pressure from Tsur, who had begun laying the groundwork for this visit back in 1951, he made the trip.38 Tsur explained to the minister that similar visits to Buenos Aires by European dignitaries had elicited no criticism from Washington. As to reservations concerning the nature of the Perón regime, Tsur wrote that in his opinion: Today we cannot be too picky about our friends. And while the United States gave Franco its seal of approval, in the UN we ourselves are court- ing the votes of [Rafael Leonidas] Trujillo, for example, the cruel dictator of the Dominican Republic, or [Anastasio] Somosa, who does as he likes in the state of Nicaragua, and if some Eastern despot consents to establish ties with us, we will greet the proposal with open arms without examining his integrity—and rightly so.39 Although the purpose of Sharett’s trip was the opening of the United Jewish Appeal, Perón and Foreign Minister Remorino gave it the status of a state visit.40 Even the bombs set off during a mass rally in the Plaza de Mayo organized by the Argentine labor confederation (CGT) in support of Perón, to which Sharett was invited, failed to divert Israelis’ attention from what was seen as yet another manifestation of Israel’s close ties with Argentina. Several people were killed and dozens wounded in the explosions, and in their aftermath gangs of young Peronists set out to take revenge on the enemies of the regime. They attacked the headquarters of the three main opposition parties, and burned down the Jockey Club, the social stronghold and symbol of the Buenos Aires oligarchy.41 Most of the Israeli press, however,

the time he came to Argentina as an emissary of the Jewish Agency, being a member of the Agency’s board of governors and in charge of education in the Diaspora. 38 See Tsur to Foreign Ministry, 17 April 1951, ISA, 2381/1; Tsur, Credential No. 4, 191–193. 39 Tsur to Sharett, 13 March 1953, ISA, 4701/1. 40 Tsur to Israeli Foreign Ministry, 12 Dec. 1952, and the declaration of Sharett as an ofﬁ cial guest, 2 July 1953, ISA, 2381/2. 41 See Robert Potash, The Army and Politics in Argentina, 1945–1962 (Stanford, Calif., 1980): 151–152; and Luna, Perón y su tiempo, III: 46–47. According to Tsur, “After diplomats and journalists 117 focused mainly on the receptions held for Sharett—including the ‘unforgettable’ mass assembly organized by the Jewish community in his honor—his speeches, which included praise for Perón’s “enlight- ened policy towards Jewry in times of crisis,” and the extension of the economic agreement between the two countries. During his stay, Sharett signed a cultural agreement between Israel and Argentina and inaugurated the Israeli Cultural Institute in Buenos Aires.42 Al Hamishmar did not bother to describe Sharett’s visit to Argentina, preferring to concentrate on “the rioting by the dictator’s supporters,” the accusations by the opposition Radical congressional deputies that “Perón [had] stage-managed the attack,” and comparisons to the burning of the Reichstag, attributed to the National Socialists in Ger- many. A similar line, even more bluntly expressed, was taken by Kol Ha’am. Under the headline “The Gangs of Perón, Fascist Dictator of Argentina, Carried Out a Bloody Pogrom against the Opposition Par- ties,” it wrote that Perón’s supporters had organized the bomb attack, and that “Perón, who apparently knew about the explosion that was to be the pretext for a bloody attack on the workers of Argentina, kept his cool.”43

that horrible night, it was reported that the mob had tried to turn towards the Jewish neighborhoods but were prevented by the ﬁ rm intervention of the police. Nor did the many arrests made afterwards include any Jewish names. The rumor in the crowd was that the presence of the Israeli foreign minister saved the Jews of Buenos Aires from the excesses of the masses. I do not know to what extent this belief is justiﬁ ed. Obviously the Perón government never intended to allow the masses to riot against the Jews. But it is not impossible, of course, that the authorities took special precautionary measures to prevent injury to Jews while the foreign minister of Israel was staying in the city as a guest of the government.” See Tsur to Israeli Foreign Ministry, 8 May 1953, ISA, 2381/2. 42 Ha’aretz, 14–17 April 1953, 21 April 1953; Ma’ariv, 23 April 1953; Davar, 15–17 April 1953, 20–21 April 1953, 24 April 1953; Hatzofeh, 15–17 April 1953, 19 April 1953. On Sharett’s visit, see also Tsur, Credential No. 4, 191–201; Gabriel Sheffer, Moshe Sharett: Biography of a Political Moderate (Oxford, 1996), 665; Aznar to MAE, 23 April 1953, AMAE, Leg. R.3187/6. For the Argentine Jewish press’s coverage, see Di Idishe Tzaitung, 13 April 1953, 20 April 1953; Di Presse, 12 April 1953, 14 April 1953, 18 April 1953; Mundo Israelita, 18 April 1953, 25 April 1953. 43 Al Hamishmar, 19 April 1953, 21 April 1953; Kol Ha’am, 17 April 1953. In his memoirs, Tsur rejected the assessment that Perón himself had organized the bomb attack in order to strengthen mass support for his regime. See Tsur, Credential No. 4, 197. 118 chapter six

Perón’s Re-election and Evita’s Death

Perón’s image in Israel cannot be determined from press articles and features directly concerning Israeli-Argentine relations. What is notable in these articles is a desire to emphasize the Perón government’s marks of friendship for Israel and the progress being made in various aspects of relations between the two countries. This was especially clear in Davar. This newspaper, the organ of the MAPAI-controlled Histadrut (Federation of Labor in Israel), did criticize various aspects of Perón’s administration. But since MAPAI was the central power in the Israeli government, then engaged in fostering friendly ties with Argentina, Davar tended to be cautious in its references to the Per- onist regime. When all was said and done, the paper wanted to highlight the government’s foreign-policy achievements. Consequently, the suspicion and hostility showed by the organized Jewish communities in Argentina and the United States, as well as by Western liberals and socialists, were shunted aside to accommodate the embattled new state’s need for friends and sympathizers in the international sphere. There was little mention of Perón’s ties with Germany during World War II—or of the fact that Perón allowed many Nazis and Fascists to ﬁ nd refuge in Argentina after the war, although the foreign ministry in Jerusalem received press and diplomatic reports on these subjects.44 In this respect the Israeli perspective took precedence over the Jewish perspective. In effect, Yaacov Tsur’s views on Israel’s foreign policy regarding Peronist Argentina triumphed over those of Moshe Tov in both the foreign ministry and the Hebrew press. In some aspects, at least, this conﬂ ict resembled the more famous Braden-Messersmith diplomatic tussle. Tov, a native of Argentina, headed the Latin American division of the Jewish Agency, and after the establishment of Israel he became a director of the Latin American division of the foreign ministry and a member of the Israeli delegation to the United Nations. Tov could not free himself from the Argentine Jewish perspective, and he remained inimical to Perón’s regime. Tsur, in contrast, was much more pragmatic—and more objective in his criticism. He managed to

44 See, for example, “An Exile from Argentina on Peronist Expansion Plots” [Hebrew], 22 Oct. 1952; “Actions of the European Fascists in Argentina” [Hebrew], 24 May 1951; and various reports by Yaacov Tsur concerning his discussions of these subjects with representatives of Austria, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslavakia in Buenos Aires, ISA. diplomats and journalists 119 see Peronism in all its complexity, good and bad. Tsur realized that beyond whatever labels might be pinned on the Peronist regime, it was a government with which Israel ‘could do business.’ He also saw that Israel would be able to promote relations between Buenos Aires and Jerusalem by taking advantage of Perón’s desire to conciliate the United States.45 In any case, Israeli press reports on domestic events in Argentina give a better picture of the way the public and political parties saw the Argentine regime. In such reports the newspapers were freed from the need to praise Argentina for its treatment of Israel, and reporters revealed more clearly their own attitudes toward Peronism. Take, for example, the coverage of the Argentine presidential elections of November 1951. The Argentine constitution, which dated from the mid-nineteenth century, did not allow any president to serve two con- secutive terms. However, the constitutional reform of 1949 changed this, paving the way for Perón to run for another term. In those elections—which General Benjamin Menéndez tried to prevent in an abortive coup—Perón won a sweeping victory.46 Ha’aretz’s report was completely neutral. The newspaper, which throughout this period maintained an informative, matter-of-fact tone, neither provided a mouthpiece for Peronist propaganda nor hurled accusations at the regime, and it treated the Peróns with respect. It simply noted that the elections had passed quietly and that women had participated in them for the ﬁ rst time, having been granted the right to vote in 1947. The report also mentioned Evita Perón’s illness and the declaration of

45 On Tsur’s and Tov’s differing views, see each man’s memoirs: Tsur, Credential No. 4; Moshé Tov, El murmullo de Israel—Historial diplomático (Jerusalem, 1983). Ion- nathan Pratto, who was second secretary at the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1951–1953, described the arguments at the morning meetings in the embassy, when Tsur’s aides—Tuvia Arazi, Pratto, and Shimon Amir—were more critical of Perón’s regime than Tsur, who believed that Peronism had struck a chord with the Argentine people (author’s interview, Jerusalem, 23 Jan. 1994). 46 On the reform in the Peronist constitution, see Page, Perón—A Biography, ch. 23; and Mario Daniel Serrafero, Momentos institucionales y modelos constitucionales (Buenos Aires, 1993), ch. 4. On the 1951 elections, see Rock, Argentina, 304–305; Potash, The Army and Politics in Argentina, 138–139; Marcela García Sebastiani, “Radicales vs. Per- onistas en las elecciones presidenciales de 1951: Balbín, Lebensohn y el Comité de la UCR de la provincia de Buenos Aires,” Cíclos en la historia, la economía y la sociedad 18 (1999): 91–142. 120 chapter six

“a military state” just before the elections, a state of emergency that was canceled only for the elections themselves.47 After a number of purely informative reports, Davar published a piece of commentary that indicated a certain degree of ambivalence toward Peronism. The article, signed ‘S.L.,’ emphasized that the vote- counting was fair, but that the election campaign was not, since the formation of an opposition front was prohibited and all the media were controlled by the regime. Nevertheless, the article stressed, Perón had won with the support of the lower classes, whom he had helped “against exploitation,” and the anti-Peronist forces in Argentina, which called themselves “democratic,” were not truly so. According to the writer, the disputes between Argentina and the United States derived more from the anti-capitalist nature of the regime than from “the authoritarian form of government.” The article further opined that “the third position” in Argentine foreign policy was meaningless, and that in the event of a conﬂ ict between the major blocs, Perón would side with the West.48 Al Hamishmar’s account of the elections centered on women’s suf- frage and the shooting of Rodolfo Ghioldi, the Communist candidate for the presidency, in Entre Ríos during a clash between police and demonstrators. When the election results were published, the paper noted simply: “The dictator Juan Perón was elected president of the state today by a substantial majority.”49 Kol Ha’am’s position was, naturally, even more hostile. In describing the attack on Ghioldi, the paper said: “Clearly the Fascist dictator, Perón, is beginning a campaign of terror and blood against his opponents, particularly the forces of progress, especially just before the elections.”50 Hatzofeh did not take any position concerning Argentine domestic politics. Instead, as a paper that saw all events through ‘Jewish glasses,’ it focused on the election of two Jewish members of congress from the opposition. Herut’s coverage was also generally neutral. Readers of both these papers were likely to receive the impression that ﬂ awlessly

47 Ha’aretz, 12 Nov. 1951. 48 Davar, 12–13 Nov. 1951, and S. L., “Juan Perón’s Victory” [Hebrew], 15 Nov. 1951. 49 Al Hamishmar, 11–13 Nov. 1951. 50 Kol Ha’am, 11–13 Nov. 1951. diplomats and journalists 121 democratic processes had been the rule in Argentina since Perón’s fi rst election in 1946.51 The fi gure of Eva Duarte de Perón (Evita) inspired strong feelings of both adoration and repugnance in Argentina—and great curiosity outside the borders of the Republic. That fascination reached such a peak that in 1947, an astonishing 40 percent of all coverage of Argentine news in Time magazine was devoted to reports, generally unsympathetic, concerning the president’s wife. These reports soon led the Buenos Aires government to place restrictions on the distribution of the American weekly in Argentina. The 14 July 1947 issue of Time, which displayed a picture of Evita on its cover to mark the occasion of her trip to Europe, included an unsympathetic 500-line feature on the fi rst lady. The publication of this feature resulted in a prohibition on the sale of the weekly in Argentina in August and September of that year. Ambassador Bruce was obliged to apply pressure on Foreign Minister Bramuglia to solve the problem of Time’s distribution in Bue- nos Aires.52 The fi gure of Evita was also widely, and generally negatively, covered in the British press.53 It was thus no wonder that when the Israeli weekly Ha’olam Hazeh decided to run a feature on Peronist Argentina, it devoted its cover to a picture of Eva Perón.54 Researchers have long argued over the nature and degree of the political power that Evita accumulated between 1946 and 1952. Even her contemporaries, including the Peróns’ closest associates, had trouble determining whether she was Perón’s tool, by means of which he could carry out actions that he could not or did not want to do himself; or whether she enjoyed political power in her own right, even competing with the president. The Spanish ambassador in Buenos Aires, Count Bulnes, reported to Madrid in April 1947:

51 Hatzofeh, 12–14 Nov. 1951; Herut, 11–13 Nov. 1951. 52 O’Donnell, “How Time and Newsweek Covered the Argentine Story,” 6; Bruce to Armour, 7 Oct. 1947, James Bruce Papers. Another story, published in the weekly on 8 Dec. 1947, on the transfer of the remains of General San Martín’s parents to Argentina for burial, aroused the anger of the Argentine authorities. The New York Times also suffered at times from distribution problems in Argentina, and was conﬁ s- cated by the customs authorities. See “Meeting of Ambassador Nufer with President Perón,” 3 Sept. 1953, FRUS (1952–54), IV: 443. 53 Howells, “The British Press,” 239–241. 54 “Perón—Tyrant or Savior?” [Hebrew], Haxolam Hazeh, 15 Aug. 1951, 3–5. It should be noted to this article’s credit that it was one of the ﬁ rst in any Israeli paper to examine at length both the positive and the negative aspects of Perón’s regime. 122 chapter six

Reliable sources say that these activities of Señora Peron, her political involvement and the infl uence of the ‘clan’ of which she is the patroness, are not the will of the head of state, who, out of weakness, concurrence, or a failure to understand the possible future repercussions, permits his lady’s activities. A little more than a year later, however, Bulnes’s replacement, Count Motrico, wrote: “I have the impression that Evita is simply a tool of the personal policy of the president, who uses her to do or say things that are not convenient for him to take on himself.”55 Israel’s fi rst ambassador in Buenos Aires attributed great power to Evita. According to him, Between the two rulers of Argentina, Evita was [. . .] the active power [. . .]. She was the one who gave her husband a sense of mission. With- out her collaboration, Perón would have gone down in history as just another South American caudillo, and undoubtedly his control over the masses would have been impaired. In Tsur’s opinion, it was Evita rather than the president who managed to rally the masses in defense of the regime, and she who embodied ‘the progressive social trend.’ Consequently, when her malignant dis- ease became public knowledge, “it was clear to all of us that Perón’s end was approaching.”56 Tsur was probably exaggerating somewhat. An examination of Evita’s activity in a range of spheres indicates that her charismatic leadership derived from Perón and received its legitimation by virtue of her connection with Perón and her action on his behalf.57 Nonetheless, her death clearly represented the loss of a real political asset for her husband. No other political fi gure in Argentine history seems to have inspired such great enmity, or such great adoration, as did Eva Perón. In the eyes of her disciples, she was a woman who sacrifi ced herself to improve the lives of the workers, women, children, and other weak groups in her country. Born to a life of poverty herself, she could understand their misery and work for them. Certainly, her background

55 These reports can be found in the archives of the Spanish foreign ministry in Madrid. See Bulnes to MAE, 23 April 1947, AMAE, Leg. R.2310\14; Areilza to Artajo, 26 Aug. 1948, AMAE, Leg. R. 1891\7. 56 Tsur, Credential No. 4, 128. 57 Raanan Rein, Populism and Charisma: Perón’s Argentina [Hebrew], (Tel Aviv, 1998), ch. 4. diplomats and journalists 123 as an illegitimate child born in a small provincial town (Los Toldos, some 250 kilometers from Buenos Aires) and the macho, hypocritical social environment in which she grew up did not offer her much chance of rising to the top of any sphere. And yet, she ultimately did succeed through determination and perseverance. To her enemies she was a mediocre but ambitious actress who advanced her career in the entertainment world by jumping from one man’s bed to the next. Uneducated (she never fi nished high school) and motivated by revenge, her sole interest—argued her critics—was to accumulate wealth and power. The plethora of books that are still being published about her indicate both the great interest she continues to arouse and the ongo- ing controversy surrounding her image.58 Nonetheless, the Hebrew press’s coverage of Evita’s death in July 1952 was less extensive than might have been expected. The ouster and exile of King Farouk of Egypt in the ‘Free Offi cers’ revolt led by General Mohammed Naguib and Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser took place three days before Eva Perón’s death. This naturally was a foreign news item of much greater interest to the Israeli public. It should be remembered, too, that the newspapers during the fi rst decade of Israel’s existence were completely different in format from those we know today. Most newspapers consisted in only four pages on weekdays, and twice that on Fridays. Ha’aretz confi ned itself to a dry news report on the death of “the second most important fi gure in the political life of Argentina,” the reactions in Buenos Aires, and the condolence telegrams sent by Act- ing President Sprintzak and Foreign Minister Sharett. The article was accompanied by a fl attering picture of Evita. Hatzofeh published an informative item from the United Press Agency which paid respect to Evita’s memory by refraining from any criticism or condemnation.59 Herut used a news agency article too, but it added the information that one of the leaders of the Herut movement, Yochanan Bader, had contacted the Argentine ambassador, Pablo Manguel, on behalf of the party and its Knesset faction. Bader told Manguel that

58 Notable among the many biographies of Evita Perón are the following: Marysa Navarro, Evita (Buenos Aires, 1981); Alicia Dujovne Ortiz, Eva Perón—La biograﬁ a (Bue- nos Aires, 1995); J. M. Taylor, Eva Perón—The Myths of a Woman (Chicago, 1979). 59 Ha’aretz, 28 July 1952; Hatzofeh, 28 July 1952. 124 chapter six

[Evita’s] death is a heavy loss not only to her bereaved nation, but also to all those who respect her name and her work. Please have the good- ness to convey our condolences to the Argentine people and to their distinguished leader.60 The newspaper mentioned the ofﬁ cial condolences, but the right-wing opposition party apparently preferred to act on its own initiative as well. In contrast, the day after Eva Perón’s death was announced Ma’ariv published a hostile article that ridiculed the entire regime, accompanied by an uncomplimentary picture of the deceased.61 The article presented Evita as the moving force behind the regime and behind her husband. It credited her with rallying the masses in the demonstration of 17 October 1945 and ensuring Perón’s victory in the presidential elections of February 1946.62 The reporter wrote: Perón’s regime is fundamentally national-socialist. The particularity of this fascist dictatorship lies in the division of roles between Perón and his wife. He is the nationalist side, and she is the socialist side. He is against the imperialism of the dollar, concessions to the English, foreign capital; she is against big local capital. This article, which made no attempt to reconcile Peronism’s alleged national socialism with Israel’s good relations with Argentina, criticized the Perons’ demagoguery and simplistic slogans. Furthermore, it ridiculed Evita’s supposedly autobiographical work La razón de mi vida (published in English as My Mission in Life): “Whoever reads this—will laugh. But millions who heard—listened. And those who saw—were enlisted. And everyone saw.” Nevertheless, it stressed that Evita, despite her extravagance, initiated social reforms, and that although she oppressed, she knew how to oppress within limits; only a few people were imprisoned in Argentina for political reasons. Davar’s obituary was also based on a news agency report (UP), but the editor seemed to be trying to emphasize the social aspects of

60 Herut, 28 July 1952. 61 Y. Yaskil, “Evita Perón—The Death of a Dictator’s Wife” [Hebrew], Ma’ariv, 28 July 1952. 62 In fact Evita did not play a central role in the events of 17 October, and could not have done so; and her contribution to the electoral victory of February 1946 should not be overestimated, either. See Marysa Navarro, “Evita and the Crisis of 17 October 1945: A Case Study of Peronist and Anti-Peronist Mythology,” Journal of Latin American Studies 12, no. 1 (1980): 127–138. diplomats and journalists 125

Evita’s activity, “the impoverished life she lived in her youth,” and her bond with the Argentine working class. Alongside an attractive photo of Evita, the article was careful to note that Eva Perón “showed great interest in Israeli affairs, and organized a relief shipment for the children of the ma’abarot [refugee camps].”63 Kol Ha’am preferred to ignore the event completely, and did not devote even a word to the death of Eva Perón. The Communists, of course, had developed the special skill of leaving various people and their actions out of history, whether it was Soviet or world history. Al Hamishmar, in contrast, seized the opportunity to assail the “tyrannical” Peronist regime which was demagogically leading the Argentine working class astray. According to Al Hamishmar, Perón maintained control of the regime thanks to “the yellow labor unions” of which Eva Perón was “the darling” and the “idol”: She used a ‘social’ phraseology and an inﬂ ated hatred against US and British capital companies on one hand and communism on the other in order to appear to the Argentine workers, sunk in ignorance and Cathol- icism, as a ‘revolutionary’ and a ﬁ ghter for Argentine independence.64 Yet the article revealed a marked degree of ambivalence, emphasizing that Evita had “worked energetically to set up clubs for workers, rest homes, mother and baby clinics, hospitals, and the like.” The same ambivalence was evident in an extensive and largely hostile commentary published a few days later. “Will the Peronist Regime Survive Evita’s Death?” asked Ben-Zion Goldberg in the article’s headline. On the one hand, he called her a “bastard,” ridiculing her for dying her hair, and hinting that she had worked as a prostitute in her youth when she could not make a living as an actress. At the same time, however, the article expressed admiration for her success in achieving power in a society where a woman’s chances of reaching the top by her own efforts were negligible. “In Catholic countries women are kept in a cage,” Goldberg wrote, “and fattened like geese.” He, too, saw Perón as Evita’s creation, someone who gradually began to “invest great energy in building a political machine to parallel the military gang surrounding Perón, the gang that together with him seized the

63 “Evita Perón Is Dead” [Hebrew], Davar, 28 July 1952; Dvar Hashavuah, the most widely read weekly in Israel at the time, emphasized even more strongly Evita’s concern for her country’s poor. See issue of 7 Aug. 1952, 5. 64 “Eva Perón Is Dead” [Hebrew], Al Hamishmar, 28 July 1952. 126 chapter six government.” Goldberg mentioned Evita’s extravagance, her expensive clothes, furs, and jewels, her alleged money transfers to Switzerland, and her nepotism. He also brought up the sycophancy and bribery that he believed had won Evita the sympathy of the working class. She was “the heart of the Perón regime, the bread and circuses of Buenos Aires. She was the mainstay of the fascist government.”65 The responses of the Israeli press were markedly complex and varied compared with the views expressed by the English-language press. Evita’s death inspired such crude and hostile articles in the US press that the Argentine embassy in Washington published an appeal in The New York Times asking journalists to write with more respect and restraint: “Nauseous attacks on Evita were unworthy of the American Press,” it said. In England, 16 obituaries appeared, 11 of which condemned her for corruption, unbridled ambition, and exploitation of simple people’s hopes.66

The Fall of the Regime (June–September 1955)

The fall of Perón’s regime, too, was less extensively covered by the Israeli press than expected—certainly much less than in Britain and the United States. At the time, public attention in Israel was riveted on the trial of Israel Kaestner, accused of collaboration with the Nazis. This trial aroused great controversy, and once the decision in the case was published, Argentine news completely disappeared from the pages of Hebrew newspapers. Ha’aretz was generally careful to provide an objective description of the June uprising and of September’s ‘Liberating Revolution.’ The newspaper maintained its neutrality while showing a respectful atti-

65 Al Hamishmar, 8 Aug. 1952. See also Goldberg’s previous articles, “Perón’s Regime Debases Human Dignity” [Hebrew], 24 Nov. 1950; “Irreconcilable Contradictions in Argentina’s Economy” [Hebrew], 8 Dec. 1950. Other hostile articles were published in Al Hamishmar, by Yeshayahu Austridan, who used to send stories on Latin Ameri- can subjects to the socialist daily from Mexico. See “Perón Is Establishing Fascism by Means of Democracy” [Hebrew], 15 April 1951; “The Coup Attempt and the Political Crisis in Argentina” [Hebrew], 26 Oct. 1951. 66 Howells, “The British Press,” 239–240. Even as late as 30 June 1978, a reporter at New Statesman referred to Evita as “the whore in offi ce.” diplomats and journalists 127 tude toward Perón, including the inevitable report that “the Jews in Argentina are safe.”67 In Ma’ariv, coverage was much more thorough. The story of the fall of Perón’s regime rated big headlines and a prominent place on the front page of each issue. The paper did not limit itself to news reports; it also published commentary. The most interesting example of the latter was an article written by the foreign-news editor on 17 June. Showing some arrogance toward Latin America in general (“Military revolts are a method exclusive to South America; in Latin America there has never been a true democracy, and few regimes that paid any attention to the good of the masses”), he enumerated the various fl aws of the regime ruled by Perón (“the dictator-president”), and then sought to praise it. The confl ict between the regime and the Catholic Church led the writer to go so far as to compare Peronism to the French Revolution and the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. He referred to the nationalist Catholic organization Acción Católica Argentina, opponents of Perón, as “storm troops.” Presenting Perón’s social reforms in a positive light, he compared, in gloomy, sardonic terms, the “reactionary” opposition to Peronism with the supporters of General Franco’s despotic regime in Spain. Finally, he summed up: Since that is the choice, world opinion favors Perón and his regime more, despite its many weaknesses, despite its totalitarian nature, despite the corruption that has impaired many of its components [. . .] There is no doubt that Perón’s regime is one of the best Latin America has ever known, and the continuation of this regime is one of the conditions required to bring this important part of the world out of the backwardness of generations.68 Three days later Ma’ariv printed more commentary, also largely sympathetic to Perón.69 The Israeli reader was unlikely to feel much sympathy with Perón’s quoted admiration of the greatness of Mussolini and Perón’s own desire to follow in Mussolini’s footsteps while avoiding his mistakes. Nevertheless, the president was described as an energetic, talented man whose reforms had improved the situation of the Argentine working class. The reporter warned that the confl ict with

67 Ha’aretz, 17 June 1955, 19–20 Sept. 1955. 68 Ma’ariv, 17 June 1955 (emphasis in the original). These conclusions were very different from that of the British Mail, for example, which argued that Perón’s supporters were no more than “a few thousand fanatics and opportunist syncophants.” See Howells, “The British Press,” 238. 69 S. Ner, “Perón and the Shirtless” [Hebrew], Ma’ariv, 20 June 1955. 128 chapter six the Church was Perón’s worst mistake and might seal the fate of the regime. Among the many news items concerning the September uprising, Ma’ariv again included articles of commentary that, in the fi nal analysis, expressed a certain degree of sympathy and admiration for the Peronist regime. The most notable article of this kind was a piece by Philip Ben, “What’s Next after Perón?” Perón was undoubtedly a dictator, Ben wrote, but it was not the static and conservative dictatorship of a military faction.[. . .] ‘Peronism’ was an idea of social dictatorship, and although not unsullied by fascism, it could nevertheless congratulate itself on its achievements [. . .]. Beyond the demagoguery that characterized the regime, Perón had indeed improved the situation of the weaker sectors of the population, and he had given them pride and self-respect. There were no concentration camps in Argentina, Ben pointed out. The number of political prisoners was relatively small, and a certain measure of freedom of expression had been retained. But Ben was pessimistic about Argen- tina’s future. He concluded that whatever people thought of Peronism, the decade of Perón could not be erased. There was no road back to the situation that had prevailed in Argentina before Perón’s accession. Argentines must build on the foundation of Peronism’s achievements and failures, and move on.70 Davar’s coverage of the fall of Perón’s regime also avoided a black- and-white analysis. The foreign news editor, Shlomo Shafi r, referred to Perón’s “faulty methods,” which infringed on the rule of law and on civil rights. At the same time, he also mentioned Perón’s “progressive social policy.”71 Shafi r estimated that the goal of General Eduardo Lonardi’s new government would be to continue that social policy, while eliminating the oppressive aspect of the Perón administration. Reports in Herut and Hatzofeh on the abortive coup of June 1955 reveal a slight leaning to Perón’s side. Herut did publish a translated article from The New York Times which was hostile toward Perón’s “dictatorship,” and Hatzofeh printed an article translated from the Swiss Welt Woche, which also attacked Perón’s “harsh cruelty” and “Argentina’s pseudo-democracy.” However, Hatzofeh reporters described the bomb-

70 Ma’ariv, 20 Sept. 1955. 71 S. Shaﬁ r, “The Military Coup in Argentina” [Hebrew], Davar, 21 Sept. 1955. diplomats and journalists 129 ing of Plaza de Mayo by anti-government navy planes as “uncivilized” and emphasized Perón’s achievements and the support he enjoyed. The article concluded that Perón would emerge all the stronger from the failed uprising.72 Perón’s ouster in September of the same year was described matter-of-factly, without any expression of opinion. All commentary was translated from The New York Times, which argued that the only difference between Peronist Argentina and the Soviet purges was that no one in the South American republic was executed after trial. The worst that was likely to happen to anyone was a long prison term.73 It is interesting that the anticlerical aspect of the Peronist regime in its last phases did not bother Hatzofeh, which for some years had shown a certain sympathy for Peronism. Although it was an Orthodox Jewish organ, and Perón’s battle was with the Catholic Church in his country, the issue here was, after all, relations between religion and state, and Hatzofeh’s coverage of events in Argentina might therefore have been expected to reﬂ ect a certain uneasiness; but it did not. Herut’s political correspondent sought to sum up the Peronist decade by emphasizing that Perón had had a constructive political program, while the only thing that united his enemies was their opposition to the regime: Perón can point to a multidimensional achievement. He has converted Argentina from a quasi-colonial country into a multidimensional industrial country. Perón can point to the fact that he has done a great deal to raise the standard of living of the masses of Argentina. Whatever the results of the present contest in Argentina, even Perón’s successors will not be able to turn the clock backward. The forces that the Per- onist regime aroused in Argentina may still leave their mark, not only in Argentina but throughout South America.74 Of all the Israeli newspapers examined in the course of this research, Herut was the most consistently sympathetic to Peronism. It usually refrained from publishing negative reports on events in Argentina, and it was careful to portray the Peróns with respect. The combination of

72 M. B., “The Uprising in Argentina and Its Lessons” [Hebrew], Hatzofeh, 20 June 1955. 73 Hatzofeh, 20 Sept. 1955, 22 Sept. 1955. 74 “The Civil War in Argentina” [Hebrew], Herut, 20 Sept. 1955. See also the sympathetic write-up that appeared in the paper the same day in the framework of “Names in the News—Juan Perón” [Hebrew]. 130 chapter six nationalism, social sensitivity, and charismatic leadership was apparently very attractive to the Herut news staff. The existence in Argentina of an active branch of the Revisionist movement, whose members contributed to the establishment of the settlements Mevo Beitar (1950) and Amatzia in the Negev (1955), strengthened Herut’s interest in what went on in that country.75 Among Israeli leftists, the overall assessment of Perón’s regime remained negative. Mordechai Nachumi of Al Hamishmar described Perón’s years in offi ce as “a period of dictatorial acts and demagoguery.” He believed that Perón had only minor support from the working class in the fi nal phases of the regime, owing to infl ation and the regime’s hostility to the Church. Nachumi’s conclusion was that the time had come for “real leftists” to unite the people and guide them on the “true” path, rather than the road of illusion where Perón had led them.76 Kol Ha’am reacted with some confusion to the events that took place in Argentina between June and September 1955. The confusion may have stemmed from the confl ict of interests between the Argentine Communist Party and the Soviet Union’s foreign policy. On 19 June the paper was still completely hostile to Peronism. “In foreign policy Perón is following in the footsteps of Mussolini,” the Communist organ declared. Perón had set up mandatory state organizations for the working class and passed laws that were supposedly for its benefi t. Following the lead of Italian Fascism and the Catholic Church, the regime sought to implement a policy of class harmony and social reconciliation, and “with the help of social demagoguery he is trying to buy the workers, who have no class consciousness.” Actually, the correspondent claimed, the regime was operating against the worker’s movement, which “is persecuted beyond endurance.” Nevertheless, he did not conceal his satisfaction over Perón’s opposition to “American capital” and the American Bishop Spellman, “an emissary of Wall Street and the Vatican.” He assured his readers that “the Communist Party of Argentina is fi ghting for the restoration of democratic liber-

75 Florinda Goldberg and Iosef Rozen, eds. Los latinoamericanos en Israel: Antología de una aliá (Buenos Aires, 1988), 85–86, 88–89. 76 M. Nachumi, “How They Overthrew Perón” [Hebrew], Al Hamishmar, 22 Sept. 1955. diplomats and journalists 131 ties and for Argentina’s economic independence,” and that the party had “great inﬂ uence among urban and rural workers.”77 About three months later, the same Communist activist wrote another article about Argentina. This time his slant was less strongly anti-Peronist.78 The military coup was presented as the result of a conspiracy between the State Department and “Wall Street sharks.” It was not disapproval of the Perón regime’s undemocratic character that fueled American opposition, the newspaper claimed. In Wash- ington they were ready to accept any dictatorship that would follow their orders. The reason for US opposition, according to Kol Ha’am, was that Perón had dared to defy capitalist economic interests, and, even worse, he had also dared to cooperate with the Soviet Union. The Communist paper apparently preferred Perón’s “third position” in foreign policy to a government that bowed to US dictates.

Conclusions

The Argentine organ Mundo Peronista, which glorifi ed the regime’s achievements, was, of course, greatly exaggerating when it claimed that Israelis were strongly interested in Peronism as a social-economic doctrine. But, in fact, the Israeli press showed more interest in Argen- tine news than might have been expected. More signifi cant, in Israel the view of the Peronist regime was more nuanced and less uniform than it was among the Jews of Argentina and the United States. Vari- ous circles in Israel had different and more complex attitudes toward Peronism. Of course, the majority of Israeli newspapers were party- affi liated, and their views on international issues, including Peronism, were infl uenced by the political situation in Israel and the attitude of each party organ to the policies of the Israeli government. In addition, in contrast to the US and British press, which tended to view Peronism mainly as a typical Latin American dictatorship and megalomaniac crusade designed to fulfi ll the unbridled desires of Juan Perón and Eva Duarte, the Israeli press usually gave considerable weight to the ideological aspect of Peronism. Part of the anti-Peronist slant of the many reports in the Israeli press stemmed from the fact

77 B. B., “What Is Happening in Argentina [Hebrew],” Kol Ha’am, 19 June 1955. 78 B. B., “What Is Happening in Argentina [Hebrew],” Kol Ha’am, 20 Sept. 1955. 132 chapter six that no Israeli paper had a permanent correspondent or envoy in South America who could make trips to Argentina. Consequently, many of the features published were based on information and commentary derived from reports by the English-speaking news agencies and the leading newspapers in the United States. In summary, the Israeli left-wing papers tended to be hostile toward Peronism, sometimes extremely so, and identifi ed it with fascism. The major papers—Davar, Ha’aretz, and Ma’ariv—held a more balanced view. And the right-wing papers showed a marked, sometimes even wholehearted, sympathy for the Argentine regime. This more complex approach in Israel was also refl ected very clearly in the intellectual periodicals of that period. Such periodicals offered the opportunity to present various aspects of society, government, culture, and ideology in Peronist Argentina in much greater depth than in the daily press. Two notable examples were an article by Y. Toledo, “Perón’s Regime: Its Portrait and Its Future,” which appeared in the political and literary monthly Molad at the beginning of Perón’s second term of offi ce in 1952; and an article by Yaacov Versano (later known as the historian Yaacov Oved, whose special area of research was the anarchist movement in Argentina), which was published in the kibbutz magazine Mibifnim. This article, entitled “The Justicial- ist Regime in Argentina,” was written just before the military uprising that overthrew Perón, as Oved completed his Zionist mission in Buenos Aires and prepared to return home to his kibbutz, Palmahim. Both articles refl ected a left-wing view of Perón’s regime, but they were capable of criticizing the traditional left-wing parties—the Socialists and the Communists—and tried to understand the solid support that the Argentine working class gave their charismatic leader.79 The image of Peronism in the Hebrew press was more nuanced than it was in the media of many other countries. The extent of the coverage of events taking place in Peronist Argentina was greater than might be expected, given the challenges that the new country had to face. These traits, as we shall see in Chapter 9, would characterize the Hebrew press’s coverage of Perón’s return to power in Argentina in

79 Y. Toledo, “Perón’s Regime: Its Portrait and Its Future” [Hebrew], Molad 51 (July 1952): 143–151; Y. Versano, “The Justicialist Regime in Argentina” [Hebrew], Mibifnim (May 1956): 411–424. CHAPTER SEVEN

A PACT OF OBLIVION: THE DE-PERONIZATION OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY

History books tell us that despite Juan Perón’s efforts to eradicate anti- Semitism and his cultivation of close relations with the State of Israel throughout his years in power (1946–1955), he failed in his attempts to enlist the support of signiﬁ cant sectors of the Argentine Jewish community. Historians and commentators assert that most Argentine Jews remained hostile to Perón,1 and that Perón’s attempts to ingratiate himself with the community—for example, by setting up the Peronist Jewish organization known as OIA, or Organización Israelita Argen- tina (Argentine Jewish Organization)—were all to no avail.2 Such a short time after the end of World War II, as the magnitude of the Jewish Holocaust in Europe became known, Argentine Jews, who were mostly of Eastern and Central European origin, were understandably wary of a government that in their eyes resembled the defeated Axis regimes. The support Perón received from nationalist and anti-Semitic groups at the beginning of his career, and the alliance he forged with the Catholic Church in the second half of the 1940s only reinforced their suspicions. Moreover, the political and class identity of many Jews contributed to their distrust of a regime that was developing

1 See in this respect Raanan Rein, Argentina, Israel, and the Jews: Perón, the Eichmann Capture and After (Bethesda, Md., 2003), chs. 1–4; Susana Bianchi, Historia de las religions en la Argentina: Las minorías religiosas (Buenos Aires, 2004); Daniel Lvovich, “Entre la historia, la memoria y el discurso de la identidad: Perón, la comunidad judía argentina y la cuestión del antisemitismo,” Indice—Revista de Ciencias Sociales 24 (2007): 173–188; Emilio J. Corbiere, “Perón y los judíos,” Todo es Historia 252 (1988): 6–35. 2 On the OIA, see Raanan Rein, “El fracaso de la peronización de la colectividad judía,” Nuestra Memoria 25 (June 2005): 173–182; Lawrence D. Bell, “In the Name of the Community: Populism, Ethnicity, and Politics among the Jews of Argentina under Perón, 1946–1955,” Hispanic American Historical Review 86, no. 1 (2006): 93–122; idem, “Bitter Conquest: Zionists against Progressive Jews and the Making of Post-War Jewish Politics in Argentina,” Jewish History 17 (2003): 285–308; Jeffrey Marder, “The Organización Israelita Argentina: Between Perón and the Jews,” Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 20, no. 39–40 (1995): 125–152; Leonardo Senkman, “El peronismo visto desde la legación israelí en Buenos Aires: Sus relaciones con la OIA (1949–1954),” Judaica Latinoamericana (Jerusalem, 1993), II: 115–136. 134 chapter seven increasingly authoritarian tendencies and that, in addition, was identifi ed with benefi ts for the Argentine working class. Perón’s gradual adoption of the struggle against anti-Semitism as an integral part of his policy did nothing to assuage their fears, and they continued to doubt his intentions until his ouster in September 1955. This view is not mistaken, but it is certainly exaggerated. The Jew- ish community was never homogeneous and often split over this, as well as over other issues. While not a majority, a substantial number of Jews supported the early Peronist movement. It is true that most of the community establishment had reservations about the Peronist government and the justicialist movement, but many individual Jews identifi ed with Peronism. These included assorted Jewish leaders in the workers’ movement (Ángel Perelman, a founder of the metalwork- ers’ union, Unión Obrera Metalúrgica, in 1943 and its fi rst secretary- general;3 Rafael Kogan, secretary-general of the railroad workers’ union, Unión Ferroviaria; Abraham Krislavin and David Diskin of the commercial employees’ union, and others)4 and in various Jewish associations (such as the Jewish hospital, Hospital Israelita ‘Ezrah’), intellectuals (the staff of the cultural supplement to La Prensa, then controlled by the CGT—the Argentine labor federation—included Israel Zeitlin [César Tiempo],5 Bernardo Ezequiel Koremblit, León Benarós, and Julia Prilutzky Farny), lawyers (such as Liberto Rabinov- ich), business men ( José Ber Gelbard and others),6 and especially ordinary people who were not affi liated with the community institutions.7

3 On Perelman’s contributions to the worker demonstrations of 17 October 1945 and the burgeoning Peronist movement, see his memoirs: Ángel Perelman, Cómo hici- mos el 17 de octubre (Buenos Aires, 1962). 4 Krislavin eventually became deputy minister of the interior. See Raanan Rein, Juan Atilio Bramuglia and the Second Line of Argentina’s Populist Movement (Stanford, Calif., 2008), 36. Diskin was a member of the CGT board of directors (1946–1955) and a national deputy (1952–1955). See Guillermo David, Perón en la chacra asfaltada. Figuras del peronismo bahiense (Punta Alta, Buenos Aires, 2006), 9–32; David Diskin, El compañero Borlenghi: Su trayectoria, su integridad, su temple (Buenos Aires, 1979). 5 On Tiempo see Eliahu Toker, comp., Buenos Aires esquina Sabádo. Antología de César Tiempo (Buenos Aires, 1997); Leonardo Senkman, La identidad judía en la literatura argentina (Buenos Aires, 1983), 153–195. 6 María Seoane, El burgués maldito. Los secretos del ultimo líder del capitalismo nacional (Buenos Aires, 2003); Leonardo Senkman, “Populismo y empresarios judíos: Actu- ación pública de Horacio Lafer y José B. Gelbard durante Vargas y Perón,” Araucaria 15 (2006): 46–76. 7 For example, Jews in the textile industry who beneﬁ ted from the Peronist government’s economic policies. For a Sephardic Jew who supported Perón, see Israel Jabbaz, Israel nace en las Naciones Unidas (Buenos Aires, 1960). a pact of oblivion 135

It is notable that in the Jewish agricultural communities of Santa Fe and Entre Ríos the Peronist Party won most of the votes in the presidential elections of November 1951.8 Even in cities and provinces that were not considered ‘Peronist,’ such as Córdoba, justicialist militants of Jewish origin, such as Raúl Bercovich Rodríguez and Deputy José Alexeinicer, could be found.9 In this way Jews gained entry to state bodies, such as the foreign ministry (Pablo Manguel was Argentina’s fi rst ambassador to Israel and Israel Jabbaz was a member of the Argentine delegation to the United Nations during the discussions over the partition of Palestine and the establishment of the State of Israel), from which they had once been virtually excluded. Nonetheless, the leadership of the Jewish community institutions, not for the fi rst or the last time, has methodically sought to erase an inconvenient fact—in this case, beginning in September 1955, the support that Peronism enjoyed among some Argentine Jews. Before examining this systematic effort to ‘de-Peronize’ the community, and in order to have a better idea of Jewish-Argentine views on the Liberating Revolution that removed Perón from power in Septem- ber 1955, we should analyze the role played by the OIA, as well as the confl ict between Perón and the Argentine Catholic Church.

Rethinking the Supposed Failure of the OIA

Juan Perón’s regime made Herculean efforts to enlist the support of the Argentine Jewish community. Nevertheless, despite its excellent relations with the State of Israel and the Peróns’ many gestures towards the Jewish community, their impact remains debatable. In February 1947, a group of Jewish activists visited the ofﬁ ce of the interior minister, Angel Borlenghi, to express support for Perón’s government and policies. This initiative was the work of the Jewish deputy interior minister, Abraham Krislavin, who was Borlenghi’s brother- in-law. No Jew had ever before held a government position of such

8 Tsur to Foreign Ministry, Israel State Archives (hereafter ISA) 2579/16, 29 Nov. 1951. 9 Cesar Tcach, “Neoperonismo y resistencia obrera en la Córdoba Libertadora (1955–1958),” Desarrollo Económico 35, no. 137 (April–June 1995): 63–82; Córdoba, 3 March 1948. At the end of December 1950, the leaders of the OIA in Córdoba sent a donation of 40,000 pesos to the Eva Perón Foundation (Mundo Israelita, 20 Jan. 1951). 136 chapter seven importance. Borlenghi, who became an important link between the Jewish community and the regime, welcomed the activists and even accompanied them to a meeting in the president’s ofﬁ ce. Perón congratulated them on their initiative and repeated his earlier assurances that he did not support any discriminatory measures against Jews and did not identify with prejudices against them. The only thing I want is for all who live here to feel Argentine, to really be Argentine without regard to their origins or where they came from, for we are too diverse in this country to make such discriminations.10 The President complained that his political enemies had falsely labeled him an anti-Semite: I have the impression that many in the community that fought against us did so because they were led astray, as half of the Argentine people was led astray, by the press, which spared no effort to slander us . . . I intend to show in deeds that this is not true.11 He was not at all interested in what one person or another thought or felt, Perón stressed, as long as they contributed to the development and growth of the nation. As a gesture towards the Jews and in an effort to encourage an initiative that might breach the wall of hostility that separated Jewish institutions from his regime, Perón told the members of the group that he had just signed an order to allow the 47 Jewish immigrants who had arrived in Buenos Aires on the ship Campana with no proper papers to stay in Argentina.12 Two days after that visit the OIA was established.13 Its ﬁ rst president was probably Eduardo (and not his brother Natalio, as most authors claim) Cortés (formerly Shejtman), a native of the Jewish town of Moisesville in Santa Fe, who at the time was a board member of the

10 Juan José Sebreli, La cuestión judía en la Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1973), 147–148. 11 Mundo Israelita, 22 Feb. 1947. 12 On this meeting, see Central Zionist Archives (hereafter CZA) Z6/22; Di Idishe Tsaytung, 16 Feb. 1947, 18 Feb. 1947, Mundo Israelita, 22 Feb. 1947. This group of Jews had arrived in Argentina without papers, after being turned away by Brazil (Di Presse, 13 Feb. 1947). 13 According to a secret memorandum of the World Jewish Congress, there had been some “ﬁ rst cautious moves to create a Jewish Peronist organization in the middle of 1945,” but these had failed for lack of support within the community. Lawrence Bell, “The Jews and Perón: Communal Politics and National Identities in Peronist Argentina, 1946–1955” (Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 2002), 164. An immediate precursor to the OIA was the ONIA (Organización Nacional Judía Argentina). See Di Presse, 18 Feb. 1947. a pact of oblivion 137

Hospital Israelita ‘Ezrah’ in Buenos Aires.14 The group of founders included Samuel Rosenstein and the popular sportswriter Luis Elias Sojit, as well as Salvador Woscoff, Mauricio Nikiprovesky, Julio Jorge Schneider, J. Krasbutch, Samuel Buerdman, Carlos Lokman, Jaime Weitzman, Gregorio Perlmuter, Manuel Grinstein, José Kaﬁ a, and Jaime Rozovsky.15 They were soon joined by others, notably the textile industrialist Sujer Matrajt and the young lawyer Pablo Manguel.16 Thus, the group was composed primarily of middle-class businessmen, merchants, and professionals. Since little documentation is available, not much is known about this group, but clearly the new organization hoped—initially at least—to compete with the older DAIA (Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas—Delegation of Argentine Jewish Associations) for representation of the Jewish community in dealings with the authorities. A passage from the OIA’s declaration of principles lays down the views of Cortés and the organization he headed: For us, Argentines of Jewish origin, there is only one homeland, Argen- tina, and one loyalty, to our leader Juan Domingo Perón. To Israel, admiration, support for its existence, and ties of affection. The same that link the sons of Italians to Italy, or the sons of Spaniards to Spain. Not, in contrast, a loyalty such as that which we swear to our country, since we do not claim to hold dual citizenship. All our compatriots must understand that very clearly.17 Thus, they advocated the social integration of Jews through Peronism and, at the same time, set down a statement of identity that emphasized their Argentine nationality without repudiating either their Judaism or their Zionism. Whereas the DAIA always strove to preserve its non-partisan identity—an essential principle that has served to

14 Interviews with Eduardo’s wife, Perla Cortés (Buenos Aires, 5 Aug. 2008), and daughter Rosalía (Rio de Janeiro, 12 June 2009). Other sources say that Salvador Woscoff was actually the fi rst president of the organization. 15 Boleslao Lewin, Cómo fue la inmigración judía en la Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1983), 273; Bell, “The Jews and Perón,” 164–165. 16 According to Alberto Woscoff, his father, Salvador, was the founder of the OIA’s precursor, the Organización Nacional Judía Argentina (Argentine Jewish National Organization); the word ‘Nacional’ was later removed because it had negative conno- tations for the Jews. Apparently Woscoff was motivated in part by Borlenghi’s ‘crack- down,’ which threatened his business, Laboratorios Woscoff (author’s interview with Alberto Woscoff, Buenos Aires, 1 Dec. 2008). 17 Quoted in Ricardo Feierstein, Historia de los judíos argentinos (Buenos Aires, 1993), 349. 138 chapter seven safeguard the organization’s existence since the 1930s despite the frequent upheavals in the Argentine political system—the political allegiance of the new organization was never in any doubt, and the Perón government initially supported the OIA’s efforts to challenge the DAIA’s ascendancy. This followed the pattern established back in the days of the military regime, when Perón had been secretary of labor and welfare. At that time he had encouraged the establishment of trade unions sup- portive of the regime, as competition for existing trade unions that refused to identify with Peronism. This cooptative strategy was applied to other sectors of Argentine society as well. Gradually, however, it became apparent that Perón was not exerting heavy pressure on the Jewish community to join the OIA. The community managed to retain a large measure of autonomy. The OIA served mainly as a forum through which Perón could make friendly overtures to the Jews and to the State of Israel. Although many in the community continued to mistrust Perón, the DAIA maintained its offi cial status as the main representative body of Argentine Jewry, and its leaders were able to establish good working relations with the regime. Of course, it had to adapt to the rules laid down by the Peronist regime in order to survive—something that leaders such as Moisés Goldman understood at the outset. The members of the OIA, however, had particularly easy access to the upper echelons of the government. For example, a few days after the organization was founded, two of its leaders, Salvador Woscoff and Mauricio Nikiprovesky, were received by the interior minister, Bor- lenghi, and the health secretary, Ramón Carrillo. At the end of this meeting they were able to announce that the restrictions on kosher butchering and the discrimination against Jews in the medical school would soon be favorably resolved. In June 1948, members of the OIA indicated their wish to play a major role in mediating between the community and the regime when they accompanied the DAIA leaders to the presidential palace to ask Perón to allow 27 undocumented Jew- ish refugees to enter the country. Perón granted this request.18 In August 1948, at a ceremony to inaugurate the OIA offi ces that was attended by Perón, his wife Evita (Eva Duarte), Foreign Minister Juan Atilio Bramuglia, and other senior offi cials of the regime, both

18 Di Idishe Tsaytung, 26 Feb. 1947; Mundo Israelita, 8 March 1947, 26 June 1948. a pact of oblivion 139

Perón and his wife gave speeches. Others attending this unprecedented meeting with an Argentine head of state in a Jewish community institution included Jewish leaders and many Jews who were not identiﬁ ed with the regime. “How can we accept, how can we explain, the existence of anti-Semitism in Argentina?” asked Perón. In Argentina people should have only one status: people who work for the good of the nation, without distinction [between them. . . .] For this reason [. . .] for as long as I am president of the republic, no one will persecute anyone.19 That same year Perón even appointed Rabbi Amram Blum, president of the rabbinical court of the Jewish community, as his advisor on religious affairs. Eliahu Eliachar, one of the leaders of the Sephardic community in Jerusalem, visited Argentina that same year as an envoy of the heads of the Jewish Yishuv [settlement] in Palestine. In his memoirs, Eliachar wrote “In Buenos Aires at that time Rabbi Amram Blum was the leader of the Sephardic rabbis. A worthy Jew of handsome appearance, popular with everyone. An ardent Zionist who had previously served in various positions in major institutions in Jerusalem. He was accepted by both Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews, as well as the Peronist government.”20 Blum was an interesting ﬁ gure. He was a rabbi of Hungarian origins, known for his theological training, and he had a doctorate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A charismatic leader, he had arrived in Argentina in 1946 as the representative of an Orthodox Zionist party.21 In 1947 he was appointed chief rabbi of the Syrian-Aleppian community. The origins of his involvement with Peronism are unclear, but by 1949 his association with Evita had become common knowledge as a result of a photograph that made the rounds of the national press, and his power gradually increased. In 1948 he was appointed as the president’s advisor on religious affairs, and in 1952, in a ceremony at the Templo de Paso synagogue in Buenos Aires sponsored by the

19 Mundo Israelita, 21 Aug. 1948, 29 Aug. 1948; DAIA, El pensamiento del presidente Perón sobre el pueblo judío (Buenos Aires, 1954), 15; DAIA, Perón y el pueblo judío (Buenos Aires, 1974), 11; American Jewish Year Book (hereafter AJYB) 50 (1948–9): 270. 20 Elie Eliachar, Living with Jews [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1980), 287. 21 The information on Blum is based on Robert Weisbrot, The Jews of Argentina: From the Inquisition to Perón (Philadelphia, 1979), 121–128; Brauner, “Los judíos de origin sirio en Argentina.” 140 chapter seven

OIA, he prayed for Evita’s health.22 According to Máximo Yagup- sky of the American Jewish Committee, by August 1953 Blum had become “Perón’s guiding spirit in Jewish life”.23 The relations between Blum and Perón, as we will see, caused unease among many Jews. The members of the OIA tried to enlist Jewish public opinion in support of their organization. They published a manifesto under the heading “Why We Support the Government,” which appealed to “workers, students, intellectuals, merchants, industrialists, and the thousands of Argentine Jews who through their efforts and devotion have contributed to the growth of this nation, which is ours, too,” to join the organization.24 The authors of the manifesto justiﬁ ed their appeal in the name of both Argentine patriotism and Jewish economic interests—since Perón was working to promote trade and industry, to the potential beneﬁ t of the mostly middle-class Argentine Jews. The OIA’s manifestos usually mentioned the gestures Perón had made to ease Jewish immigration, as well as his statements condemning anti-Semitism and commending the State of Israel. The leaders of the OIA invested no small effort in transmitting similar messages to US Jews. The Argentine diplomatic representative in Israel, Pablo Manguel, often stopped in New York on his way to and from Tel Aviv to make public-relations speeches about Perón’s friendly treatment of Jews. Both Sujer Matrajt and Manuel Scheinsohn visited the US in order to declare that there was no longer any anti-Semitism in Argentina, thanks to Perón’s vigorous action in this respect.25 The urging of the OIA’s leader, Sujer Matrajt—who had apparently struck up a close acquaintance with Perón in the course of his dealings as a supplier to the Argentine army—played a central role in the president’s decision to insert in the new constitution (adopted in 1949 by a Peronist-dominated constitutional convention) a clause that, expanding the text of the 1853 constitution, forbade discrimination on the basis of racial or religious differences.26

22 Mundo Israelita, 19 July 1952. 23 Yagupsky to Segal, 30 Aug. 1953, American Jewish Committee (hereafter AJC) Archives, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York, NY. 24 Mundo Israelita, 1 March 1947, 4 May 1947, 11 Oct. 1947. 25 Scheinsohn was sent to the United States in the hope that he would be able to foster commercial ties with North America and increase tourism from there, bringing foreign currency into Argentina. See La Nación, 10 June 1949; La Prensa, 9 July 1949. 26 Artículo 28, Constitución de la Nación Argentina de 1949 (Buenos Aires, 1983), 29–30; Tov to Eytan, 7 March 1950, Israel State Archives (hereafter ISA), 2574/17; Mundo Israelita, 19 March 1949; AJYB 51 (1950): 266; AJYB 52 (1951): 214. a pact of oblivion 141

In their speeches Perón and Evita always strongly rejected anti-Sem- itism. Evita even tried to attribute all anti-Semitism to the enemies of the regime. In a speech she gave in August 1948, the First Lady declared: In our country the only ones who sought to divide classes and religions were representatives of the oligarchy, which was noted for slander and ruled for fi fty years. Those who caused anti-Semitism were the rulers who poisoned the nation with false theories, until the time came with Perón to declare that we are all equal.27 In the following years, Perón presented the Jewish people as a people better-placed than many to understand the signifi cance of justicialismo, since they had been the victims of oppression and injustice for so long. Evita, for her part, cited the Jewish people as an example of a national consciousness that had been preserved for 2,000 years and an unyield- ing struggle for a lost homeland.28 Following the establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel, the OIA sought to mediate between Israel’s representative and Perón’s regime. This attempt gave rise to disquiet and dispute in the upper echelons of Israeli diplomacy. However, the Israeli diplomats quickly realized that they could take advantage of the good offi ces of the OIA leaders to strengthen ties between the two countries. At the same time, Amram Blum’s efforts insured that for the fi rst time in Argentina Jewish conscripts were offered time off for the religious holidays of the Jewish New Year and Yom Kippur. Blum also paved the way to reopening the Mu Mu candy factory, closed in 1949 as a result of a confl ict between the Jewish owners (the Groisman family) and Evita. In 1953, Blum contended that reopening it refl ected the “just spirit” of General Perón and his policies, which were “contrary to any racial discrimination.”29 The following year, Blum inaugurated the Chair of Hebrew Studies in the Department of Philosophy and Literature at the University of Buenos Aires, “inspired by his Excellency, the Head of State.”30

27 DAIA, Medio siglo de lucha por una Argentina sin discriminaciones (Buenos Aires, 1985), 10; Sebreli, La cuestión judía, 156. Some people saw Evita’s positive attitude towards Jews as a mark of her gratitude to the media magnate Jaime Yankelevich, owner of Radio Belgrano, which had catapulted Evita to fame. In 1943 she had begun her career there by broadcasting a program on famous women in history. 28 DAIA, El pensamiento, 23, 27–29; DAIA, Perón y el pueblo judío, 14–15; Eva Perón, Historia del peronismo (Buenos Aires, 1987), 58. 29 Mundo Israelita, 11 July 1953; Weisbrot, The Jews of Argentina, 233–236. 30 Mundo Israelita, 20 Nov. 1954. 142 chapter seven

Perón and Evita’s hopes for a speedy change in the Jewish public’s outlook were to be disappointed. In the congressional elections of March 1948 and the elections to the constitutional convention the following December, the OIA did not manage to enlist large Jewish electoral support for the Peronist party. By July 1950 Abraham Krislavin was telling the heads of the Israeli legation that the OIA had failed in its efforts to win Argentine Jewry over to Peronism.31 But the Peronist Jewish organization pressed on with its campaign for the hearts and votes of the Jews of Argentina. In April 1951, Eduardo Cortés, the president of the OIA, met with Perón and told him that the organization was opening branches throughout the country, including women’s centers.32 Unfortunately, we have no hard data on the number of OIA members or branches in the interior of the country. At the beginning of July that year, a delegation headed by the OIA visited the presidential palace to ask Perón to run for a second term as president. Many other ethnic, labor, cultural, and social organizations did the same. The delegation headed by the OIA included representatives of nearly all the Jewish organizations in Argentina. At the ceremony, which received wide press coverage and was attended by the Peróns, government ministers, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, and other notables, speeches were made by various Jew- ish leaders, including the chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, José Ventura, and the chairman of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA—Argentine Israelite Mutual Association), Dr. Moi- sés Slinin. The entire event represented an achievement for the OIA and reﬂ ected the recognition that a strong stand against anti-Semitism had become an integral part of Perón’s policy.33 The OIA was now making particularly strenuous propaganda efforts in the Jewish community, through press releases, manifestos, assemblies, and meetings. Pablo Manguel returned to Buenos Aires on purpose to give the OIA’s campaign a boost.

31 Eshel to Israeli Foreign Ministry, 20 July 1950, ISA, 2571/9. 32 Di Idishe Tsaytung, 8 April 1951; Segal to Hochstein, 15 May 1951, AJC Files, Box 3. 33 Schneersohn to Israeli Foreign Ministry, 1 Aug. 1951, ISA 2574/3; Mundo Israelita, 7 July 1951; AJYB 54 (1951): 203. Some members of the Jewish community criticized the DAIA “for having given in to the OIA’s blackmail.” On the differing views on the OIA in the DAIA leadership, see Actas del Consejo Directivo de la DAIA, 1948–1952. I would like to thank Beatríz Gurevich and Yaacov Rubel for sharing these minutes of the DAIA Executive Committee with me. a pact of oblivion 143

Nonetheless, in the elections of November 1951 the Jewish candidates of the Peronist Party were defeated, including one of the leaders of the OIA, Ezequiel Zabotinsky (reportedly the second cousin of the Revisionist Zionist leader, Ze’ev Jabotinsky), who was running in the Once neighborhood of Buenos Aires.34 Instead, the votes of the organized Jewish community helped to put three Jewish representatives of the Radical opposition party into the national Congress: Santiago L. Nudelman, Manuel Belnicoff, and Rodolfo Weidman. David Diskin was the majority Peronist Party’s only Jewish congressman. Manguel was forced to explain to Perón that since Jews did not actually constitute more than 10 percent in Zabotinsky’s election district, they should not be blamed for his defeat.35 Following what appeared to be Peronism’s electoral snub by Jewish voters, the heads of the Jewish community and ofﬁ cials at the Israeli legation began to worry that Perón might turn less friendly, or even seek to retaliate against the community.36 But this did not happen, partly because Perón’s success in these elections was so sweeping and the Jewish vote so negligible, and partly because the Peronists feared the possible negative consequences, especially in the US, of any anti- Semitic moves in Argentina. In any case, Perón continued his policy of amicable relations with Israel and the Jews, and did not lose his faith in the OIA.37 The death in July 1952 of the president’s wife, Evita, who had been perceived as the patroness of the OIA and had played a positive role in relations with Israel, awoke similar fears of a change in the regime’s attitude. Once again, however, such fears proved to be unfounded.38 The impression of Israeli diplomats was that the new circumstances had strengthened the position of interior minister Bor- lenghi, who, together with his brother-in-law, Krislavin, was a strong promoter of OIA activity. Under Zabotinsky’s leadership, the OIA was reorganized in 1953—after some of its ofﬁ cers had come to grief in dubious enterprises—and it seemed poised to begin a new lease on

34 See Di Presse, 7 and 19 Oct. 1951, Mundo Israelita, 10 Nov. 1951. 35 Senkman, “El peronismo visto desde la legación israelí,” 116–118. 36 Darom to Tov, 27 Nov. 1951, and Tsur to Israeli Foreign Ministry, 29 Nov. 1951, ISA 2579/16; Senkman, “El peronismo visto desde la legación israelí,” 118. 37 Manguel himself was promoted in the foreign ministry, to the post of supervisor of all the Argentine diplomatic missions in the Middle East. 38 Tsur to Israeli Foreign Ministry, ISA 2579/16, 11 June 1952, 23 June 1952, 24 Aug. 1952. 144 chapter seven life.39 In addition, the OIA now appeared more willing to cooperate with the DAIA on matters related to Jewish immigration, Zionism, and the fi ght against anti-Semitism. In November 1953 some 6,000 Jews took part in a ceremony sponsored by the OIA for the purpose of presenting Perón’s certifi cate of registration in the golden book of the Jewish National Fund. On this occasion, Perón gave another speech, described by Tuvia Arazi, a secretary at the Israeli embassy, as “a paean to Israel and the Jews.” A year later the heads of the Jewish community formally presented Perón with a book published by the DAIA, comprising a collection of speeches and statements by the president denouncing anti-Semitism and stressing Argentine Jews’ bond with Israel.40 Leaders of the DAIA, the OIA, Keren Hayesod, and the Argentine Zionist Organization, as well as representatives of other organizations, all participated in the ceremony. Nevertheless, the leaders of the organized Jewish community continued fearful and suspicious. They saw the Perón government as a populist regime led by a charismatic leader who might at the drop of a hat change course; and they feared that given the ups and downs of the internal balance of forces in the heterogeneous Peronist camp, anti-Semitic elements might, under different circumstances, gain greater infl uence. In short, Emilio Corbière’s claim that the OIA enjoyed substantial support among Argentine Jews was certainly an exaggeration.41 How- ever, the assertion by writers such as Kurt J. Riegner that the organization had no infl uence among Jews was no less exaggerated.42 There were, of course, Jews who honestly believed, as did many other Argentines, that the Peronist movement would institute reforms allowing the Republic to advance towards a rosier future—reforms that would put the country on the road to development and modernization while guaranteeing social justice. Such Jews also believed that the Jewish community should not be indifferent to the wishes of the majority of the Argentine people, who supported Perón, and so they

39 Kobovy to Darom, 23 Nov. 1953, ISA 2573/14; La Prensa, 27 Feb. 1954, 20 Mar. 1954, 15 April 1954; Di Iidishe Tsaytung, 29 June 1952; Di Presse, 28 June 1952. 40 DAIA, El pensamiento, 33–35; Arazi to Israeli Foreign Ministry, 19 Nov. 1953, ISA, 4701/1. 41 Emilio J. Corbière, Estaban entre nosotros (Buenos Aires, 1992), 159–163. 42 Kurt J. Riegner, “Argentina’s Jewry under Perón,” Wiener Library Bulletin 9, no. 5–6 (Sept.–Dec. 1955): 51. a pact of oblivion 145 joined the OIA. In the absence of reliable statistics, however, we can only say that these Jews were not numerous. At the same time, the leaders of the OIA enjoyed considerable inﬂ uence among Argentine Jews owing to the support they received from the Peronist regime. The OIA was described by the Israeli ambassador, Yaacov Tsur, years later in his memoirs, as “a handful of Jewish bootlickers,” “who are close to the regime and do its work in the Jewish community,” or as “a sycophantic Jewish organization against which the entire Jewish community was united.”43 A series of interviews that I conducted has given me a basis to challenge Tsur’s description—a description that to some degree colors the writings of Haim Avni, Leonardo Senkman and Jeffrey Marder, as well as the doctoral theses of Joseph Goldstein and Lawrence Bell. Their studies were based on the community press (which was generally oblivious to the OIA members), on the papers of other Jewish institutions that competed with the OIA, or on the archives of the Israeli foreign ministry, some of which was hostile to the OIA.44 The references to OIA leaders as charlatans and swindlers were also based on material published by the Comisión Nacional de Investigación (National Investigation Commission), formed by the Liberating Revolution to document the “authors and accomplices of the irregularities committed during the Second Tyranny.” A report on “legislators of the dicatorship” who had illegally feathered their nests included, among many other “corrupt” individuals, the name of Pablo Manguel, the most important ﬁ gure in the OIA, condemned for “the growth of his fortune.”45 In the course of my research, however, I interviewed relatives and associates of Salvador Woscoff, Adolfo Minyevsky,

43 Yaacov Tsur, Credential No. 4: First Diplomatic Mission in South America [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1981), 42, 45. I. Schwartzbart of the World Jewish Congress regarded the leaders of the OIA as little better than common criminals and swindlers (see Bell, “The Jews and Perón,” 175). 44 Some ofﬁ cers of the World Jewish Congress, such as Jacob Hellman, maintained an alarmist tone in their reports on the OIA. Hellman wrote about the OIA’s “terror campaign” against the DAIA, and in reporting the OIA’s fundraising for a new Jewish hospital in the Entre Ríos province to be built under the auspices of the Eva Perón Foundation, described it as a “thieving demand of the OIA to defraud [the community of] three million to construct a hospital with the name of the First Lady.” On another occasion he wrote hysterically about the atmosphere in which Jews lived in Argentina: “Thus, men live here as marranos, under a ghastly coercion, and outwardly it will be said that the Jews of Argentina are free and do not experience any anti- Semitism.” (Cited in Bell, “The Jews and Perón,” 171–172.) 45 Vicepresidencia de la Nación, Libro negro de la segunda tiranía, vol. 3 (Buenos Aires, 1958). 146 chapter seven

Sujer Matrajt, Luis Elías Sojit, Pablo Manguel, Natalio and Eduardo Cortés and Ezequiel Zabotinsky, gaining insights that have helped me temper the negative image the OIA is given by most historians.46 Most of the OIA leaders were fi rst-generation Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. Some of them, such as the Cortés brothers, Sujer Matrajt and Salvador Woscoff, were very involved with the Jew- ish community, Zionism, and Israel, the last two proudly retaining their original surnames. Others were less attached to their Jewish identities, their indifference refl ected in some cases by surname changes—Luis Elías Sojit, for example, whose original surname was Shoichet.47 None of them was religious. They were all united around a concept of self that emphasized the Argentine component of their individual and collective identities. They were Jewish Argentines rather than Argentine Jews. Several of them, such as Adolfo Minyevski and Sujer Matrajt, were textile manufacturers or had businesses like the Laboratorios Woscoff, and as such benefi ted from the Peronist economic policy. Most of them remained loyal to Perón and the Peronist movement even after Perón’s overthrow—additional evidence that their relationship with Peronism was not merely opportunism. Many, as we will see, paid a heavy price during the Liberating Revolution for their support of Peronism—Sojit and Manguel being good examples of this. In the fi nal analysis, the OIA managed to obtain benefi ts from the government for Jewish Argentines as a community, promoting their ethnic and religious interests. It is diffi cult to say how much infl uence the OIA may have had on the Jewish vote in the presidential and parliamentary elections, but the organization did give Perón “a loyal Jewish community space from which to issue his pro-Jewish, pro-Israel discourse,” and it lent a hand in disseminating Perón’s antiracist, pro- Zionist message “in prestigious arenas abroad, such as the US.”48 The OIA infl uenced Perón’s decisions to add a prohibition against racial discrimination to the constitution and to declare an amnesty that

46 A series of interviews conducted in Buenos Aires with the assistance of Adrián Krupnik and Ivan Cherjovsky, Aug. 2008–March 2009. 47 On Sojit, see the columns published by the magazine Gente in 1970, under the title “Luis Elías! Que personaje!” (undated), and in Clarín in 1985 by Carlos Marcelo Thiery, “Un ilusionado del micrófono” (undated). See also Diario Olé, Diccionario enci- clopédico del fútbol (Buenos Aires, 1997), 522. Although his son insists that Sojit did not have a very strong Jewish identity, he was buried in the Liniers Jewish cemetery in 1982 (interview with Eduardo Isidoro Sojit, Buenos Aires, 4 Dec. 2008). 48 Senkman, “El peronismo visto desde la legación israelí,” 121, 124. a pact of oblivion 147 beneﬁ ted, among others, illegal Jewish immigrants. Similarly, it got its secretary, Pablo Manguel, appointed as the ﬁ rst Argentine ambassador to Israel, despite the reservations expressed by the Argentine foreign ministry.49 Manguel contributed to the conclusion of a trade agreement between Argentina and Israel that gave Israel a number of advantages,50 and the leaders of the OIA managed to persuade Evita to have her Foundation send blankets and medicines to Israel. Consequently, it is not surprising that the OIA leaders were on perfectly amicable terms with the local Jewish community, even that part of it who did not think supporting the justicialist movement would be politically correct.51 The DAIA authorities made no attempt to boycott the OIA, instead taking advantage of this channel of communication with the government—although they took care to thwart attempts by the Peronist Jewish organization to expand its base of support among Jewish public opinion. The last president of the OIA, Ezequiel Zabotinsky, was generally respected within the community, as “an honest man . . . a good Argentine and a loyal Jew,” scion of a well-esteemed family, to quote the Jewish periodicals Di Idishe Tsaytung and La Luz. According to Bell, Zabotinsky’s father had been president of the AMIA in 1925, and as a youth Zabotinsky had been active in Zionist Jewish self-defense groups.52

The Conﬂ ict with the Church

The fall of Perón’s regime, like its rise, can be attributed in large part to its relations with the Argentine Catholic Church. From 1950 on, a

49 The fi rst emissary sent by Perón to the newly established state was Sujer Matrajt (Di Presse, 24 March and 28 Aug. 1949). When diplomatic ties between the two countries were formed it was Manguel who became Argentina’s fi rst offi cial plenipotentiary minister. When Manguel completed his term, Ezquiel Zabotinsky, another key fi gure in the OIA, was supposed to replace him. However, before he could relocate to Israel the Peronist regime was deposed and Zabotinsky’s ‘diplomatic career’ came to an end. 50 Ignacio Klich, “The First Argentine-Israeli Trade Accord: Political and Eco- nomic Considerations,” Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 20, no. 39–40 (1995): 177–205. 51 Author’s interviews with Marcos Korenhendler (Tel Aviv, 21 Aug. 2000) and David Hurovitz (July 2004). 52 Di Idishe Tsaytung, 29 June and 29 Dec. 1954, La Luz, 14 Jan. 1955; Bell, “The Jews and Perón,” 263. 148 chapter seven series of disputes created tension in relations between the regime and the Church establishment.53 An important watershed in the slow dete- rioration of those relations was the death of Eva Perón in mid-1952. In her speeches Evita had more than once described Perón as a mes- senger of God, but in the last months of her life and immediately after her death, a popular mythology centering on her own person began to grow and spread. Many began to speak of her as ‘the Madonna of America,’ or ‘the Madonna of Hope,’ and some even called for her canonization. At the beginning of August, the front page of the daily La Epoca featured a description of the aura of sanctity surrounding the ‘martyred’ Evita, and reported that thousands of improvised altars and places of worship dedicated to her cult had been set up around the country. The food workers’ union petitioned the Pope for Evita’s immediate beatifi cation and canonization, as a simple confi rmation of the decision the people had already made concerning her holiness. In an interview with the daily La Prensa (which had been expropriated that year and transferred to the hands of the CGT), the secretary- general of the CGT, José Espejo, compared her to Jesus.54 Undoubtedly the Catholic Church, in Argentina and abroad, was far from enthusiastic about this new saint of the masses. The clergy of Buenos Aires were even less happy over Perón’s volte-face concerning the fi nal resting place of Evita’s body. Just before his wife’s death, Perón had asked that she be interred in the Church of San Francisco in Buenos Aires, in a mausoleum to be built for her. The religious authorities consented, but in the end Perón decided to entrust her body to the CGT, which had her coffi n placed in a room at its central headquarters until a monument could be erected in her honor. This

53 On relations between Perón and the Church, see Lila Caimari, Perón y la Iglesia Católica (Buenos Aires, 1994); Michael A. Burdick, For God and the Fatherland (Albany, NY, 1995), ch. 2; Austen Ivereigh, Catholicism and Politics in Argentina, 1810–1960 (New York, 1995), ch. 5; Loris Zanatta, Perón y el mito de la nación católica (Buenos Aires, 1999); Susana Bianchi, Catolicismo y peronismo: Religión y política en la Argentina, 1943–1955 (Buenos Aires, 2001); Miranda Lida, “Catolicismo y peronismo: Debates, problemas, preguntas,” Boletín del Instituto de Historia Argentina y Americana Dr. Emilio Ravignani 27 (Jan./June 2005): 139–148; Ezequiel Adamovsky, “La bendita medianía: Los católicos argentinos y sus apelaciones a la ‘clase media,’ c. 1930–1955,” Anuario IEHS 22 (2007): 301–324. 54 Aznar to Artajo, 1 Aug. 1952, Archivo de la Presidencia del Gobierno (Madrid) (hereafter APG), Leg. 14; Oﬁ cina de Información Diplomática, “Se pide la beati- ﬁ cación de Eva Duarte de Perón. Comentarios de prensa,” 23 Aug. 1952, APG, Leg. 14. a pact of oblivion 149 decision was interpreted as a victory of the civil and secular trend over the religious one within the Peronist movement. In October 1952, Perón convoked the interventores (government- appointed supervisors) of the Peronist Party in the various provinces, and made them a speech in the course of which he likened the Peronist movement to early Christianity. He presented himself as its leader, who wanted to leave behind him millions of believers to disseminate the justicialist doctrine.55 At this point it was already clear to at least some of the Church establishment that Peronism had become an intolerable rival, and that continuing to cooperate with it would only lead to the exclusion of the Church from every important role in society. Since Evita’s death, moreover, the process of Peronist indoctrination in the education system had been accelerating. Peronism was now categorically ‘the national doctrine,’ the model for both young Argentines and their elders. In the struggle for the soul of the nation, Catholicism began to lose ground.56 The crisis did not reach its peak until the end of 1954, however, when rumors began to circulate that the Church intended to set up Catholic workers’ organizations and a Christian Democratic party that, by combining religion with a progressive social platform, would erode the power of the ruling party. A contributory factor was that a number of priests were taking direct action against the regime. Histo- rians cannot agree as to whether this was the real reason for the attack on the Church, and have proposed many different interpretations of Perón’s motives.57 Some have attributed the anticlerical campaign to

55 Martindale to State Department, 22 Oct. 1952, National Archives, Records of the Department of State, Washington, D.C. (hereafter NA), 735.00/10–2252. 56 On indoctrination in the education system during the period of 1952–1955, see Mónica Esti Rein, Politics and Education in Argentina, 1946–1962 (Armonk, N.Y., 1998), ch. 3; Virginia Leonard, Politicians, Pupils, and Priests. Argentine Education since 1943 (New York, 1989); Silvina Gvirtz, “La politización de los contenidos escolares y la respuesta de los docentes primarios, 1949–1955,” in El primer peronismo: De regreso a los comien- zos, ed. Raanan Rein and Rosalie Sitman (Buenos Aires, 2005), 37–49; José Miguel Somoza Rodríguez, “Educación y política en Argentina. Creación de identidades y resocialización de sujetos (1943–1955)” (Ph.D. diss., Universidad Nacional de Educa- ción a Distancia, Madrid 2002). 57 The events that took place between October 1954 and June 1955 are outlined in “Review of Church-State Developments,” 5 May 1955, NA, 835.413/5–555; Potash, The Army and Politics, vol. II, ch. 6; Noreen Frances Stack, “Avoiding the Greater Evil: The Response of the Argentine Catholic Church to Juan Perón” (Ph.D. diss., Rutgers Uni- versity, 1976), 319 ff.; Primera Plana, 24 Dec. 1968, 31 Dec. 1968, 14 Nov. 1969; Rubén Jesús de Hoyos, “The Role of the Catholic Church in the Revolution against Presi- dent Juan Perón” (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1970). The Church’s perspective 150 chapter seven

Perón’s ‘megalomaniac’ faith that his power was unshakable and that he could do whatever he liked; others have suggested that the political concept of justicialismo, being inherently totalitarian, brooked no rivals, and could not in the long run accept the existence of any powerful, independent institution that might prevent it from achieving full domi- nation of Argentine society. Still other researchers emphasize that Perón was already tired and worn down after nine years in power, and feeling Evita’s loss; they blame the infl uence of some of his associates. The diplomats of Francoist Spain based in Buenos Aires were fond of the theory that Republican exiles who had fl ed Spain and joined the Peronist administration—leftists who had supposedly learned nothing and forgotten nothing—were encouraging the persecution of the Church in an attempt to continue the campaign they had started under the Second Spanish Republic.58 A number of commentators have settled for the explanation that the president was angered by Acción Católica’s efforts to compete with his own protégé, the Peronist youth organization, Unión de Estudiantes Secundarios (Union of Secondary-School Students—UES), for the support of young Argentines, especially in the province of Córdoba. And some of the regime’s opponents claimed that the confl ict with the Church was a smoke screen to distract public opinion from an agreement the government had reached with the American Standard Oil company for oil exploration and production rights in Patagonia—a measure that the opposition portrayed as an abandonment of national resources to foreigners and a betrayal of Argentine sovereignty.59 Without ruling out any of these theories, I nevertheless believe that Perón’s battle with the Church should be examined in the context of the increasingly conservative economic and social views that he manifested during his second term of offi ce—notably, his decision to downplay the class struggle and attract foreign investment capital to Argentina. These were ambitions that, at least on the surface, called

can be seen in Criterio, 25 Nov. 1954 and 28 July 1955, and that of Perón in Juan Perón, Del poder al exilio (Buenos Aires, 1982), ch. 5. 58 An interpretation along these lines can be found in Ricardo Boizard, Esa noche de Perón (Buenos Aires, 1955), 82–90. The Israeli ambassador’s view is given in Tsur, Credential No. 4, 208–209. 59 For an analysis of the different possible reasons for Perón’s overthrow, see Mem- orandum from the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (Lyon) to the Secretary of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–57, VII: 381–382. a pact of oblivion 151 into question two elements of the sacred Peronist trinity: social justice and economic independence. These circumstances forced him to mobilize the masses again and compensate his more revolutionary supporters by gradually turning his back on the Church. Two points should be stressed here. First, active popular support of the regime dropped during that period; fewer people came to cheer Perón at public events during 1954, and more workers expressed dis- content with the government’s economic policy. Second, draft legislation permitting divorce, legalizing prostitution, and guaranteeing equal rights for illegitimate children had been mooted in Peronist circles since the 1940s, and a substantial number of Argentines, especially in the trade unions, had misgivings about the religious education law. Perón opened his attack on the Church with a speech delivered on 10 November 1954 to an audience of provincial governors. With a biting rage that astonished many, the president assailed a number of priests, while stressing that his quarrel was not with the Church in its entirety, but was rather a political dispute. He accused a few specifi c priests of anti-Peronist activity, and spoke of their efforts to infi ltrate the trade unions, the employer organizations, the unions for the liberal professions, and the student organizations. Singled out for particular reprobation was Acción Católica, which he characterized as an international organization hostile to Peronism.60 After this speech, events began to snowball. In mid-November the administration decided to place secular ‘spiritual counselors’ in the elementary and secondary schools to instill moral and, naturally, Per- onist values in the pupils. A short time later the two education ministry offi ces responsible for the organization of religious education were abolished. These measures intensifi ed the Peronization of the education system, at the expense of religious education and Church infl u- ence in the schools. A number of Catholic educational institutions were closed down, and priests who taught in the public schools were suspended. In December the confl ict deepened when Perón delivered a militant speech at the annual meeting of the CGT calling on his supporters to go out into the streets and punish the enemies of the people, “the clerical dolls.” He spoke of a religious conspiracy to overthrow the regime, claiming his enemies were now disguised as priests. The

60 A transcript of the speech appears in La Prensa and Democracia, 11 Nov. 1954; Hechos e Ideas (Oct.–Nov. 1954): 387–397. 152 chapter seven next day editorials in La Prensa and La Epoca warned that the political- religious provocations had brought the nation’s patience to breaking point. The police continued to detain priests who attacked the government from their pulpits, and prominent Catholics were removed from public positions.61 The regime then took further steps. Both chambers of Congress ratifi ed a law permitting divorce and remarriage; brothels received legal authorization to resume operations under offi cial supervision; a law was passed giving children born out of wedlock the same rights as ‘legitimate’ children; and another law was enacted requiring most political and religious gatherings to take place in closed halls—no more open-air marches, rallies, and demonstrations. The Radical minority in Congress protested this infringement of freedom of expression, since opposition groups would not have the money to rent halls, and in any case the owners of the halls would be afraid to rent space to such groups. The Argentine Church focused its opposition on the fi rst two laws. The Church leaders published a pastoral letter denouncing the divorce law, and the Catholic daily El Pueblo—shortly afterwards closed down by the government—also deplored the measure, which was passed very quickly (the draft legislation was proposed, debated, passed by both chambers of Congress, and sent to Perón to be signed all in one day). The law also drew an indignant response from Osservatore Romano, the Vatican daily, which described the situation in Argentina as “the oppression of Catholicism, the religious and moral freedom of believers, and the rights of the Church.”62 In April 1955, the Peronist press began a campaign in favor of separating church and state by amending the constitution. Citing the US as an example of a country in which all religions were equal and no one religion enjoyed special privileges, the newspapers claimed that a constitutional amendment was the only way to guarantee equality among religions and true freedom of religious worship in Argentina.63 At the traditional May 1st rally in the plaza next to the presidential

61 Nevertheless, there was no policy of mass arrests at this point. Between October 1954 and May 1955 a total of 25 priests were arrested, most of whom were released shortly afterwards. See “Review of Church-State Developments,” 5 May 1955, NA, 835.413/5–555. 62 Castiella to Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores (hereafter MAE), 23 Dec. 1954, APG, Leg. 21. 63 Siracusa to State Department, 12 April 1955, NA, 735.00/4-1255; Siracusa to State Department, 15 April 1955, NA, 735.00/4-1555. This American diplomat did a pact of oblivion 153 palace, Perón declared that the people wanted and were entitled to separation between church and state. In the following days, both the men’s and women’s sections of the Peronist Party, as well as the Per- onist majority in both chambers of Congress, endorsed ‘the people’s will’ as it had been expressed on May 1st. The Congress decided to hold elections within six months for a constitutional convention, to make amendments to the constitution that would guarantee full religious freedom and equality. A wave of dismissals of religion teachers in the state schools was followed by the decision formally to abolish the religious education law. The congressional debate on the repeal of the law lasted less than ﬁ ve hours. The brevity of this debate was particularly notable in view of the long, stormy session in the Chamber of Deputies eight years earlier that had ended with the decision to enact the religious education law.64 It indicated that the regime no longer felt any need for the Church’s legitimation, and considered itself within arm’s reach of spiritual-cultural hegemony in the state. It also showed that the Congress had already become a rubber stamp for the regime, a mere sounding-board for the Peronist leadership’s pronouncements. A majority-faction delegate explained the proposal to cancel the religious education law as a response to the need to adjust the legal situation to changing circumstances: “Peronism abolishes laws when they lose their relevance, when new needs of society make changes necessary, and that is the case now.”65 A few days later the Chamber of Deputies passed a law establishing the separation of church and state.

Clerics, Nationalists, and the Anti-Semitic Campaign

The Perón government’s last measures should have been welcomed by the country’s Jews, since a number of those measures were likely to improve the Jewish situation in Argentina. After all, some of the new laws were designed to end the subjection of non-Catholic Argentine citizens to Catholic religious norms and to reduce the state’s Catholic

not object to the government’s measures against the Church, only the way in which they were applied by an authoritarian government. 64 República Argentina, Diario de Sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados (1955) I: 213– 243. 65 Ibid. 154 chapter seven characteristics. However, just as during the 1940s the organized Jewish community had maintained a low profi le during the public debate over the institution of Catholic religious lessons in the public schools, now, too, it preferred to avoid any public statement of opinion concerning the abolishment of those lessons, even though community leaders did consider it a positive step.66 They viewed the anticlerical measures as part of the political confl ict with the Church and other opponents of the regime—a confl ict in which the DAIA wanted no part. Per- haps there was also some fear that a government that could change its policy so drastically and permit, possibly even secretly encourage, attacks on churches might very well change its policy on Jews, too, and sanction aggression against synagogues.67 The Jewish community leaders’ caution is understandable in view of the anti-Semitic pamphlets then circulating, which included accusations against the Jews and Freemasons surrounding President Perón who were allegedly responsible for the attempt to separate church and state. An accusing fi nger was pointed in particular at “Borlenghi the Jew” (one satirical leafl et had it “Borlensky the Jew”). The accusations were groundless, if only because Borlenghi was not a Jew, but rather a Catholic married to a Jew, and, in any case, he apparently disapproved of the confl ict with the Church.68 One of the leafl ets claimed that Perón was a Freemason who was manipulated like “a puppet by the Jewish secret societies.”69 At the end of 1954—in the city of Córdoba, which had always been considered a Catholic stronghold—the police broke up a demonstration of Catholics who were carrying signs that proclaimed “Down with Perón and his Jewish friends!”70 The conspicuous presence of Rabbi Amram Blum at Perón’s side especially enraged Catholic groups. His prayer for Evita’s health earned him

66 See chapter 5 in this volume. 67 Fordham to Foreign Offi ce, 7 Jan. 1955, Public Record Offi ce, Foreign Offi ce Papers, London (hereafter FO), 371/114066. 68 Potash, The Army and Politics in Argentina, II: 175–176; Félix Lafi andra, ed., Los panfl etos—Su aporte a la Revolución Libertadora (Buenos Aires, 1955), 227–228; Hipólito Paz, Memorias (Buenos Aires, 1999), 208–209; author’s interview with Clara Borlenghi (Buenos Aires, 9 Sept. 1997). Borlenghi was forced to make a point of publicly pro- claiming his Christian credentials, despite his criticisms of the Church leadership. See Kobovy to Tov, 10 June 1955, ISA 2571/10. 69 Kobovy to Tov, 12 May 1955, ISA 2571/10; Yagupsky to Segal, 2 May 1955, AJC Files, Box 1. 70 Yagupsky to Segal, 8 Dec. 1954, AJC Files, Box 1. a pact of oblivion 155 enemies both in and outside the Jewish community. In the atmosphere of confl ict with the Church, many Jews saw clearly that in fact the anti-Semitic threat did not emanate from Perón’s regime, but from his conservative Catholic enemies. They feared that, as in other times and places, the Jews would become “victims of a Kulturkampf.”71 Seeking to halt the evident anti-Semitic trend spawned by the atmosphere of crisis, and aware that Argentine Jews were being identifi ed with the regime, the Argentine Jewish Institute (Instituto Judío Argen- tino, the Argentine branch of the American Jewish Committee) sought to tell the Catholic establishment that the Jewish community was worried about the situation and opposed the attacks on the Church. As a religious group, the Institute explained, Jews respected the Church. Máximo Yagupsky and Rabbi Guillermo Schlesinger met with Car- dinal Santiago Luis Copello’s secretary, even though at the time the police was watching all meetings with people in the Church leadership. The secretary thanked his visitors for their solidarity, and told them that after Perón’s fall the Jews would have no cause for worry, since the Church would not permit any injury to them. Institute representatives held similar meetings with Cardinal Caggiano, Monsignor Miguel de Andrea, Carlos Cucciti, the cultural attaché of the Vatican’s legation in Buenos Aires, and others. The meetings were held in various and occasionally strange places, in order to evade observation by the authorities. At all such meetings, the churchmen were asked to try to stop the distribution of anti-Semitic pamphlets. The Israeli legation (promoted to embassy in April 195572), too, began a dialog with Church representatives.73 Although in this atmosphere the leaders of the Jewish community believed it was better to refrain from unnecessary declarations, just then the DAIA published a collection of Perón’s speeches under the title El pensamiento del Presidente Perón sobre el pueblo judío (Perón’s Thoughts on the Jewish People). To make matters worse, Moshe Tov remarked that the book contained “the Argentine president’s anti-discriminatory doctrine and constructive attitude towards the Jewish people.” Both

71 See Memorandum by S. A. Fineberg, 14 June 1955, AJC Files, Box 3. 72 Diario de Sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados (1955) I: 35. 73 Kobovy to Tov, 18 April 1955, and Tov to Kobovy, 3 May 1955, ISA, 2571/10; Mundo Israelita, 26 Feb. 1955; Yagupsky to Segal, 8 Dec. 1954 and 26 July 1955. AJC Files, Box 1. 156 chapter seven circumstances were considered by Perón’s opponents as evidence of Jewish support for the regime.74 The series of gestures Perón made towards the non-Catholic religions from the end of 1954 onward also caused some embarrassment in Jewish circles. Máximo Yagupsky reported from Chile—since he was worried that his letters would be opened by the Peronist authorities—to the American Jewish Committee that “Perón has begun to show ‘too much’ friendliness towards Jews, Evangelists, Protestants, and Spiritualists.” According to Yagupsky, “As regards demonstrations of friendship towards Jews, I must admit that we have never been very happy about this, and we have always been aware that it would not end well.” In his next letters Yagupsky accused the DAIA leadership of “shortsightedness.” Hyperbolically he claimed that the DAIA had been Peronized, and that the Israeli embassy was unilaterally sympathetic towards Perón.75 For about six months Perón seemed to be succeeding in his measures against the Church without arousing strong opposition. In fact, however, he was turning the Church into a symbol of the anti-Peronist struggle, providing a unifying cause for the divided opposition to rally around, and gradually arousing internal disputes on the subject within his own dominant camp. The anti-religious campaign also weakened the loyalty of the army, which had always been one of the central pillars of the regime. Ferment began in the land forces as well as the navy, which had always been hostile to Perón.76 On 11 June, the opposition held a huge anti-Peronist demonstration as part of the traditional Corpus Christi procession, despite the authorities’ prohibition. A considerable number of Argentines joined the procession not out of religious feeling, but to express opposition to the regime. The government accused the demonstrators of fl ying a foreign fl ag, that of the Vatican, just outside the national Congress building on fl agpoles meant for the Argentine fl ag, and of burning

74 La Razón, 13 Jan. 1955, cited in Orestes D. Confalioneri, Perón contra Perón (Buenos Aires, 1956), 280. 75 Yagupsky to Segal, 8 Dec. 1954, 2 May 1955, and 26 July 1955, AJC Files, Box 1. 76 On the Argentine navy, its attitude to Perón, and its role in the Liberating Revo- lution, see Robert Potash, The Army and Politics, 188 ff; Perón’s minister of the navy told the court martial that tried him for his participation in the events of 16 June that he had supported Peronism up to the attack on the Church. See Aníbal O. Olivieri, Dos veces rebelde (Buenos Aires, 1958), 139. a pact of oblivion 157 the national fl ag (it was actually policemen who did that, as provocation), and of vandalizing the plaque commemorating “the martyr of the workers,” Eva Perón, inside the Congress building. Hundreds of people were arrested, and Perón expelled two bishops, Manuel Tato, and Ramón Novoa, from the capital. This was the last straw for the Vatican. It excommunicated all those involved in the infringement of the Church’s rights or who used violence against the clergy. Perón’s name was not explicitly mentioned, but it was clear to almost everyone that the president and his government were included in this category. A few days later there was an attempted coup d’état. On 16 June navy planes bombarded the area of the Plaza de Mayo, trying in vain to hit Perón in the presidential palace. Hundreds of people were killed or wounded. That same night Peronist groups set fi re to a number of churches, causing damage.77 Although no injury was done to Jews or any of their institutions, the community leadership panicked. Some of the leaders were afraid to maintain ties with the Israeli embassy during this period. Kubovy, a former delegate to the World Jewish Congress and highly sensitive in matters concerning the local Jewish population, stopped reporting to Jerusalem and plunged into a round of talks with the heads of the Jew- ish community, government dignitaries, and opposition fi gures. “It was a shocking experience for me,” Kubovy summed up after a month, “to see this community completely adrift and viewing itself as a ‘ghetto’ exposed to any attack.”78 The journalist and publisher Marc Turkow, who had represented the World Jewish Congress in Argentina since the end of 1954, also sent a report from Brazil to the organization’s headquarters in New York, criticizing the weakness of the Argentine Jewish community leadership and the way it had responded to the events of June—events he described as “tragic.”79 The absence of attacks on Jews was attributed to Perón’s sympathy for the Jewish community, the relations the Israeli embassy had been

77 On the failed uprising of 16 June, see Buenos Aires Embassy to State Depart- ment, 22 June 1955, NA, 735.00/62255; Potash, The Army and Politics, II, ch. 6; Rouquié, Poder militar y sociedad política, II, ch. 3; Julio Godio, La caída de Perón (Buenos Aires, 1985). Members of the Argentine Jewish Institute of Culture and Information accompanied Cardinal Caggiano when he visited some of the churches involved; see Yagupsky to Segal, 27 July 1955, AJC Files, Box 1. 78 Kobovy to Tov, 18 July 1955, ISA, 2388/11; Tov to Kobovy, 19 July 1955, and Kobovy to Tov, 19 Aug. 1955, ISA, 2571/10. 79 See memo from Abraham Hyman, 15 July 1955, CZA Z6/927. 158 chapter seven cultivating with the Alianza Libertadora Nacionalista, and Kubovy’s dialog with Catholic groups and individuals (seeking favor with the Church, the Israeli embassy even gave several Catholic nuns refuge during the anticlerical campaign). The vigorous efforts of Pablo Manguel, who was trying to mediate between the regime and the Church, also helped reduce anti-Semitic propaganda from Catholic sources.80 Turkow received a report from Manguel about a meeting with Perón during which the president had claimed that the derailment of the coup and the regime’s sympathy for the Jews had prevented a serious outburst of anti-Semitism.81 Manguel also maintained contacts with Catholic leaders in an effort to decrease the tension between the Church and the Jewish institutions. Yet at the same time, in the days after the attempted coup, the Jew- ish press, which in fact had been trying to limit its identifi cation with the regime, printed articles defending Perón’s regime and denouncing those who conspired against the constitutional government as well as the Catholic groups responsible for spreading anti-Semitic propaganda.82 Between the uprising that failed on 16 June and the successful coup on 16 September that toppled the regime, Perón took a series of measures, sometimes contradictory, that refl ected his uncertainty about what he should do next.83 First he tried an iron-fi st approach with the opposition; then he switched to conciliation. But neither the opposition nor the heads of the Church were willing to play by Perón’s rules, and they intensifi ed their criticism of the regime. Changing tactics

80 Tov to Kobovy, “Las actividades de Manguel,” 18 July 1955, ISA, 2388/11; Tov to Kobovy, 2 Aug. 1955, and World Jewish Congress to Tov, 4 Aug. 1955, ISA, 2574/4; interview with Rosalía Manguel, Manguel’s wife, Instituto Nacional de Inves- tigaciones Históricas Eva Perón, Programa de Historia Oral, p. 8. The positions that Manguel fi lled indicate that Perón continued to support the OIA and policies favorable to Jews. See Hevesi to Hochstein, 8 July 1955, and Liskofsky to Danzig, 30 June 1955, AJC Files, Box 3. 81 See report dated 4 Aug. 1955, ISA, 2574/4. 82 See Yosef (Jorge) Goldstein, “The Infl uence of the State of Israel and the Jewish Agency on Jewish Life in Argentina and Uruguay, 1948–1953” [Hebrew] (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1993), 309; Di Presse, 18 June 1955; Di Idishe Tsaytung, 7 July 1955, 1 Sept. 1955. 83 On the period between June and September 1955, see: María Sánez Quesada, La libertadora: De Péron a Frondizi, 1955–1958 (Buenos Aires, 2007); Potash, The Army and Politics, II: 180–213; Rouquié, Poder militar, ch. 3; Joseph A. Page, Perón—A Biography (New York, 1983), ch. 35; Bonifacio del Carril, Crónica interna de la Revolución Libertadora (Buenos Aires, 1959); Godio, La caída de Perón. a pact of oblivion 159 once more, at the end of August Perón dramatically announced his intention of resigning. The Peronist Party rejected this idea, and the CGT declared a general strike, calling on the workers to assemble in the Plaza de Mayo and remain there until Perón renounced his declaration. A great crowd did indeed congregate, as expected, and that night Perón appeared on the balcony of the presidential palace and told his excited supporters that he accepted their will and would continue in offi ce. This was Perón’s last major demonstration of mass power before his overthrow. In the speech he made on this occasion, Perón harshly denounced his enemies and warned that any violence on their part would be met with greater violence. He entrusted, or rather abandoned, the law to his supporters when he hinted that from that moment on each of them could kill anyone who undermined the existing order. These declarations only caused ferment in the armed forces, especially the navy, and increased his opponents’ determination to topple the regime. The uprising in mid-September was successful and Perón was forced to relinquish power, taking refuge on a Paraguayan warship anchored in the Buenos Aires port. About two weeks later he boarded a navy plane that took him to neighboring Paraguay, the fi rst stop in a long 18 years of exile.84 In light of the anti-Semitic reverberations of the events of June 1955, the foreign ministry in Jerusalem decided that the situation in Argentina called for aid to the local Jewish community. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion sent the head of the Mossad, Isser Harel, to Bue- nos Aires to help the Jews there prepare to defend themselves, should it prove necessary. In a chapter of his memoirs entitled “Defense and Aid to Jews in Distress,” Harel wrote: At the beginning of July 1955, alarms were already reaching Israel concerning the fate of the Jews of Argentina, against the backdrop of the rebellion against the regime of the dictator Juan Perón by members of the Argentine navy on 16 June of that year. The abortive coup had been supported by the Catholic establishment in that country, and Catholic public opinion saw the Jews as loyal allies of the dictator it detested. An atmosphere of anti-Semitism developed among Perón’s opponents, giving rise to strong fears among the Jews of bitter consequences if the revolt achieved its purpose. But when the uprising failed, the revolutionary

84 On Perón’s exile, see Page, Perón, chs. 37–41; Crassweller, Perón and the Enigmas of Argentina (New York, 1986), chs. 10–12. 160 chapter seven

ferment did not subside. The rebels began planning the next attempt [. . .]. I decided to go to Argentina in order to assess the situation at ﬁ rst hand.85 Harel did not land in Buenos Aires airport until the morning of 16 September, when the second revolt against Perón was at its height. He stayed in the capital for about a week, until it was clear that the rebels were in control and the Jews had nothing to fear.86

Between Perón, Lonardi, and Aramburu

The new president, General Eduardo Lonardi, was a devout Catholic who had the blessing of the Argentine Church. On the day he was sworn in, he went out on the balcony of the Casa Rosada with Cardi- nal Copello, the archbishop of Buenos Aires, at his side. There could be no better testimony to the important role the Church had played in the anti-Peronist revolution. Many Jews welcomed Juan Perón’s overthrow and the institution of the military government, partly because they hoped for political stability after a particularly turbulent year. The DAIA published a prayer for the repose of those killed in the coup, and expressed hope for the peace needed to restore democracy.87 The Jewish press—for example, Di Idishe Tsaytung and Mundo Israelita—praised the new government. However, the satisfaction felt by many Argentine Jews was tempered by anxiety. Like the previous military coups in September 1930 and June 1943, the coup of September 1955 put nationalists of the extreme Catholic right into the upper ranks of the regime. Lonardi surrounded himself with ﬁ gures of the ultra-nationalist Catholic school that had surfaced in Argentina in the 1920s—a school that was inﬂ uenced by Charles Maurras and Action Française, Italian Fascism, the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, and the Spanish Falange.88

85 Isser Harel, Security and Democracy [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1989), 299–302. 86 Israeli Foreign Ministry to Kobovy, 23 Aug. 1955, and Kobovy to Pratto, 21 Nov. 1955, ISA, 2571/10; Eliav to Pratto, 23 Nov. 1955, ISA, 477/11; Goldstein, “Inﬂ uen- cia del Estado de Israel,” 295. 87 DAIA, Medio siglo, 14. 88 Paul Lewis, “The Right and Military Rule, 1955–1983,” in The Argentine Right: Its History and Intellectual Origins, 1910 to the Present, ed. Sandra McGee Deutsch and Ronald H. Dolkart (Wilmington, Del., 1993), 151–153; Szusterman, Frondizi and the Politics of a pact of oblivion 161

The new offi cial in charge of the press was the nationalist extremist Juan Carlos Goyeneche. Editor of the prestigious periodical Sol y Luna, Goyeneche had supported the Nationalist revolt in Spain in 1936. He was invited to Madrid by Franco’s dictatorship, and remained in Europe during the years 1942–1946. Goyeneche had supported the Axis countries in World War II, and as a reporter for the nationalist daily Cabildo he had interviewed prominent Fascist leaders such as Hitler, Himmler, and Ciano. As a journalist, he accompanied the ‘Blue Division’ which the Franco regime sent to fi ght the Allies on the eastern front alongside the Wehrmacht, and he remained loyal to Nazi Germany even after the tide of war turned against it.89 Mario Amadeo, Lonardi’s minister of foreign affairs and religion, had identifi ed with German interests in the 1930s and during World War II, and adopted Franco’s Spain as his model after the war.90 The education ministry was handed over to Atilio Dell’Oro Maini, a Catho- lic extremist who at the end of the 1920s had been one of the founders of the Catholic right-wing publication Criterio. Lonardi then appointed as his personal secretary his nationalist brother-in-law, Clemente Vil- lada Achával, scion of a respected Catholic family of Córdoba. The new government offi cials hoped that the Liberating Revolution would lead to the national revolution that Perón had promised but failed to deliver. The regime they envisioned resembled the military one of 1943–1945 that had preceded the development of the Peronist movement and the institution of the Peronist regime. The make-up of the new government did not augur well for the Jews. In the religious sphere, it was to be expected that the new regime would abolish all the secular and anti-Catholic legislation that the Per- onist government had instituted in previous months, and so it did, restoring virtually all the rights that had been taken away from the

Developmentalism, 17, Potash, The Army and Politics, II: 216–220; Yagupsky to Segal, 28 Sept. 1955, AJC Files, Box 1. 89 ABC (Madrid), 30 Nov. 1946; Ronald C. Newton, The “Nazi Menace” in Argentina, 1931–1947 (Stanford, Calif., 1992), 240–241. On Goyeneche’s stay in Europe, see also the reports dated 2 March 1945 and 15 Nov. 1946, NA 735.52/3-245, 835.00/11- 1546; United States, Department of State, Consultation among the American Republics with Respect to the Argentine Situation (Washington, D.C., 1946), 43–44. For biographical information, see Juan Carlos Goyeneche, Ensayos, artículos, discursos (Buenos Aires, 1976), 601–608. 90 On Amadeo, who played an important role in the Catholic plotting against Perón’s regime, see Newton, The “Nazi Menace,” 120; Page, Perón, 302, 306, 307. 162 chapter seven

Church.91 However, at their very fi rst press conference Lonardi and Rear-Admiral Isaac Rojas promised that they would respect the religious rights of every sector of the Argentine population. At DAIA meetings, as Jewish leaders tried to clarify their position on the deposed regime, the atmosphere was one of breast-beating, self-justifi cation, and efforts to explain why the Jewish institutions had not denounced the “regime of terror and enslavement.” Members mentioned Perón’s friendly treatment of the Jewish community, his support for the State of Israel, and his declarations condemning anti- Semitism in Argentina and abroad. One speaker tried to emphasize that “the vast majority of Jews did not agree to become Peronists, and the DAIA did not become Perón’s tool.” Participants in the debate agreed that lessons should be learned from the past and that the organization should return, as much as possible, to the policy of abstaining from political involvement, and expel those people who constituted links between the Jewish community and Perón’s deposed regime. It should be noted that the Israeli embassy sought to limit the scope of this purge in the community institutions, since the leaders of the OIA, especially Pablo Manguel, had done their best to promote relations between Argentina and Israel during the Perón period. The DAIA leaders engaged in long debates over the best tack to take with the new government, and even consulted the Israeli embassy.92 It seems that many within the community institutions felt that the DAIA and other major Jewish institutions had gone too far in expressing their support of the deposed president. It was feared that many non- Jews had come to see the Jewish community as compromised by the Peronist state. This was a “really serious matter,” according to Máximo Yagupsky, as Jewish organizations had been “compelled to make peri- odic statements praising Perón, to appear in his offi ce, make speeches, and hold meetings in his honor.” “Now the problem,” wrote Yagupsky, “is how can this be erased.”93 In these deliberations, Goldman expressed the hope that the DAIA would succeed in “smoothing the road, in polishing the rough edges

91 Leonard, Politicians, Pupils, and Priests, p. 168. Nevertheless, Lonardi did not go so far as to reinstitute compulsory religious studies in the schools, since he did not want to antagonize the many followers of the Liberating Revolution who were completely secular in outlook. 92 See memo from Turkow, 30 Sept. 1955, and Hyman to Nahum Goldman, CZA, Z6/926. 93 Yagupsky to Segal, 28 September 1955, AJC/YIVO Archives. a pact of oblivion 163 and discrepancies which beyond a doubt will redound in the well being of the collective whose well being we all long for.”94 Other speakers put the blame on OIA pressures, sometimes referring to the organization’s leaders as a small “traitorous” section of the community. At the end of the meeting, ostensibly closed but whose decisions were leaked to the Jewish press, Goldman called upon various institutions to take steps to remove supporters of the previous regime from offi ce.95 A declaration signed by the OIA’s president, Moisés Goldman, and the secretary, León Lapaco, expressed solidarity with the liberal values that Lonardi had extolled in his fi rst speech. The DAIA, which had known how to adapt to the rules of the Peronist regime, now adapted to the rules of the Liberating Revolution. And, once again, leaders such as Goldman himself led the way. A DAIA delegation met with the minister of foreign affairs and religion, Amadeo, who promised that the regime would continue the previous good relations with Jews and Israel.96 Ambassador Kubovy received similar assurances.97 After all, the Liberating Revolution also had a strong interest in maintaining close relations with Washington, and its leaders were as strongly convinced as Perón of the power and infl uence of American Jews.

Amram Blum: The Rabbi Turned Scapegoat

In any case, the Lonardi government did not last long. Parts of the army, headed by Vice-President Rojas, believed that Lonardi was much too conciliatory with the Peronists and the CGT. On 13 November an internal revolt took place and General Pedro Eugenio Aramburu seized power. The Catholic nationalists were forced to resign along with Lonardi.98 Under Aramburu, the new regime launched a campaign to destroy all “the manifestations of totalitarianism” that Peronism had

94 Quoted in Bell, “The Jews and Perón,” 283. 95 Idishe Tsaytung, 13 October 1955. 96 Mundo Israelita, 29 October 1955. 97 A copy of the telegram that the DAIA sent to Lonardi on 25 Sept. 1955 is in ISA 474/23; Bernstein to Pratto, 20 Nov. 1955, ISA 2574/4; Kubovy to Pratto, 20 Oct. 1955, ISA 2579/18. 98 Goyeneche was detained for several weeks on suspicion of treason, on the basis of ideas presented in Silvano Santander’s book, Técnica de una traición, which was about the cooperation of Argentine public fi gures with Nazi Germany during World War II. See Sandifer to State Department, 14 Aug. 1956, NA 735.00/8-1456. 164 chapter seven introduced into Argentine society, and “to establish the rule of morality, justice, law, culture, and democracy.” Public offi cials appointed by the old regime were fi red. The Peronist constitution was abolished, and the 1853 constitution was reinstated. The dissemination of Per- onist propaganda was prohibited, as was the use of Peronist symbols and slogans. Newspapers were forbidden to mention the names of Perón and Evita, or such concepts as ‘Peronism,’ ‘justicialism,’ and ‘the third position,’ as well as the abbreviation PP (‘Partido Peronista,’ or Peronist Party). The victims of the anti-Peronist campaign included members of the OIA, notably Pablo Manguel, in whose house the authorities found “valuable documentation, alcoholic beverages, and American cigarettes.” As his wife told the story, They came publicly to the house, yes, to go through the house, to see if they could fi nd anything, and of course they did, they found a little wine, a half-fi nished cup of coffee, a little whatever . . . things like that . . . Six years abroad, you wouldn’t bring anything back?99 Manguel and Zabotinsky were arrested and briefl y incarcerated in the Las Heras prison by the new authorities. The deputy interior minister, Abraham Krislavin, fl ed to neighboring Uruguay, and Argentina requested his extradition.100 The charismatic and popular sports journalist, Luis Elías Sojit, went into exile in Brazil, returning to Argentina only in 1958, after the demise of the military regime that had ousted Perón. As the authorities of the Liberating Revolution sought to de- Peronize Argentine society, rooting out anything and anybody tainted by association with the deposed regime, the Jewish community institutions also embarked on a purge to ensure friendly treatment by the new government. Worried that the Jewish community might be too closely identifi ed with Peronism, the leaders of the DAIA worked swiftly to expel people identifi ed with the previous regime—who had “licked Perón’s boots,” as Máximo Yagupsky put it—from any offi cial position or standing in Jewish economic or philanthropic organizations (even the DAIA’s president, Ricardo Dubrovsky, had joined the Peronist Party).

99 Interview with Rosalía Manguel, p. 9. 100 La Razón, 9 Nov. 1956; La Nación, 11 Feb. 1957. a pact of oblivion 165

This purge extended to social welfare institutions such as the Ezrah Hospital and the Jewish orphanage. The removal of one of the OIA’s founders and former president, Salvador Woscoff, from the executive board of the Jewish hospital provoked a considerable amount of turmoil and caused embarrassment to both Jewish institutions and individuals. In mid-October Moisés Goldman asked Woscoff to resign his position but Woscoff “reacted very strongly against the request.”101 After all, he was not the only supporter of Peronism on the hospital’s executive board. Unsurprisingly, the other members of the board protested against the DAIA’s interference in hospital affairs. The DAIA, however, did not back down, publishing its justiﬁ cation in the Jewish press. Woscoff had to bow to this pressure but he did so only after publishing a strongly worded letter in which he claimed that the DAIA, presided over by Dr. Moisés Goldman, did not act with the impartiality that the situation warranted, perhaps because Dr. Goldman has on his own board persons who should apologize for their direct or indirect collaboration with the Peronist regime.102 This was the context for the abolishment on 4 October 1955 of the job of rabbinical court president, a measure taken in order to get rid of Rabbi Amram Blum, Perón’s advisor on religious matters, who had joined Perón in reciting the Jewish prayer for the dead, Kaddish, after Evita’s death.103 Blum had won more than a few enemies within the Jewish community. The Sephardic weekly La Luz had already begun attacking this “tyrant’s protégé” around the end of 1954, asserting that “Rabbi Blum never did anything positive for Argentine Judaism.”104 Following Perón’s overthrow, the paper stepped up its criticism of those who, like Blum, had supported “the policies and behavior of the deposed dictatorship.” According to La Luz,

101 Bell, “The Jews and Perón,” 286. 102 On the Woscoff affair, see Di Idishe Tsaytung, 20 Oct. 1955; Di Presse, 20 Oct. 1955; Mundo Israelita, 22 and 29 Oct. 1955. 103 Eliav to Israeli Foreign Ministry, 23 Nov. 1955, ISA 477/10; AJYB 57 (1956): 524; AJYB 58 (1957): 405; Yagupsky to Segal, 28 Sept. 1955, AJC Files, Box 1; Benno Gitter, Story of a Life [Hebrew] ( Jerusalem, 1997), 153; memos from Hyman dated 22 Nov. 1955, 29 Nov. 1955, CZA. 104 La Luz, 26 Nov. 1954, 24 Dec. 1954. 166 chapter seven

[t]he triumphant revolution has shaken the citizens of this nation out of their torpor [. . .]. Suddenly, as if a miracle had happened, the Argentine people stood up and shouted together “Liberty!”105 La Luz insisted that all these Jews should be fi red. At fi rst, Blum, like Woscoff, made it clear that he would not relinquish his title without a fi ght, promising “to declare that in his future action he would limit himself to questions of internal religion only.”106 He also threatened to take legal measures against the AMIA. Accord- ing to Blum, divesting him of his position as head of the rabbinical court was an illegal move, since only a religious body composed of other rabbis had the power to undertake such a disciplinary action. Despite these efforts, however, he eventually had to accept defeat.107 Unsurprisingly, in December 1955 the rejected rabbi decided to go into exile and moved to the United States. There he offi ciated in the religious ceremonies of Jewish communities in Los Angeles and Cleveland, eventually passing away in the latter city in 1970 at the age of 57.108 The weekly Mundo Israelita, which only a few months earlier had published several articles and features favorable to the OIA and Perón’s regime, now jumped on the anti-Peronist bandwagon.109 In its Sep- tember 17 issue, the day after the coup, Mundo Israelita had still published Perón’s best wishes to Jewish Argentines and the State of Israel for the Jewish high holidays. Now, however, in the midst of the ‘de- Peronization’ fervor sweeping the country, it joined the anti-Peronist campaign. In its 1 Oct. 1955 issue the paper praised the new regime and the rights it promised to uphold, and some three weeks later (on 22 October 1955) it was already referring to Perón’s government as a “totalitarian” regime that had suppressed civil and human rights like the regimes of Hitler and Mussolini. It was not by chance, remarked the Jewish weekly, that “the dictator” had surrounded himself with Nazi advisors. The editors of Mundo Israelita also tried to explain to their readers and the authorities of the new regime why in the past they had published items praising Perón’s regime: They had been afraid that criticizing the regime would get the paper closed down.

105 La Luz, 7 Oct. 1955. 106 Quoted in Bell, “The Jews and Perón,” 285. 107 La Luz, 7 Oct. and 25 Nov. 1955; Mundo Israelita, 26 Nov. 1955. 108 Weisbrot, The Jews of Argentina, 127. 109 See, for example, 11 June 1955. a pact of oblivion 167

Only fear of the tyrannical regime’s possible response, they claimed, had led them to print those favorable articles.110 Prior to the emergence of Peronism, Jews were not always considered part of the Argentine polis, civitas, or demos. The ruling elites’ vision of the Argentine nation bore very little relation to social and demographic realities, and, under the Catholic infl uence, excluded not only social but also important ethnic sectors. Granting formal citizenship to all indigenous people and immigrant groups did not mean much in a society where elections were rigged and the elites viewed popular and immigrant culture with contempt. It was Peronism, in part infl uenced by socialist ideas, that opened the way for new social, political, and cultural defi nitions of citizenship. With its rehabilitation of popular culture and folklore, its efforts to rewrite the national history, and its inclusion of ethnic minorities that had previously languished on the margins of society (such as Jews and Arabs), Peronism transformed many of these ciudadanos imaginarios into an integral part of Argentine society. Peron’s efforts to redefi ne citizenship were refl ected in his policies, which acknowledged both the legitimacy of claims to collective ethnic—and, by the same token, multiple—identities and the justice of redistributing the national pie. Precisely by looking not just at individual but also at group rights, he paved the way for today’s multicultural Argentina. The Jewish community of Argentina was divided in its attitudes towards Peronism. Albeit not a majority, a substantial number of Jews supported Peronism for one reason or another. At any rate, de- Peronization efforts were more successful in the Jewish community than in Argentine society in general. It is often said that ‘Jews have long memories,’ and that may be true. But their memory, like that of other ethnic and social groups, is selective. Neither the collective memory of Argentine Jews nor the history books seem to retain much recall of the fact that many Jews did in fact support Perón and the justicialist movement in its early years.

110 Mundo Israelita, 8 Oct. 1955. Di Idishe Tsaytung published similar criticisms of the Perón regime (23 Sept. 1955, 25 Oct. 1955). Di Presse, in contrast, was notable for its moderation and lack of condemnation for the deposed regime.

CHAPTER EIGHT

ARGENTINE JEWS AND THE ACCUSATION OF ‘DUAL LOYALTY’

Although the State of Israel had defi ned itself from the very beginning as a Jewish state and declared its commitment to defending the interests of all Jews, the interests of Israeli foreign policy were not always congruent with those of local Jewish communities. The dynamics at each of these levels were different. Moshe Sharett, the fi rst foreign minister of Israel, met Argentine President Juan Perón in 1953 and expressed his satisfaction at “the existence of a triangular harmony: between the Argentine government and its Jewish citizens; between Argentine Jews and Israel; and between the Argentine government and its Israeli counterpart,”1 but in practice, of course, the situation was more complex.2 This explains why, for example, President Perón (1946–1955) could succeed in cultivating close relations with the State of Israel while failing to mobilize signifi cant support in the Argentine Jewish community. The disparity between Israel’s interests and those of Argentine Jews was also notable during the presidency of Arturo Frondizi, leader of the centrist Radical Party, whose democratic credentials and sympathy for the Jewish minority were never in doubt.3 Frondizi’s election in

1 Documents on the Foreign Policy of Israel, vol. 8 (1953) (Jerusalem: Israel State Archives, 1995), 248 2 On the Jewish aspect of Israel’s foreign policy and on the intrinsic tension between the deﬁ nition of Israel as a Jewish state and its role in the international arena as a state like any other that wanted to promote and safeguard speciﬁ c interests, see Michael Brecher, The Foreign Policy System of Israel (New Haven, Conn., 1972), 233–244; Shmuel Sandler, “Is There a Jewish Foreign Policy?” The Jewish Journal of Sociology XXIX, no. 2 (Dec. 1987): 115–122; Yitzhak Mualem, “Between a Jewish and an Israeli For- eign Policy: Israel-Argentina Relations and the Issue of Jewish Disappeared Persons and Detainees Under the Military Junta, 1976–1983,” Jewish Political Studies Review 16, no. 1–2 (2004). 3 On Frondizi and his presidency, see Celia Szusterman, Frondizi and the Politics of Developmentalism in Argentina, 1955–62 (Pittsburgh, 1993); Daniel Rodríguez Lamas, La presidencia de Frondizi (Buenos Aires, 1984); Isidro J. L. Odena, Libertadores y desarrollistas (Buenos Aires, 1977); Emilia Menotti, Frondizi: Una biografía (Buenos Aires, 1998); Félix Luna, Diálogos con Frondizi (Buenos Aires, 1998). 170 chapter eight

February 1958 was welcomed by both the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires and the leaders of the organized Jewish community. Soon after the new president took ofﬁ ce, their expectations seemed to have been justiﬁ ed. Argentine Jews felt an increasing sense of security and wellbeing, in part because several Jews had been appointed to high posts in the government—posts that Jews had never held before in Argentina. Relations with Israel, too, grew closer. Foreign Minister Golda Meir’s visit to Buenos Aires in 1959, for example, allowed the Frondizi government to display its sympathy for Israel publicly.4 A year later, however, all this changed. In May 1960, at the height of the celebrations to mark 150 years of Argentine independence and the Republic’s liberation from the yoke of Spanish colonialism, Mossad agents kidnapped the Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann and took him to Israel for trial.5 In Buenos Aires this violation of Argentina’s national sovereignty aroused great anger. Although various foreign-policy considerations ensured that the ensuing diplomatic crisis was resolved within a few weeks and relations with Israel quickly returned to normal, violent manifestations of anti-Semitism threatened the position of Argentine Jews, whose number at the time was estimated at just above 300,000 out of a population of about 21 million—in other words, less than 2 percent of the total population.6 The Argentine Jewish community, just then marking the 100th anniversary of its existence, became the target of a wave of anti-Semitic terror and nationalist attacks that,

4 On Frondizi’s foreign policy, see María de Monserrat Llairó and Raimundo Siepe, Frondizi: Un nuevo modelo de inserción internacional (Buenos Aires, 2003). 5 On the kidnapping operation, see the book by the former head of the Israeli secret service (the Mossad), Isser Harel, The House on Garibaldi Street (London, 1997); also Zvi Aharoni and Wilhelm Dietl, Operation Eichmann: The Truth about the Pursuit, Capture and Trial (New York, 1997); Peter Z. Malkin, Eichmann in My Hands (New York, 1990). For an interesting historiographical essay, see Ignacio Klich, “Four Decades After the Capture in Buenos Aires of an Austrian from Linz: The Eichmann Affair in Memoirs, Argentinian Testimonies and Journalism,” in Revisiting the National Socialist Legacy: Coming to Terms with Forced Labor, Expropriation, Compensation, and Restitution, ed. Oliver Rathkolb (New Brunswick, N.J., 2004), 259–309. 6 American Jewish Year Book (hereafter AJYB) 63 (1962): 474. On the characteristics and structure of the Jewish community in those days, see Haim Avni, Argentine Jewry: Social Status and Organizational Proﬁ le [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1972); Irving Louis Horo- vitz, “The Jewish Community of Buenos Aires,” Jewish Social Studies 24, no. 4 (October 1962): 195–222; Daniel J. Elazar and Peter Medding, Jewish Communities in Frontier Societies: Argentina, Australia and South Africa (New York, 1983), part 2. For a pioneering study of the Jewish leadership in Argentina in that period, see Haim Avni, “Jewish Leadership in Times of Crisis: Argentina During the Eichmann Affair (1960–1962),” Studies in Contemporary Jewry 11 (1995): 117–135. argentine jews and the accusation of ‘dual loyalty’ 171 among other things, did their best to cast doubt on the Jewish citizens’ loyalty to the Argentine Republic.

Paying the Price for the Kidnapping of Eichmann

On 19 May 1960, the Jews of Argentina enthusiastically greeted the Israeli delegation, headed by Abba Eban, that had just arrived for Argentina’s independence day celebrations. A week later, while the delegation was still in Buenos Aires, the leaders of the Jewish community were astonished to read in the evening paper La Razón that the Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann, whose kidnapping and transfer to Israel had already been announced to the Israeli parliament by prime minister David Ben-Gurion, had in fact been captured in Argentina.7 Argentine Jews had mixed feelings—happiness and satisfaction that Eichmann had been caught interlaced with strong anxiety about how the Argentine government and public opinion were likely to react towards Israel and the local Jewish community. None of the Jewish organizations in Argentina made any public demur to the kidnapping of Eichmann, and some Jewish public fi gures even helped resolve the crisis in relations between Israel and Argentina. Others urged friends in the major political parties and the press to try to give the incident a positive aspect by emphasizing the monstrosity of Eichmann’s crimes against humanity.8 Nonetheless, certain circles in the Jewish community were defi nitely uncomfortable with the way Israel had carried out its operation. According to a representative of the American Jewish Committee in Buenos Aires, the leaders of the community came close to panic in the fi rst days after Eichmann’s capture was reported. They feared that tension between Israel and Argentina would affect the local Jewish community—that there would be direct anti-Semitic attacks and Argentine

7 Personal narratives of Arye Levavi, Joel Barromi, and Natan Lerner, Oral History Division, Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem (hereafter ICJ/OHD). 8 Natan Lerner’s account, ICJ/OHD, 10, 21; author’s interview with him (Her- zliya, 22 Aug. 2000); DAIA, Informe de actividades realizadas por el Consejo Directivo (June 1961–July 1962) (Buenos Aires, 1962), 18; Conﬁ dential Memo, 1 July 1960, Ameri- can Jewish Committee Files, YIVO, New York (hereafter AJC Files), Box 1; Naomi W. Cohen, Not Free to Desist: The American Jewish Committee, 1906–1966 (Philadelphia, 1972), 547–548. 172 chapter eight

Jews would be accused of dual loyalty, or greater loyalty to Israel than to their own country.9 In contrast, Natan Lerner, vice-president of the DAIA in the years 1957–1958, explained: There were mixed feelings. In the ﬁ rst place, we all supported the action [. . .] some of us were worried about the possible consequences. Some said it was an illegal act. Some said it could hurt [Israel’s] relations with Argentina [. . .]. But there wasn’t any alarm among the Jewish leadership. Years later, Marcos Korenhendler, one of the editors of Di Idishe Tzay- tung, recalled the way many had felt: There was understanding of Israel’s position and also understanding of Frondizi’s anger when he said, as president of the country: “Why didn’t they talk to me? I am not the president of some African jungle state. They could have come and talked to me.” No one could say that Fron- dizi had the slightest fascist or anti-Semitic tendencies.10 At the height of the crisis, the Ha’aretz correspondent in Buenos Aires wrote even more forthrightly about a certain uneasiness: The public had the feeling of having been knifed in the back; on one hand festive appearances and demonstrations of friendship, on the other a violation of state sovereignty. In the Jewish street they are saying that the government of Israel showed a lack of understanding concerning a sensitive point in these [Latin American] countries. The wording of the Israeli communiqués and explanations did not seem in keeping with either the Jewish public’s status, which is closely linked to Israel’s position, or [Israel’s] friendly relationship with Argentina. The Argentines, including the Jews among them, consider themselves insulted by the snub to their country that in their view was implied in the wording of that ﬁ rst announcement. Confusion shows also in the views of a man like Dr. [Gregorio] Topolevsky, the (Jewish) former Argentine ambassador to Israel, who moves in Israeli circles here, and who initially expressed the view that Eichmann should be returned to Argentina. Later Dr. Topolevsky changed his mind.11 Dr. Mario Schteingart, president of the American Jewish Committee’s Argentine Jewish Institute, was not the only person to believe that it would be better for both Israel and the Jews of Argentina if an

9 Memo by Ralph Friedman, 1 July 1960, AJC Files, Box 1. 10 Author’s interview with Korenhendler (Tel Aviv, 21 Aug. 2000). 11 Eliahu Arel, “Public Reactions in Argentina in the Eichmann Affair” [Hebrew], Ha’aretz, 15 June 1960. argentine jews and the accusation of ‘dual loyalty’ 173 international court rather than an Israeli one were appointed to try Eichmann.12 The two years between Eichmann’s kidnapping in May 1960 and his execution in June 1962 were the hardest that the Jews of Argentina had known since the Semana Trágica (Tragic Week) pogrom in January 1919.13 Although the dark wave of anti-Semitism might have been expected to exhaust itself within a few months after the kidnapping and the resolution of the diplomatic confl ict, the beginning of Eich- mann’s trial in Jerusalem in April 1961 and the wide press coverage it received all over the world, including Argentina, kept the anti-Semitic campaign alive. During the four months of the trial, which revealed what Hanna Arendt termed “the banality of evil,” people all over the world were transfi xed by the drama unfolding in Jerusalem, as the man in the glass booth faced the chilling testimony of Holocaust survivors. Eichmann pleaded not guilty on the grounds that he had only been following orders handed down from above, but he was convicted of “crimes against the Jewish people.”14 On 11 December the president of the court pronounced the sentence: death by hanging. Argentine nationalist groups sought to exploit Eichmann’s kidnapping and trial and the infringement of Argentine sovereignty in order to attack the Jews in their country. The surge of anti-Semitism that occurred at this time is also attributable to Argentina’s contemporary political climate and the prevailing socioeconomic conditions, notably a diffi cult economic situation, the alienation felt by the supporters of Peronism, and widespread disappointment in Frondizi, who did not keep any of the promises he had strewn around during his presidential campaign. The combination of a political crisis and a series of strikes and demonstrations created frustration—and an environment

12 Conﬁ dential Memo, 1 July 1960, AJC Files, Box 1. 13 On the events of the Semana Trágica, see Victor Mirelman, “The Semana Trágica of 1919 and the Jews in Argentina,” Jewish Social Studies 37, no. 1 (Jan. 1975): 61–73; idem, Jewish Buenos Aires 1890–1930: In Search of Identity (Detroit, 1990), 61–67; Eugene F. Sofer, From Pale to Pampa: A Social History of the Jews of Buenos Aires (New York,1982), 42–48; Beatríz Seibel, Crónicas de la Semana Trágica (Buenos Aires, 1999); Daniel Lvo- vich, Nacionalismo y antisemitismo en Argentina (Buenos Aires, 2003), ch. 3. 14 On the Eichmann trial, see Hanna Yablonka, The State of Israel vs. Adolf Eichmann [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 2001); Tom Segev, The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust (New York, 2000); part 1, ch. 1; AJYB 63 (1962): 3–131; Hanna Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York, 1963); Gideon Hausner, Justice in Jerusalem (New York, 1966); Silvano Santander, El gran proceso: Eichmann y el nazismo ante la justicia (Buenos Aires, 1961). 174 chapter eight that encouraged anti-Semitic manifestations, as well as growing pressure on the government by the military.15

Tacuara: The Spearhead of the Anti-Semitic Offensive

During the 10 years of Perón’s regime most anti-Semitic publications and nationalist organizations had gradually faded from view, but after Perón’s overthrow they sprang to life again. The campaign against the Jews was spearheaded by the extreme right-wing organization Movimiento Nacionalista Tacuara, which ﬁ rst appeared on the scene in 1957. This quasi-military organization was constituted by a new generation of nationalist activists, most of them educated, middle- or upper-class young males (the organization included no women in the 1960s) in their late teens or early twenties.16 Many of them were the offspring of veteran anti-Semitic nationalists from respected oligarchic families, bearing such patronyms as Guevara Lynch, Quintana Mar- tínez Zuviría, Sánchez Sorondo, and Díaz de Vivar.17 Tacuara’s primary goals focused ﬁ rst on the struggle to reinstitute Catholic instruction in the public schools (abolished by Perón just before his ouster) and the campaign to establish Catholic universities. Even in its early days it was already physically attacking leftists, reformists, and Jews. Tacuara was headed by Alberto Ezcurra Uriburu, a nationalist from a respected upper-class family who was both a descendant of

15 On the factors of anti-Semitism during those years, see David Schers, “Anti- Semitism in Latin America,” in Violence and Defense in the Jewish Experience, ed. Salo W. Baron and George S. Wise (Philadelphia, 1977), 247. 16 On Tacuara and its organizational roots and ideological characteristics, see McClintock to State Department, 18 April 1962, National Archives, Department of State, Record Group 59, College Park, Md. (hereafter NA), 735.00/4-1862; Hoyt to State Department, 13 June 1962, NA, 735.00/6-1362; Mundo Israelita, 5 May 1962; Primera Plana (Buenos Aires), 4 Dec. 1962; Leonardo Senkman, “The Right and Civil- ian Regimes, 1955–1976,” in The Argentine Right, ed. Sandra McGee Deutsch and Ronald H. Dolkart (Wilmington, Del., 1993), 126–128; and David Rock, Authoritarian Argentina (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 205–209. Recent and more detailed studies include Roberto Bardini, Tacuara, la pólvora y la sangre (Mexico City, 2002); Daniel Gutman, Tacuara: Historia de la primera guerrilla urbana argentina (Buenos Aires, 2003); Alejandra Dandan and Silvina Heguy, Joe Baxter (Buenos Aires, 2006); Michael Goebel, “A Movement from Right to Left in Argentine Nationalism? The Alianza Libertadora Nacionalista and Tacuara as Stages of Militancy,” Bulletin of Latin American Research 26, no. 3 (2007): 356–377. 17 Hoyt to State Department, 1 Dec. 1961, NA, 735.00/12-161; Juan José Sebreli, La cuestión judía en la Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1973), 244. argentine jews and the accusation of ‘dual loyalty’ 175

Juan Manuel de Rosas, the nineteenth-century Argentine dictator, and a relative of General José Félix Uriburu, the ofﬁ cer who had seized power in a military coup in September 1930. The nationalist right-wing organizations turned Argentine Jews— some of whom were already the third or even fourth generation in the country—into scapegoats to be blamed for the ills of the era. Their extremist concept of Argentina as a melting pot in which all immigrant communities had to assimilate marked Jews as foreigners and separatists, and therefore dangerous. At the same time, their anti- Semitic struggle was a tool used to challenge the parliamentary political system and Frondizi’s elected regime. At one of Tacuara’s political rallies, after attacking “the dirty Jews living on Libertad [street] and in [the neighborhood of] Villa Crespo” and calling for their elimination, Ezcurra Uriburu declared: We repeat that we have no faith in our false liberal democracy made up of corrupt institutions which are tumbling down. Yes, comrades, the system is collapsing and it must be thoroughly cleaned up, with violence and bloodshed even if we must need do so against opposition thereto, for this is the only solution [. . .] we want a country free of politicians, free of demagogues and of Jews [. . .] we are ready to do whatever may be necessary to have them disappear [. . .] but we insist that we do not want to change one set of governing members for another, one clown for another; we want the whole circus to go away [. . .].18 For some of the Catholic nationalists, Frondizi was a ‘Menshevic politician’ whose anti-nationalist economic policy, inclusion of leftists in his government, and conciliatory policy towards the Castro regime in Cuba were paving the way to Bolshevism in Argentina. One of Tacuara’s spiritual mentors was the Jesuit priest Julio Mein- vielle, who saw Jews and Communists as a threat to Western Christian civilization. Meinvielle’s views were a hodgepodge of ideas derived from both medieval Christian sources and the opinions of prominent ﬁ gures of the modern Catholic European right. In his view, liberalism and socialism were secular, materialistic ideologies which Jews had helped to develop.19 Meinvielle’s book El judío (The Jew), published for

18 Quoted in McClintock to State Department, 18 April 1962, NA, 735.00/4- 1862. 19 On Julio Meinvielle, see Graciela Ben-Dror, Católicos, Nazis y judíos: La iglesia argentina en los tiempos del Tercer Reich (Buenos Aires, 2003), ch. 2; Lvovich, Nacionalismo y antisemitismo, 403–416; Cristián Buchrucker, Nacionalismo y peronismo (Buenos Aires, 1987), 123 ff; The New York Times, 21 Aug. 1962. 176 chapter eight the fi rst time in 1936, was reissued in 1959 under the title El judío en el misterio de la historia (The Jew in the Mystery of History), and since then has been reprinted a number of times. In 1960–1963, Tacuara underwent a number of divisions and schisms as a result of personal rivalries, ideological differences, and quarrels over strategy and the implications of the Cuban Revolution and the Algerian liberation struggle. In November 1960, Tacuara’s right wing left the organization and adopted the name Guardia Res- tauradora Nacionalista (GRN). The GRN was an active participant in the anti-Jewish offensive of the early 1960s. This offshoot of Tacuara was apparently in contact with Jordán Bruno Genta, who in 1960 became the Argentine air force’s ‘advisor on educational policy.’ Genta, a former Marxist and Freemason who had become an extremist militant nationalist, had won some notoriety in the early 1940s for his speeches to senior army offi cers encouraging them to get involved in political life, since “the warriors represent the most esteemed class of the state, [because] the nation enters into political existence by virtue of war and preserves its right to exist in war.”20 Genta called for the defense of the Western Christian order, claiming: “Jews, Masonry, and Communism are the three ideological manifestations of the negation of the Divine Redeemer.”21 In the 1960s Tacuara drew additional inspiration for its anti-Semitic and anti-Israel views from contacts with both neo-Nazi organizations in other countries and Hussein Triki, the Arab League’s representative in Buenos Aires, who promoted anti-Semitism under cover of anti- Zionism and as part of the anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist struggle. Triki explained to Argentine nationalists that “if the state of Israel did not exist, Argentina would not be in the deplorable condition it is in now.”22 He argued that it was necessary to “fi ght international Zionism, the common enemy of the Argentines and the Arabs,” and portrayed Tacuara and the GRN as Argentine forces that were building a dam to contain the violent action of the Zionist force. In one of Tacuara’s press conferences, Ezcurra Uriburu declared that the organization would

20 Jordán Bruno Genta, Acerca de la libertad de enseñar y de la enseñanza de la libertad (Buenos Aires, 1976), 36. 21 Ibid., 286. 22 Quoted in Sebreli, La cuestión judía, 245; Yehuda Adin, “Nationalism and Neo- Nazism in Argentina” [Hebrew], B’tefuzot Hagola 7, no. 33 (1965): 75–79. argentine jews and the accusation of ‘dual loyalty’ 177

defend Catholic views against Marxist-Jewish-liberal-Masonic-capitalist imperialism. We are not anti-Semites with racialist aims, but we are enemies of Jewry. In Argentina the Jews are the servants of Israeli imperialism [who violated] our national sovereignty when [their agents] arrested Adolph Eichmann. In this struggle we have much in common with [the Egyptian president Gamal Abdel] Nasser.23 In the wake of the Eichmann kidnapping, various nationalist publications began to shake accusing ﬁ ngers at Argentine Jews. Notable among them were El Pampero, Cabildo, and Azul y Blanco. All these periodicals frequently asserted that Jews bore no loyalty to Argentina, or that their divided loyalties made them support Israel in moments of crisis instead of remaining faithful to the Argentine Republic, whose sovereignty had been violated by the Zionists.

Jewish Solidarity and Self-Defense

Nationalist hostility was not confi ned to propaganda against the ‘Jew- ish fi fth column’ (articles, posters, and anti-Semitic slogans and swastikas painted on the walls of buildings in Jewish neighborhoods), but encompassed actual violence: vandalism against Jewish institutions and attacks on Jewish schoolchildren and university students. At the beginning of July 1960, nationalist and liberal students clashed in front of the faculty of medicine at the University of Buenos Aires. Some right- wing students shouted, “We want Eichmann back,” “Death to Jews,” or “Jews, go to Israel.” Swastikas were painted on university buildings and others in the vicinity. In the scuffl e two nationalist students and four others were seriously injured. However, such clashes were in fact more frequent in the high schools. One of the most notorious incidents occurred at Sarmiento High School in Buenos Aires. During a ceremony in honor of the national hero General José de San Martín on 17 August 1960, a few Jewish pupils were attacked by Tacuara thugs. One of them, 15-year- old Edgardo Manuel Trilnik, was shot and seriously wounded, and several other Jewish pupils were lightly injured.24 This was one more

23 Quoted in Rock, Authoritarian Argentina, 206. 24 Weekly Report by the American Embassy in Buenos Aires, 23 Aug. 1960, NA, 735.00(w)/8-2360; AJYB 62 (1961): 216; La Luz, 9 Sept. 1960; The Chicago Tribune, 19 Aug. 1960. 178 chapter eight link in a chain of similar incidents that had taken place in previous weeks at the Sarmiento, Urquiza, and Mitre schools, incidents during which the attackers had shouted “Long live Eichmann, death to Jews!” These incidents must also be viewed in the context of the struggle then dividing Argentine society between those who favored liberal, secular education and those who favored nationalist Catholic education.25 Against this background, it is even easier to understand the fl ood of protests that were expressed in newspaper articles and statements by government offi cials, political fi gures, and student and teacher organizations.26 The minister of the interior, Alfredo Vítolo, declared that the police would take fi rm measures to prevent anti-Semitic incidents of this kind, including patrols around the school. In practice, however, the police did not take any serious action against Tacuara. An editorial in the Jewish weekly Mundo Israelita expressed the rage and frustration Jews felt over the impunity of the perpetrators of anti- Semitic attacks:

The police never ﬁ nds them out, never punishes them. They know who they are, who commands them, where they meet [. . .,] their signals. They make no mystery of their intentions, they even announce in advance the base deeds they plan to carry out, but no one bothers them. On the contrary, the police authorizes their public meetings, and the press, mis- interpreting its mission, divulges them.27 On 25 August pupils from Sarmiento and other high schools in the capital participated in a march to protest anti-Semitic violence. Police and US embassy reports emphasized the fact that “Communist elements joined the act of protest at an early stage,” as though this lessened the seriousness of the acts being protested. One of the arguments used by a number of spokespeople of the nationalist right, and adopted by the federal police as well as some American diplomats during that Cold War era, was that the anti-Semitic aspect of right-wing violence was connected with the prominent Jewish presence among

25 Mónica Esti Rein, Politics and Education in Argentina, 1946–1962 (Armonk, N.Y., 1998), ch. 8. 26 El Mundo, 24 Aug. 1960; La Vanguardia, 31 Aug. 1960; Noticias Gráfi cas, 31 Aug. 1960; La Luz, 9 Sept. 1960; Mundo Israelita, 10 Sept. 1960. 27 “Ante la indignación del país y la indiferencia de las autoridades,” Mundo Israelita, 20 Aug. 1960. argentine jews and the accusation of ‘dual loyalty’ 179 radical students and in organizations of the extreme left.28 A senior government source explained to Rabbi Guillermo Schlesinger that the government could not concern itself with Tacuara’s anti-Semitic activity because the organization was needed for the war on communism, and everything else was secondary to that need. Diplomats in the US embassy went on to say that Frondizi would never initiate confl ict with the army over its sympathy for Tacuara, as long as his silence would help maintain the delicate balance of power on which his regime was based. “This is simply one of the unavoidable concessions that the feeble Frondizi administration has to make in order to assure the support of the military,” said Irving Salert, fi rst secretary at the embassy, to Abraham Monk, a representative of the American Jewish Committee.29 In the following weeks parents from Sarmiento met with President Frondizi to discuss Tacuara’s provocations, while the leaders of the Jew- ish community met with the interior minister, members of the national committee of the ruling party, and the rector of the University of Buenos Aires, Risieri Frondizi, the president’s brother, who linked the anti-Semitic attacks with the Catholic nationalists’ campaign against secular universities.30 Over the next months, almost every week brought new reports of anti-Semitic incidents, some more serious than others, including the placement of bombs in synagogues and community institutions. The next major outrage was an attack in August 1961 on participants in a Jewish Zionist camp in the province of Buenos Aires, while the young people were sleeping. Some of them were badly injured and the camp was destroyed. The press gave the incident wide coverage, and the DAIA immediately registered protests with interior minister Vítolo and the governor of Buenos Aires province, Oscar Alende. This series of attacks was part of what Jacob Blaustein, honorary president of the American Jewish Committee, described as an “extensive campaign of

28 Weekly Report by the Embassy in Buenos Aires, 21 Sept. 1960, NA, 735.00(w)/9- 2160; McClintock to State Department, 18 Sept. 1962, 735.00/9-1862. 29 A. Monk, “The New Wave of Anti-Semitism in Argentina,” 25 Oct. 1961, AJC Files, Box 3; Monk to Segal, 11 Jan. 1962, AJC Files, Box 3; Hoyt to State Depart- ment, 1 Dec. 1961, NA, 735.00/12-161. On Frondizi’s relations with the armed forces, see Rosendo Fraga, El ejército y Frondizi, 1958–1962 (Buenos Aires, 1992). 30 Mundo Israelita, 2 Dec. 1960. 180 chapter eight anti-Semitic vandalism by Argentine neo-fascist terrorist groups.”31 The climate of tension it created for many Jewish youngsters is well refl ected in Samuel Tarnopolsky’s novel, La mitad de nada. Originally published in 1969 (during the military regime which proclaimed itself as the Argentine Revolution) and reissued in 1977 (during the most brutal military dictatorship Argentina had ever known), it depicts a couple of young Jewish Argentines (the liberal Braunstein and the Zionist Michaelson) suffering identity problems as a result of this anti- Semitic explosion of the early 1960s. The anti-Semitic incidents that occurred throughout the years 1960–1961 created a sense of solidarity among the beleaguered Jews and prompted two initiatives of great signifi cance to the Jewish community. In the fi rst place, Jewish parents joined forces to set up a Jew- ish day school where pupils would not be vulnerable to anti-Semitic attacks. The result was the Tarbut (Culture) school in Buenos Aires, for which the founding meeting took place on 26 July 1960 in Florida, in the province of Buenos Aires. The second initiative was the formation of Jewish self-defense organizations in the capital, where some 80 percent of Argentine Jews made their home.32 Many Jews felt that even under a friendly government such as Frondizi’s the authorities did not have the power to confront the anti-Semitic, Catholic, and nationalist right-wing groups head-on.33 The early 1960s therefore saw more or less spontaneous organization by young Jews who had begun to practice judo, boxing, and various other means of self-defense in order to cope with the provocations of anti-Semitic bullies. The Israeli embassy and various Israeli emissaries assisted in this organization. Some groups even considered undertaking retaliatory operations if necessary. The members of these groups talked of the need to challenge the stereotype of Jews as timid and cowardly which was prevalent among nationalist right- wing circles.34

31 Ha’aretz, 19 Jan. 1962. See also contemporary accounts in Jacob Beller, Jews in Latin America (New York, 1969), 179–181. 32 This concentration in Buenos Aires led to an extreme expression of both Jewish and Argentine living patterns, which inﬂ uenced the development of organized Jewish life in Argentina. As a rule, Jews tend to congregate in urban areas more than the general population; however, in Argentina a substantial part of the overall population tended to concentrate speciﬁ cally in the federal capital and its environs. See Elazar and Medding, Jewish Communities, 99. 33 Avni, “Jewish Leadership,” 124–125. 34 Author’s interview with Jacobo Kovadloff, who during the 1960s was vice-president and later president of the Hebraica Club in Buenos Aires (Washington, 14 June 2000). argentine jews and the accusation of ‘dual loyalty’ 181

The Argentine authorities began to receive exaggerated reports concerning such plans for self-defense, and were concerned—especially after shots were exchanged in mid-1962 between a group of young Jews and members of the federal police. Since the police offi cers were dressed in civilian clothes, were driving a Volkswagen rather than a police car, and did not identify themselves, the young Jews believed that the men were Tacuara thugs, and opened fi re. One police offi cer was seriously wounded in the incident, two young Jews suffered light injuries, and seven were arrested.35 At the end of 1963, Aba Gefen, a diplomat at the Israeli embassy, was invited to dinner by Antonio M. Kristoffersen, the director of the Africa and Near East division of the Argentine foreign ministry. Kristof- fersen wanted to discuss several matters “that might disturb relations between the two countries.” Among other things he mentioned the “military training” that Jewish youths were receiving in camps in the province of Buenos Aires in preparation for emigration to Israel. As he told it, the training was provided by Israeli teachers sent by the Jew- ish Agency, trainees were not allowed to speak Spanish, only Hebrew, and the camps changed location frequently. “It’s a real underground,” said the Argentine diplomat.36 In the foreign ministry in Jerusalem this report was received with concern, and the Israeli embassy in Bue- nos Aires was told to “give him [Kristoffersen] a precise description of pioneer training in Argentina [. . .]. The main thing is to disabuse him of the notion that an Israeli underground exists in Argentina.”37 Similarly, a representative of the Arab League in Buenos Aires warned the Argentine authorities and the public that “some 26 training camps for Israeli military personnel are operating on Argentine territory, and even the Spanish language is forbidden there.”38 These accusations found an echo in the anti-Semitic broadside launched by the Peronist congressional deputy Juan Carlos Cornejo Linares.39

35 Monk to Slawson, 1 July 1962, AJC Files, Box 3. The man who shot the police ofﬁ cer was swiftly smuggled to Israel (interview with a former Mossad agent, Tel Aviv, June 2008). 36 A. Gefen to Israeli Foreign Ministry, 26 Nov. 1963, Documents of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Israel State Archives, Jerusalem (hereafter ISA), 103/1. 37 Doron to Avidar, 12 Dec. 1963, ibid. 38 Quoted in Yehuda Adin, “Nationalism and Neo-Nazism in Argentina” [Hebrew], B’tefuzot Hagola 7, no. 33 (1965): 77. 39 Juan Carlos Cornejo Linares, El nuevo orden sionista en la Argentina, especially pp. 93–95. 182 chapter eight

The subject of Jewish self-defense organizations has been a taboo for historians writing on Jewish Argentines in the second half of the twentieth century. If mentioned, it is normally presented as an unfounded accusation made by anti-Semites. Many of the people that I tried to interview preferred not to discuss this issue in order not to give anti- Semitic nationalists in Argentina additional pretexts for criticizing the Jews of their country. Yet, these accusations were not entirely baseless, as revealed by a series of interviews we did manage to conduct with several Jews who had participated in self-defense activities, and they surely deserve further research. A former Mossad agent, who as a young offi cer had served as a military attaché in the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in the early 1960s, told me about his central role in the training of young Jewish Argentines in self-defense tactics, intelligence and the use of arms. In retrospect he describes some of them as “Jewish thugs” looking for fi ghts.40 At any rate, some authors tend to believe that this trend towards organizing for self-defense may have contributed to a certain drop in anti-Semitic attacks, as the perpetrators feared an escalation of violence in which they themselves might be attacked.41 Although this topic has been neglected in historical research, it is well-covered in novels and short stories. Hilel Resnizky’s Peregrinacion entre patrias,42 for example, includes a short story entitled “Call Me Juan,” in which Resnizky, sent in 1963 by his kibbutz movement to Argentina where he trained Jewish youngsters in self-defense, tells the story of just such an Israeli envoy training a Jewish ‘underground.’ In the story, one of the underground’s members infi ltrates the nationalist Guardia Restauradora Nacionalista in order to gather information. Jewish organizations in the United States watched the anti-Semitic trend in Argentina with concern. The American Jewish Commit- tee began to publish and denounce each anti-Semitic incident that occurred in the South American republic. From 1960 on, the Com- mittee systematically briefed the State Department on anti-Jewish manifestations, and asked the US administration to try, through the medium of its diplomatic representatives and military attachés, to persuade the Argentine authorities to take active measures against

40 Interview with the author (Tel Aviv, 24 June, 2008). 41 See Schers, “Anti-Semitism in Latin America,” 251. 42 Hilel Resnizky, Peregrinacion entre patrias (Buenos Aires, 2001). argentine jews and the accusation of ‘dual loyalty’ 183 anti-Semitism. The heads of the Committee also met with Argentine diplomats in Washington to discuss the problem. Representatives of the World Jewish Congress took similar action during 1962, and Rabbi Israel Goldstein of New York met with the US ambassador in Buenos Aires, Robert McClintock, for the same purpose.43 They were soon joined in their efforts by Senator Jacob K. Javits and the congressman Leonard Farbstein, who was a member of the foreign affairs committee of the House of Representatives and of the subcommit- tee on inter-American affairs. Both men expressed their concern about what was happening in Argentina and demanded action from US diplomacy. “There are times,” wrote Farbstein, “when intervention [in the internal affairs of another country] is not only justiﬁ ed, but highly necessary.”44 And, in fact, towards the end of 1961 the State Depart- ment instructed the embassy in Buenos Aires to track the anti-Semitic incidents, brief ofﬁ cials in Washington, and make discreet use of this information whenever possible in order to show the Argentine authorities the negative international response that would be engendered by any increase in anti-Semitic activity by gangs such as Tacuara.45

The Sirota Affair and the Beginning of Large-Scale Emigration to Israel

Frondizi’s feeble handling of nationalist activity did not help him politically. His enemies in the armed forces and the political right were merely waiting for the best moment to topple him. In the elections of March 1962, the Peronists, fi nally allowed to participate, made an impressive showing. They won a majority in ten provinces, including Buenos Aires, proving that they were still a political force to be reck- oned with. The military, unable to tolerate the resurgence of Peronism, demanded that Frondizi void the elections. Initially refusing, he eventually intervened in fi ve provinces, including Buenos Aires. However, the offi cers were not satisfi ed, and after bickering among themselves

43 See Cohen, Not Free to Desist, 549; Rubin to Thomas C. Mann, 29 Aug. 1960, AJC Files, Box 2; “Memorandum on Anti-Semitism in Argentina,” presented to Woodward, 13 Nov. 1961, AJC Files, Box 3; McClintock to State Department, 30 June 1962, NA, 735.00/6-3062; Memorandum, 22 Aug. 1962, NA, 735.00/8-2262. 44 See Farbstein to Edwin M. Martin, 19 July 1962, NA, 735.00/7-1962; Javits to Dean Rusk, 27 July 1962, NA, 735.00/7-2762; Martin to Farbstein, 31 July 1962, NA, 735.00/7-1962; Dutton to Javits, 26 July 1962, NA, 735.00/7-2662. 45 See Hoyt to State Department, 1 Dec. 1962, NA, 735.00/12-161. 184 chapter eight for a week, they fi nally deposed him. In his place they put the Senate president, José María Guido, as interim president until general elections were held a year later.46 The delight felt by the nationalist groups was apparent in the pages of La Segunda República, edited by Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, and the articles by Father Meinvielle that appeared in the periodical La Grande Argentina. Reports from the Israeli ambassador in Buenos Aires, Yosef Avi- dar, painted the picture of a new government struggling ineffectually with social and economic problems. At the same time a struggle was being waged within the army between two factions, the Azules (Blues) and the Colorados (Reds), the Colorados, strongly anti-Peronist, suspect- ing that Guido meant to maintain Frondizi’s policies. Thus, Guido’s government lacked a civil and popular base of support, it lacked a socioeconomic program, and it lacked political legitimacy. However, what worried the Israeli ambassador still more was the fact that “with the new regime a number of reactionary, nationalist, and anti-Semitic personalities and elements have risen to key positions.”47 Indeed, the government leadership now included such nationalists as José María Astigueta, the education minister, and General Enrique Rauch, the interior minister. Under these circumstances it was not to be expected that Guido’s interim government would display any more effi ciency than its pre- decessor in dealing with the organizations of the nationalist right, especially since some of their members had personal and family ties with senior army offi cers and government offi cials. And indeed the anti-Semitic wave did not subside. Time after time the DAIA sent telegrams of protest to President Guido and the interior minister, Jorge Walter Perkins, and the latter met with the leaders of the Jewish community. However, the steps that the Guido temporary administration eventually took against the organizations of the extreme right fell for the most part into the category of too little and too late. According to Israeli ambassador Avidan, It is clear that the nationalist anti-Semitic organizations, which guessed or even knew that the government or elements in it would be sympa-

46 On Guido’s 19-month term as president, see Robert A. Potash, The Army and Politics in Argentina 1962–1973 (Stanford, Calif., 1996), chs. 1–2; Eduardo Crawley, A House Divided: Argentina, 1880–1980 (London, 1984), ch. 14. 47 Avidar to Israeli Foreign Ministry, 27 July 1962, ISA, 103/1. argentine jews and the accusation of ‘dual loyalty’ 185

thetic to them as nationalists and anti-communists and would not oppress them, saw the right moment to begin a series of anti-Jewish attacks. In an interview with a reporter from the English-language daily Buenos Aires Herald, the leader of Tacuara, Alberto Ezcurra, said that the police did not bother his organization at all, and stated explicitly, “Under the present government we have been treated much better than under the Frondizi regime.”48 A new anti-Semitic outburst followed Adolf Eichmann’s execution in Israel around midnight between 31 May and 1 June 1962. The organs of the nationalist right used virulent language to attack Israel and the Jews. For example, “a most extreme anti-Israeli article, with clear Nazi elements, worthy of the Stürmer tradition,” appeared in Marcelo Sán- chez Sorondo’s La Segunda República.49 But the nationalists went beyond newspaper articles. During that month some 30 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded in Argentina: demonstrations, telephone threats, terror attacks against Jewish institutions. The most serious incident was an assault on a 19-year-old student by the name of Graciela Narcisa Sirota, on 21 June. Sirota was kidnapped in the street while waiting for a bus to the University of Buenos Aires. A gray car containing three young men stopped beside her, whereupon one of the men got out, clubbed her, and dragged her into the car. They took her to a place where she was beaten and brutally tortured; her assailants burned different parts of her body with lighted cigarettes and tattooed a swastika on her chest. “This is in revenge for Eichmann,” the kidnappers told her.50 When Sirota’s father went to lodge a complaint with the police, he was treated with contempt and the investigation was conducted with less than alacrity. Although the three kidnappers were quickly identiﬁ ed, and one of them even boasted of the revenge he had taken for Eichmann’s kidnapping, the federal police chief, Horacio Enrique Green, suggested that the attack had been nothing more than an act of provocation by leftist Jews trying to undermine the social order in

48 Buenos Aires Herald, 29 Aug. 1962; The New York Times, 16 Sept. 1962; McClintock to State Department, 1 Sept. 1962, NA, 735.00/9-162. 49 Anug to Israeli Foreign Ministry, 9 June 1962, ISA, 103/1. 50 McClintock to State Department, 27 June 1962, NA, 735.00/6-2762; Time, 6 July 1962, 21; Primera Plana, 10 March 1964; DAIA: Medio siglo de lucha por una argentina sin discriminaciones (Buenos Aires, 1985), 14; Leonardo Senkman, “El antisemitismo bajo dos experiencias democráticas,” in El antisemitismo en la Argentina, ed. L. Senkman, 2nd ed. (Buenos Aires, 1989), I: 37–43. 186 chapter eight

Argentina. He claimed that there were no grounds for exaggerated talk of anti-Semitism in Argentina, and that complaints of this sort were merely exploited by the Communists. This was a new stage in the campaign to identify the Jewish community in general and the DAIA in particular with communism.51 Leafl ets distributed by nationalist organizations questioned the tat- too on Sirota’s chest. The heads of the DAIA had foreseen this. Upon hearing of the iniquitous deed, they had immediately summoned a photographer to document the scar on the young woman’s chest, and two psychologists, one Jewish and one Catholic, to talk with her, in order to forestall future claims that she was not sane or any other argument that sought to undermine the credibility of her testimony.52 Police commander Green explained his view that “the execution [of Eichmann] caused a reaction—justifi ed or not—by a certain sector of the people, moved by a deep and purely nationalistic sentiment which assumed the form of hurt pride and was evidenced by means of a few anti-semitic incidents.” He also argued that too many people confused nationalism with fascism. “I myself am a nationalist. My country comes fi rst even before my personal wellbeing. But I am not a fascist.”53 Other people claimed that “the Jewish organizations exploited these [anti-Semitic] attacks and made a big fuss about them in order to cover up the shady deals and economic crimes against the state that have been committed by Jews.” This was, again, part of the effort to blame Jews for the economic crisis then prevailing in Argen- tina.54 Speaking with President Guido, Green avoided denouncing the

51 To my surprise, several people approached me after I published my book Argen- tina, Israel y los judíos in Buenos Aires in 2001, claiming that as far as the Sirota case was concerned, Green’s accusations were not entirely baseless, even though he was a nationalist and anti-Semite. This issue certainly deserves further research. 52 Personal narrative of Gregorio Feigon, ICJ/OHD, 12–13; Monk to Slawson, 2 July 1962, AJC Files, Box 3. 53 Buenos Aires Herald, 5 Sept. 1962; The New York Times, 16 Sept. 1962; Nueva Sión, 29 June 1962; McClintock to State Department, 10 Sept. 1962, NA, 735.00/9–1062. 54 Avidar to Israeli Foreign Ministry, 27 July 1962, ISA. See the accusations by Brigadier Gilberto Hidalgo Oliva and the Peronist congressional deputy Juan Car- los Cornejo, in Cornejo Linares, El nuevo orden sionista, 24–25. The fi nancial scandal linked to Jews which received the greatest public attention involved the Banco Popular Israelita and the Todres brothers at the end of 1959. Máximo Yagupsky compared it to the Stavisky affair in France in the 1930s. See Yagupsky to Segal, 25 Nov. 1959, Yagupsky to Desser, 16 Dec. 1959, 23 Dec. 1959, 31 Dec. 1959, 9 Jan 1960, AJC Files, Box 1. In 1962 irregularities were discovered in loans granted by the Central Bank of Argentina during the period when José Mazar Barnett was president of the bank argentine jews and the accusation of ‘dual loyalty’ 187 anti-Semitic thugs, and warned that the DAIA and Maccabi should not “take the law into their own hands,” since this would lead to “a confrontation with racist groups,” which would, in turn, result in “a serious breach of the peace.”55 The press offi ce in the presidential palace did hurry to publish, on 25 June, a trenchant condemnation of the abominable act against Sirota in the name of the government, which undertook to use its legal powers to suppress incidents of this kind, since they damaged the social structure of the nation. Once again the old worn-out claim was trotted out that anti-Semitism was alien to Argentina and its tradition.56 However, Tacuara was apparently a useful tool not only to the nationalists, but also to state bodies interested in suppressing Commu- nist and student activity—hence the indulgence shown it. The minister of defense himself, Leopoldo Suárez, declared in April 1964 that Tacuara enjoyed the support of elements in the police department and the defense organizations.57 “The expectations of the anti-Semitic organizations were justifi ed,” wrote Ambassador Avidar. “The authorities did their best to whitewash their actions, and to this day have not lifted a fi nger to bring those responsible to justice.”58 The Jewish community of Argentina was galvanized into angry, fi rm, and unifi ed action by the appalling attack on Graciela Sirota and the police’s indifference to violent acts committed against Jews. Many in the community were no longer willing to settle for quiet lobbying and requests for government protection, and they found added support in the public storm aroused by the despicable deed.59 Others opposed the adoption of militant strategies in response, but they were now the weaker camp. The disputes as to what the Jewish response should be were complicated by the fact that some of those injured in the anti-Semitic attacks of the 1960s, such as Sirota, were Communists or Communist supporters. Some people said then that the DAIA did not have to defend Communists. However, most people believed that

(May 1961–January 1962), and this incident provided new fodder for anti-Semitic propaganda. See Monk to Slawson, 3 July 1962, AJC Files, Box 3. 55 La Nación, 28 June 1962; “Cronología de la comunidad judía en la Argentina,” Todo es Historia 179 (April 1982): 43. 56 Monk to Slawson, 2 July 1962, AJC Files, Box 2. 57 Nueva Sión, 11 April 1964. 58 Avidar to Israeli Foreign Ministry, 27 July 1962, ISA, 103/1. 59 La Razón, 27 and 30 June 1962; La Prensa, La Nación, and El Mundo, 28 June 1962; La Luz, 29 June 1962. 188 chapter eight all Jews in Argentina should be protected regardless of their political views.60 The DAIA published sterner public declarations denouncing anti-Semitism; it sent telegrams to President Guido and to the interior minister, Carlos Adrogué—who himself had once been a victim of nationalist right-wing violence—demanding that the government guarantee the safety of its Jewish citizens; it asked the Jewish communities and various institutions in the US and Europe for solidarity; and it organized a series of protests. On 28 June a commercial strike of several hours was declared throughout the Republic, and many businesses bore signs reading “Closed in protest over Nazi aggression in Argentina.” Apparently, most of the Jews in Buenos Aires left their workplaces and closed their shops. Although the Jewish protest had been anticipated, the strike turned into an impressive show of strength, since, to the surprise of the DAIA leaders themselves, the response extended far beyond the limits of the Jewish community. “Businesses closed not only in Villa Crespo [a Jewish neighborhood], but throughout the Argentine Repub- lic, from one end to the other.”61 Many secondary-school pupils, Jewish and gentile alike, were absent from class that afternoon. Political, student, intellectual, occupational, economic, and religious organizations, as well as many public ﬁ gures, expressed solidarity with Argentine Jews in their struggle for a democratic regime that eschewed racism and violence. The leaders of the community, wrote Israeli ambassador Yosef Avidar, “stood their ground in the difﬁ cult and tense struggle against the chief of police and [. . .] the entire community showed unusual unity on the day of the strike.”62 Indeed, such a display of Jewish power had never been seen before, and would not be seen again for another 30 years. Representatives of Jewish organizations all over the world increased their pressure on the Argentine government to put a stop to anti- Semitic thuggery. A B’nai Brith delegation arrived in Buenos Aires in October and met with President Guido and the ministers of the economy, the interior, and foreign affairs. The US embassy, which usually

60 Schers, “Anti-Semitism in Latin America,” 250. 61 See interview with Gregorio Feigon, a leader of the DAIA, in ICJ/OHD, especially pp. 12–14; DAIA, Informe de actividades realizadas por el Consejo Directivo (June 1961– July 1962), 8. 62 Avidar to Israeli Foreign Ministry, 27 July 1962, ISA, 103/1. The best and most detailed discussion of the Jewish community’s response and the repercussions of the affair can be found in Senkman, “El antisemitismo.” argentine jews and the accusation of ‘dual loyalty’ 189 tended to downplay the extent and signifi cance of anti-Semitism in Argentina, also approached the foreign minister in this matter. Efforts to organize self-defense measures increased, and dozens of young Jews carried handguns with them to the university lecture halls in case of violent clashes with young nationalists. In various community centers Jews organized systems of constant alert to guard against possible terrorist attacks. Tacuara responded to the Jewish protest by publishing a 32-page pamphlet that was sold at newspaper stands in October 1962 in Bue- nos Aires. The pamphlet was designed to prove “the provocation of the Jewish community,” which had planned the Sirota affair in order to attack Argentine nationalism. In this publication Jews were presented as trouble-making leftists or avaricious merchants—in both cases dividing their loyalties and serving Zionist interests. In a well-planned pin- cer movement, the pamphlet said, the leftist Jews would take control of Argentine universities and intellectual life, while the Jewish capitalists would take over the country’s trade and fi nancial life.63 Israeli diplomats expressed concern that the anti-Semitic propaganda was being absorbed by members of the government, army offi cers, and many others, adding: Today we received the news that this argument, and the consequent anti- Semitic atmosphere, are gaining currency in the poor neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, which are populated mainly by the lumpenproletariat that came to the capital from the northern regions.64 A study by the well-known Argentine sociologist Gino Germani, based on a sample of 2,078 male respondents in greater Buenos Aires, did in fact show that anti-Semitism was greater among the lower classes in Argentina than among the upper classes. This is not the place to address the validity of this sociological study, which contradicted previously accepted assumptions; but Germani’s data indicate that some degree of anti-Semitism, whether ‘traditional’ or ‘ideological,’ was detectable in all social classes in Argentina in 1962. These fi gures worried the leaders of the Jewish community, who tended to see anti- Semitism as a phenomenon that was limited to Catholic aristocratic circles. However, Germani emphasized that upper-class anti-Semites

63 Movimiento Nacionalista Tacuara, El caso Sirota y el problema judío en la Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1962). 64 Avidar to Israeli Foreign Ministry, 27 July 1962, ISA, 103/1. 190 chapter eight were ideologically motivated, and accordingly more likely to translate their views into actions. In the lower classes, in contrast, anti-Semitism was mostly traditional—a passive acceptance of stereotypes that did not necessarily have the same psychological signifi cance as upper-class anti-Semitism did. Germani wrote about the fear that upper-class anti- Semites would try to exploit this “dangerous reservoir” of traditional anti-Semitism in the working classes. The authorities fi nally began to rein in the nationalists to some degree just before the Argentine fi nance minister, Alvaro Alsogaray, went to the US to negotiate credit from US banks.65 In an effort to improve Argentina’s image in the US and to ensure a favorable atmosphere for its aid requests, the government pressed the extreme right- wing organizations to moderate their activity. Gradually the Guido government also began to arrest activists of the anti-Semitic right wing and to break up their demonstrations, all to restrain their activity or at least create the appearance of doing so. Yet contrary to the impression the US embassy in Buenos Aires was, for reasons of its own, trying to create, the wave of anti-Semitism did not abate, as can be seen from the annual report of the DAIA board of directors.66 By the end of October not even the US diplomats could deny the Guido government’s weakness in dealing with anti-Semitic violence. Three attacks took place simultaneously on synagogues in Buenos Aires. Incendiary bombs and Molotov cocktails were thrown by nationalists. Shots fi red from a moving car, apparently carrying members of the GRN, injured two young girls aged 11 and 13 at the entrance to one of the synagogues. Ironically enough, these incidents occurred a few days after the Argentine government had assured the president of B’nai Brith, Label A. Katz, that groups such as Tacuara would be outlawed, and just at the same time that the Argentine delegation was telling the UN General Assembly that

65 On US Jewish organizations’ pressure on the State Department and the Argen- tine ambassador in Washington, Roberto Aleman, for an end to the wave of anti- Semitism, see, for example, Slawson to Martin, 28 June 1962, and Sonnabend to Aleman, 28 June 1962, AJC Files, Box 2. 66 McClintock to State Department, 21 Aug. 1962, NA, 835.413/8–2162, and 23 Aug. 1962, NA, 735.00/8-2362. On the arrest of young members of Tacuara and the dispersal of their demonstrations, see McClintock to State Department, 13 Sept. 1962, NA, 735.00/9-1362; 26 Nov. 1962, NA, 735.00/11-2662; 29 Nov. 1962, NA, 835.411/11-2962. argentine jews and the accusation of ‘dual loyalty’ 191 the publicity concerning anti-Semitism in Argentina had been “grossly exaggerated.”67 In any case, the multitude of anti-Semitic attacks in 1960–1962, coming on top of an economic crisis that injured the middle classes to which most Jews belonged, caused a considerable shock to the large Argentine Jewish community: The psychological implications of the events were much stronger than any political or practical aspect of the question [. . .] Among the elements which constituted that feeling were rage, bitterness, physical fear, disappointment, surprise, and also combativeness. The Sirota case, as well as several other events that followed later, was a tremendous shock, particularly to those Argentinian Jews born in the country and sometimes sons of native parents, for many of whom this was the ﬁ rst occasion on which they were compelled to meditate and ponder on their destiny as Jews and as individuals.68 The weekly La Luz wrote in a similar vein in October 1962, in an issue marking the Jewish new year: For Argentine Jewry, the stormy year we have just left behind us was the saddest of the hundred years of its existence in this country. This intolerable situation has caused Jews in some circles to think that Jewish life may be impossible in Argentina [. . .]. One thing is clear now: The beautiful ideal, enveloped in rosy expectations concerning the future, which the Jewish settlers brought with them [. . .] began to crumble with each Jewish child slashed with swastikas, each Jewish institution shot at [. . .]. The painful dilemma is posed: Does the Jewish community have a future here, and is it worth it for Jews to continue living in Argentina?69 In the short term there was an increase in applications to the Israeli embassy and the aliyah (immigration) department of the Jewish Agency requesting information about emigrating to Israel. During the month of July 1962, following the Sirota affair, the number of applicants was much larger than in the entire ﬁ rst six months of the year. The same jump could be seen in the number of people who actually registered

67 Weekly Reports by the Embassy in Buenos Aires, 3 Nov. 1962, NA, 735.00(w)/11- 362, and 1 Dec. 1962, NA, 735.00(w)/12-162; McClintock to State Department, 22 Dec. 1962, NA, 835.411/12-2262; Hoyt to State Department, 31 Jan. 1963, NA, 735.00/1-3162; DAIA, Informe de las actividades (Aug. 1962–Sep. 1963), 7–8; and The New York Times, 19 Oct. 1962 and 30 Oct. 1962. 68 Quoted in Cohen, Not Free to Desist, 548. 69 La Luz, 5 Oct. 1962; Monk to Slawson, 2 July 1962, AJC Files, Box 3. 192 chapter eight to emigrate to Israel.70 After a mission to Argentina on behalf of the Jewish Agency, Moshe Kitron wrote: When the economic and social crises in this country escalated, giving rise to an outbreak of active anti-Semitism without any pacifying response from the authorities and democratic circles, the Zionist Jewish community’s response was clear: increase aliyah, and put the aliyah process at the center of the public’s concerns, in both theory and practice. Of course, the motive was not only Zionist awareness. At a time when reports were arriving from Israel about full employment and prosperity, the economic crisis in Argentina worsened; disappointment with the political parties and the government made the younger generation despair; emotional confusion and social disparities created a feeling of suffocation with no relief in sight in the near future; [. . .] the expansion of Hebrew education stimulated, for a certain number of young people, the need for a full Jewish life that could be lived only in Israel.71 In the middle and long term the anti-Semitic incidents of the 1960s constituted a watershed in all sorts of trends in the Jewish community. Emigration to Israel became a permanent, practical option that Argentine Jews weighed and still weigh, and a growing need was felt to establish frameworks that strengthened Jewish identity. The year 1963, following the 1960–1962 wave of anti-Semitism sparked by the Eichmann affair and Argentina’s economic crises, was a peak year in Jewish aliyah from Argentina (my own parents-in-law decided to move to Israel following the Sirota affair). From the establishment of the State of Israel up to the year 1983, no other year brought such a large number of immigrants from this South American country.72 The phenomenon of Jews leaving Argentina was even more striking if we include ﬁ gures for Jews departing for destinations other than Israel. In the ﬁ ve-year period from 1960 to 1965, 12,900 Jews left Argen-

70 Avidar to Israeli Foreign Ministry, 27 July 1962, ISA. 71 Kitron, “South American Jewry and Its Problems,” 163. See also his article “Immigration from Argentina in the Months January–June 1963” [Hebrew], B’tefuzot Hagola (Spring 1964): 13–17. 72 Two later peaks in immigration from Argentina were 1973 and 1977, attributable to the political turmoil then shaking the country: Perón’s return from 18 years in exile and his victory in the presidential elections of 1973, and the establishment of a brutal military dictatorship in March 1976, which ushered in the era of desaparecidos (disappearances). argentine jews and the accusation of ‘dual loyalty’ 193 tina. There had never been another period in the history of Argentine Jewry when emigration was so much greater than immigration.73 Thus, the wave of anti-Semitism that washed over Argentina in the early 1960s actually became a unifying factor in the life of the Jew- ish community.74 It helped strengthen Argentine Jews’ identiﬁ cation with the State of Israel, prompted an expansion of Jewish education and the creation of separate frameworks for it, stimulated organization for self-defense, enlisted general public opinion in a protest that went beyond the limits of the Jewish community, and increased emigration to Israel. These were the Jewish community’s responses to the brutal offensive launched by Tacuara and the other nationalist and anti- Semitic forces, who exploited Eichmann’s kidnapping and the violation of their country’s sovereignty as ideological justiﬁ cation for their own iniquitous actions.

73 Sergio Della Pergola, “Demographic Trends of Latin American Jewry,” in The Jewish Presence in Latin America, ed. Judith Laikin Elkin and Gilbert W. Merkx (Boston, 1987), 94, 99. 74 See Emmanuel N. Kahan, “La identidad judía en la Argentina en los tiempos del ‘Affaire Eichmann’ (1961–1962),” in Cultura y política en etnografías sobre la Argentina, ed. Sabina Frederic and Germán Soprano (Bernal [Buenos Aires], 2005), 141–159.

CHAPTER NINE

PERÓN’S RETURN TO POWER AS REFLECTED IN THE ISRAELI PRESS

Juan Domingo Perón’s return to power in Argentina after years in exile gave many people the hope that he would restore political stability to the country. After Perón’s ouster by a military coup d’état in September 1955, successive political regimes (civilian and military, democratic and authoritarian) tried to foster stability and development as they strove to excise Peronism and its followers from the political system.1 Perón, who had broken several rules of the democratic game while in power, was delegitimized politically—as was the Peronist movement itself, the hard core of which was still made up of members of the working class loyal to the deposed general. Yet all efforts to eradicate Peronism failed, the result being military uprisings, political violence, and repression, while the breach in Argentine society between Peronists and the various anti-Peronist groups continued to grow.2 Perón himself went into exile in a succession of different Latin American countries, beginning with neighboring Paraguay and continuing on to Panama, Venezuela, and the Dominican Republic—countries whose rulers sometimes shared his views. Nevertheless, he was repeatedly forced to abandon these refuges under pressure from whatever government was in power in Argentina or as a result of political vicissitudes in the host regimes. In the early

1 On the Peronist decade that ended in 1955, see Raanan Rein, Peronismo, populismo y política (Buenos Aires, 1998); Ricardo del Barco, El régimen peronista, 1946–1955 (Buenos Aires, 1983); Félix Luna, Perón y su tiempo, 3 vols. (Buenos Aires, 1984–1986); Hugo Gambini, Historia del peronismo, 2 vols. (Buenos Aires, 1999); Juan Carlos Torre, “Los años peronistas,” in Nueva Historia Argentina, VIII (Buenos Aires, 2002). 2 Much has been written about the political history and social conﬂ icts of this period. See, for example, Daniel James, Resistance and Integration: Peronism and the Argentine Working Class, 1946–1976 (Cambridge, 1988); Juan Carlos Torre and Liliana de Riz, “Argentina since 1946,” in Argentina since Independence, ed. Leslie Bethell (Cambridge, 1993), 243–363; Hernán Camarero, Pablo Pozzi, and Alejandro Schneider, eds., De la Revolución Libertadora al menemismo: Historia social y política argentina (Buenos Aires, 2000); Luis Alberto Romero, A History of Argentina in the Twentieth Century (University Park, Penn., 2002), chs. 4–6. 196 chapter nine

1960s he crossed the Atlantic and settled in Spain, with the consent of Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s dictatorship.3 The continued exclusion from political life of the biggest political and social movement in Argentina tended to polarize the attitudes of some sectors of the Peronist camp, a situation leading to turbulent labor relations, demonstrations and protests, and the emergence of guerrilla movements. With the escalation of the Cold War and fears that the Cuban Revolution might have repercussions for social struggles all over the continent, the military high command and the governing elites grew increasingly worried that Peronism would veer towards the left. Under these circumstances, the only way to guarantee order and stability in the Republic seemed to be to allow the former general to return from exile, in the hope that he, then 78 years old, might hold the key to the country’s salvation. Clearly this hope was excessive. The diplomat Yaacov Tsur, Israel’s fi rst ambassador to Buenos Aires during Perón’s initial presidential term (his offi cial title at the time was plenipotentiary minister), met with Perón on the eve of the latter’s return to Argentina and was surprised by the toll that time had taken on the old soldier: I had not seen him in 20 years. I remembered him in his offi cer’s uniform, upright, self-suffi cient, smiling and showing his white teeth. I will admit that I was excited about seeing him again [. . .]. Now he was there in front of me, aged, bent, dressed in a bathrobe. He was 78 years old, but he looked old, tired, and ill, more like an octogenarian [. . .]. I decided not to prolong our conversation. The man looked sick and broken down, pathetic.4 This chapter examines the way Perón and the Peronist doctrine were portrayed in the Israeli press in the period from Perón’s fi nal return to Argentina in June 1973 up to his death and the succession of his third wife, María Estela Martínez de Perón (known as “Isabelita”), to the presidency in July 1974.5 In this context I focus in particular on

3 See Raanan Rein, The Franco-Perón Alliance: Relations between Spain and Argentina, 1946–1955 (Pittsburgh, 1993): 245–251. 4 Yaacov Tsur, Credential No 4: First Diplomatic Mission in South America [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1981), 212. 5 On the political ups and downs of those years, see Raanan Rein, “The Miracle that Did Not Happen: Peronism’s Return to Government in Argentina, 1973–1976” [Hebrew], Zmanim 71 (Summer 2000): 66–77; Efraim Davidi, “Fifty Days that Shook Argentina: Worker Occupation of Factories and Institutions during the Peronist Gov- ernment in 1973” [Hebrew], Zmanim 89 (Winter 2005): 98–107; Roberto Terragno, El peronismo de los 70 (Buenos Aires, 2005); Juan Carlos Torre, El gigante invertebrado. Los sindicatos en el gobierno, Argentina 1973–1976 (Buenos Aires, 2004); Marcelo Rougier and Martin Fiszbein, La frustración de un proyecto económico: El gobierno peronista de 1973–1976 perón’s return to power as reflected in the israeli press 197

Perón’s return to Buenos Aires after 18 years of exile, his reelection to a third presidential term in democratic elections held in September of the same year, and his death in July 1974. In addition, I look at the repercussions of these events on the Jewish community in Argentina and the relations between the State of Israel and the Argentine Republic, as they were perceived by contemporary journalists.6 Researchers analyzing Perón’s image in the Israeli press during those months are bound to be surprised by the way perceptions of the Argen- tine political leader had changed since the establishment of the State of Israel. From the end of the 1940s up to the overthrow of his regime in 1955, Perón’s image in Israel was multidimensional. While part of the Israeli press portrayed him critically as a demagogic, authoritarian ruler, another part depicted him as a reformist leader who enjoyed the support of broad sectors of Argentine society, particularly the working class. Of equal importance was the Hebrew press’s characterization of Perón as a supporter of Israel who had made a number of positive gestures towards the Jewish community of his own country and towards the recently established Jewish state.7 The image of his second wife, María Eva Duarte, nicknamed ‘Evita’ by her many admirers, was not necessarily negative either. This complex and multifaceted image of Perón and Peronism in the Hebrew press contrasted with their negative, one-dimensional portrayal in the Anglo-American press and in the organized Jewish communities of Argentina and the United States.8

(Buenos Aires, 2006); Guido Di Tella, Argentina under Perón, 1973–76 (New York, 1983); Liliana de Riz, Retorno y derrumbe: El último gobierno peronista (Buenos Aires, 1987); Horacio Maceyra, Cámpora/Perón/Isabel (Buenos Aires, 1983). 6 The subject of relations between Israel and Argentina in the period 1948–1967 has already been examined in a number of published studies. See Raanan Rein, Argentina, Israel, and the Jews (Bethesda, Md., 2003); Ignacio Klich, “The First Argentine- Israeli Trade Accord: Political and Economic Considerations,” Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 20, no. 39–40 (1995): 177–205; Leonardo Senkman, “El peronismo visto desde la legación israelí en Buenos Aires: Sus relaciones con la OIA (1949–1954),” in Judaica Latinoamericana ( Jerusalem, 1993), II: 115–136. However, no detailed research on the same subject during the period 1967–1976 has as yet been published. On the Jewish Argentine community in those years, see Haim Avni, Emancipation and Jewish Education: 100 Years of Argentine Judaism, 1884–1984 [Hebrew] ( Jerusalem, 1985), ch. 7. 7 See the essay “Diplomats and Journalists: The Image of Peronism in the Hebrew Press” in this volume. 8 Only a few studies have been published on the images of Peronism in the Western press of the 1940s: Margaret O’Donnell, “How Time and Newsweek Covered the Argentine Story in 1947,” Inter-American Economic Affairs (Summer 1948): 3–15; Irving G. Lewis, “American Opinion of Argentina, 1939–1949” (master’s thesis, Georgetown University, 1951), especially chs. 6–9; Gwyn Howells, “The British Press and the Peróns,” 198 chapter nine

In the early 1970s, this generally positive image was replaced by a much more negative one. Yet the picture that emerged from the Argentina-related features and articles published in Israel in 1973 and 1974 was still far from one-dimensional. I believe that the ambivalence that became apparent at this point derived from two factors. First, expressions of anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli sentiments had been notable since the mid 1960s in both the right and left wings of Peronism. These tendencies were apparent even within sectors of the confederation of labor unions, Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT).9 Second, throughout the ﬁ rst half of the 1970s Argentine foreign policy on the Middle-Eastern conﬂ ict gradually moved towards a stance that was perceived as more favorable to the Arab countries in general and the Palestinians in particular.10 Even so, analysis of the features and articles on Argentina published in Israel in 1973–1974 does not reveal a monolithic image.

in The Land that England Lost: Argentina and Britain, a Special Relationship, ed. Alistair Hennesy and John King (London, 1992), 227–245; Nicolás Quiroga, “Corresponsales, editorialistas, turistas. Las representaciones sobre el peronismo en el New York Times, 1945–1951,” in Peronismo y prensa escrita: Abordajes, miradas e interpretaciones nacionales y extranjeras, ed. Raanan Rein and Claudio Panella (Rosario, Argentina, 2008), 203–253. Until now, no research has been published on how the third Peronist government was portrayed in the European or North American media. For a fascinating study of Peronism’s return to power as seen by one of the Argentine newspapers, see Claudio Panella, “El retorno de Perón y el gobierno peronista visto por el diario La Prensa (1972–1974),” Anuario del Instituto de Historia Argentina II (La Plata, 2001): 215–250. 9 With some exaggeration, possibly due to the circumstances of the time in which he was writing (at the apogee of the state terrorism wielded by a bloody dictatorship), Ismael Viñas, the son of a federal judge of Spanish origin and a Jewish mother, and himself a militant in unions and several parties of the left and center, wrote that in Argentina, “contrary to what most people suppose, anti-Semitism permeates all social strata, including the working class or ‘the poor,’ and all the political and ideological trends, including all gradations of the left [. . .] my personal experience of over thirty years testiﬁ es to this.” See Aharón (Ismael) Viñas, “Jewish Presence and Identity in Argentina” [Hebrew], Dispersion and Unity XIX, no. 83–84 (Winter 5738 [1978]): 50. For a biography of Viñas, see Pilar Roca, Ismael Viñas: Ideografía de un mestizo (Buenos Aires, 2005). 10 The end of December 1973 saw manifest concern in Israel about the possible collapse of its status in Latin America, the same fate it suffered in the African countries during those months. The fear was that other countries of the continent would join Cuba in breaking off diplomatic relations with the Jewish state. The weekly Haolam Hazeh informed its readers that “the Argentine foreign minister has already advised his president to break off diplomatic relations with Israel, a suggestion that Perón has rejected for now” (26 December 1973). The belief was that the Latin American countries in general and Argentina in particular were seeking a leading role in the bloc of non-aligned countries, and therefore needed to downgrade their ties with Israel. perón’s return to power as reflected in the israeli press 199

Before examining this image and the reasons that it changed, however, I should note that the Israeli press did not devote much space to Perón’s short third presidency—despite the fact that Israel had always shown a relatively strong interest in Argentine affairs, whether because of the large Jewish community in Argentina or because of the good relations that had reigned between the two countries since the late 1940s. The reason that coverage was less ample than might have been expected is obvious. At the time that Perón returned to Argentina, Israel was still reliving the euphoria of its victory in the Six-Day War and its occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. However, the same week that Perón was inaugurated, the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War on 6 October 1973 turned Israeli public attention to the military campaign and to what a commission of investigation would later consider “the failings” of the political and military leadership. International news, including news from Argentina, did not get much play in the Hebrew media during those months. A few world events, such as the US-Soviet summit between Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev, or the Watergate case that ultimately led to Nixon’s impeachment, naturally created more of a stir in the Israeli press. Yet even under these circumstances, in the period under review ( June 1973 to July 1974) several dozen articles and news items on Argentina and Perón were published in the Israeli dailies, sometimes even on the front page. Although most of the news items were basically informative in nature, a fair number of features and political commentary appeared as well. Another phenomenon that should be mentioned was the change that took place in the Israeli media panorama in the early 1970s. It was an era of transition, in which the private press was coming to the fore, relegating to second place the partisan, ideological press11 that predated the establishment of the state in 1948. The partisan press reﬂ ected the common conception of its time that journalism was primarily a political and social tool designed to shape the collective consciousness and to help the party that published it to recruit support and sympathizers. However, by the 1970s Israeli society had become much broader and more diverse, creating a new social and economic dynamic that undermined the status of the partisan press. During this period, too, attitudes towards Argentina and Latin America in general were more condescending than in the past. By the

11 Dan Caspi and Yehiel Limor, The Mediators: The Mass Media in Israel, 1948–1990 [Hebrew] ( Jerusalem, 1992). 200 chapter nine

1970s Israel was already a developed country that had grown in population, economy, and power since the late 1940s and early 1950s. It was no longer living a poor, dreary existence under the austerity plan the government had been forced to impose, while Buenos Aires bubbled with life and gaiety; and it had lost its desperate need for shipments of meat from the Rio de la Plata. The State of Israel saw itself as part of the developed Western world, whereas Argentina was beginning to be considered a third-world country. It is also interesting that, in contrast to the modern-day Israeli press, which tends to provide prominent, even exaggerated, coverage of anti-Semitic incidents, real or imagined, around the world, the 1970s media did not seem to devote any special or systematic attention to anti-Semitic activity in Argentina. At most, concern might be expressed occasionally on the subject of Argentine anti-Semitism in general. Even Aurora, an Israeli Spanish-language weekly which naturally allocated more space to events in Latin America than the Hebrew-language press did, published news of political, social, and economic happenings in Argentina in every issue but hardly ever mentioned anti-Semitic incidents or publications there. Finally, it should be remembered that in places such as Argentina where the Israeli dailies did not have a correspondent of their own but merely reprinted the wire stories of the big international news agencies, press attitudes could be detected only from the title given to the item, the amount of space assigned to it, its location in the paper, and the choice of image, if a photograph was included. Of course, the decision to publish an interpretative article, and, obviously, the content of such an article, provide the best clue to newspaper editors’ views on events overseas. I examined several newspapers in the course of this study. Davar was founded in 1925 as the daily organ of the Histadrut (the Israeli Federation of Labor). This union federation was identiﬁ ed with the MAPAI party that eventually metamorphosed into the Labour Party (HaAvodah). Al Hamishmar was founded in 1943 as a publication of the United Workers’ Party (MAPAM). Ha’aretz, a liberal morning paper and the oldest of the independent newspapers, had been owned by the Shocken family since 1937. Yediot Aharonot, an independent evening paper established in 1939 by the Moses family, has gradually adopted a snappy, sensationalistic tabloid style. Lastly, Ma’ariv was founded in 1948 by a group of journalists who had left Yediot Aharonot. Like Yediot Aharonot Ma’ariv was an evening paper, although it aimed for a higher perón’s return to power as reflected in the israeli press 201 journalistic standard, seeking to provide its readers with reliable information, professional commentary, and analytical features. In the early 1970s, Ma’ariv was the paper with the largest circulation in Israel. It devoted considerably more space to Jewish affairs—in Argentina and elsewhere—than the other dailies did.

Forced Exile and Return

During his years of exile, not only was Perón not isolated politically, but he even continued to play an important role as arbiter of Argentine political life, despite his physical remoteness. From his villa in the suburbs of Madrid, he maintained close contact with union leaders and with militants of the various factions of the Peronist movement by means of envoys and representatives who carried messages and instructions to his followers.12 His agents—whom he replaced frequently to prevent them from becoming too powerful—kept him up to date. The ‘17th of October’ Villa in the Puerta de Hierro suburb of the Spanish capital became a Mecca for many dignitaries identiﬁ ed with the deposed president’s movement. Through these channels, Perón managed to keep the torch burning among his sympathizers and to feed their hopes that in the not-too-distant future he would return to the presidential palace in Buenos Aires, the Casa Rosada. He spent these years engrossed in manipulative maneuvers designed to safeguard his position in the movement, and his policies oscillated regularly as he sought to divide and conquer the heterogeneous movement that bore his name. In July 1972, in the midst of combating galloping inﬂ ation measured monthly in double digits and armed terrorist groups from both the right and the left of the political arena, the head of the Argentine government, General Alejandro A. Lanusse, tried to convene all the ‘democratic forces’ to participate in a Gran Acuerdo Nacional (Grand National Agreement), conceived as a common front for planning the restoration of the governmental institutions to the hands of freely elected civil- ians. When the political parties refused to cooperate with him, Lanusse decided to revoke the prohibition of Peronism that had now lasted 17 years. It should be noted that Lanusse himself had been known for

12 For insights into the signifi cance of exile in contemporary Latin America, see Mario Sznajder and Luis Roniger, The Politics of Exile in Latin America (New York, 2009). 202 chapter nine years for his intransigent anti-Peronist views. He had participated in the abortive military revolt of 1951 and spent the following four years in a prison in southern Argentina, until Perón’s overthrow. The measures he was now adopting were not motivated by any sympathy for Peronism, but rather by a recognition that the military regime could not resolve the nation’s problems without popular support. Another strong incen- tive was the hope that this move might block the growing infl uence of the independent left.13 Although the rehabilitation of Peronism had begun, there were still obstacles in Perón’s way. According to the electoral law passed in 1972, only someone who had been a permanent resident of Argentina in the seven months preceding the elections could run for offi ce. Accord- ingly, in the elections of March 1973 the Peronist ticket was headed by Héctor Cámpora, leading a coalition called the Frente Justicialista de Liberación (FREJULI—Justicialist Liberation Front). Cámpora was an uncharismatic dentist who had been the president of the Chamber of Deputies back in the 1950s; for decades he had been known for his blind loyalty to the Perón couple. Yaacov Tsur described him in his memoirs as drab and worthless, while Abraham Alon, the Histadrut’s representative in Argentina, wrote: Dr. Cámpora [. . .] has an extremely lackluster personality, his main advantage being his unconditional, decades-long loyalty to Perón. Lately he was Perón’s personal delegate in Argentina. What the president was thinking when he made this choice is still not clear, since he could have selected a more prominent personage—although it may be that Perón was reluctant to head the list of candidates with a person who was too independent, and who might concentrate authority and power beyond what was expected.14 Cámpora’s candidacy was clear proof that Perón, far away in Madrid, was still the one moving the pieces around on the Buenos Aires game board. Juventud Peronista (Peronist Youth) cheered the candidate with cries of “Qué lindo, qué lindo/ que va a ser/ el Tío en el gobierno/ Perón en el poder” (“How lovely, how lovely / it will be / Uncle [Cámpora’s

13 Alejandro A. Lanusse, Mi testimonio (Buenos Aires, 1977); idem, Protagonista y testigo (Buenos Aires, 1988). 14 See Tsur, Credential No 4, 210; Alon to M. Hatzor, 21 Dec. 1972, P. Lavon Archive of the Labour Party, Tel Aviv, Division 208 IV, File #6007; and an article by the international news editor at Ma’ariv, Shaul Ben Haim, “A Non-Charismatic Peronism” [Hebrew], Ma’ariv, 24 May 1973. perón’s return to power as reflected in the israeli press 203 nickname] in the government / Perón in power”). Under Cámpora’s leadership, FREJULI won some 49 percent of the votes. After taking power on 25 May, however, Cámpora sat in Rivadavia’s chair for only 49 days. This brief period brought to a boil all the tension that simmered between the different factions of the Peronist movement, each of which fl aunted its loyalty to the leader, claiming to be the “authentic” Peronist school and referring to the other factions in terms such as “traitors” and “infi ltrators.”15 The main confl ict pitted the Montoneros, a left-wing Peronist guerrilla group, against the Peronist right wing, which revolved around the union bureaucracy and the minister of social welfare, José López Rega, who served as Perón’s personal secretary during his fi nal years of exile.16 In June 1973 Perón returned to Argentina. Hundreds of thousands of his followers—two million, by some estimates, and certainly the largest gathering of people in the political history of Argentina—went to await their leader in the vicinity of the Ezeiza International Airport, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. There a bloody confrontation broke out among armed groups of the Peronist right and left wings and members of the Montoneros. Dozens were killed and hundreds injured.17 This incident highlighted the diffi culty of the task Cámpora faced in trying to control and moderate the rival factions of the Peronist camp. In mid-July, Cámpora was forced to resign his position as head of state after a dramatic announcement by Perón withdrawing support for his hapless ex-representative—thereby paving the way for the old general to run for election himself and return to power. The party leadership spent some time arguing over who would be the best running partner for the new ticket. Finally, to avoid internal strife, Perón decided to assign that role to his third wife, María Estela Martínez de Perón. The new elections took place towards the end of September. This time, Perón himself obtained more than 60 percent of the votes. On 12 October 1973, at the age of 78, he took offi ce as president of Argentina for the third and last time. Both the right and the left viewed his return to power as cause for hope—perhaps their last hope. It appeared that

15 Jorge L. Bernetti, El peronismo de la Victoria (Buenos Aires, 1983); Alberto R. Jordan, “Cámpora—siete semanas de gobierno,” Todo es Historia 310 (May 1993): 8–36; Héctor Cámpora, Cómo cumplí el mandato de Perón (Buenos Aires, 1975). 16 Pablo Mendelevich, “El brujo José López Rega,” Todo es Historia 375 (Oct. 1998): 8–29; Marcelo Larraquy, López Rega: La biografía (Buenos Aires, 2004). 17 Horacio Verbitsky, Ezeiza (Buenos Aires, 1995); José Pablo Feinmann, López Rega, la cara oscura de Perón (Buenos Aires, 1987). 204 chapter nine

fi nally the cure-all for the ills of the Republic had arrived, signaling the end of the political, social, and economic disintegration of the last two decades. The expectation was that Perón would manage to enlist cooperation between different social sectors, beginning with employers and workers, in order to fulfi ll the promise of national rehabilitation. Perón’s election can be interpreted as an admission on the part of the armed forces that they had failed in their attempt to rein in the agitation generated by the extremes of the political spectrum. Youth radicalization and terrorism had reached new heights.18 The Montoneros declared open war on the union leaders, whom they described as traitors who collaborated with the enemies of Peronism.19 Kidnappings and murders had become almost daily occurrences in Argentina; and the wave of violence did not cease after Perón was sworn in. The Ejército Revo- lucionario del Pueblo (ERP—People’s Revolutionary Army), the most powerful non-Peronist guerrilla movement (it was in fact the armed wing of the Trotzkyist-oriented Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores, or Workers’ Revolutionary Party), resumed its paramilitary campaign. On the right the Alianza Anticomunista Argentina (AAA) stepped up its activity, kidnapping and killing left-wing militants.20 Perón sought to end the violence and establish a climate of national solidarity. A chance development helped improve the economic situation in Argentina: Exports increased, and consequently so did foreign-currency reserves, despite the world energy crisis which began at the end of 1973, and this was perceived as Perón’s achievement. Infl ation was contained, and the unemployment rate began to decline as well. Cor- respondingly, public support for Perón stabilized and even increased. The president now felt strong enough to expel from the movement

18 Jewish youngsters were not immune to these processes. See, for example, Adrian Krupnik, “Radicalización política y juventud judía. Cuando camino al kibutz vieron pasar al Che” (paper presented at X Jornadas Interescuelas-Departamentos de Historia, Rosario, Argentina, 20–23 September 2005). 19 On the Montoneros, see María José Moyano, Argentina’s Last Patrol: Armed Struggle, 1969–1979 (New Haven, Conn., 1995); Richard Gillespie, Soldados de Perón. Los Mon- toneros (Buenos Aires, 1987). 20 On the ERP, see Pablo A. Pozzi, Por las sendas argentinas: El PRT-ERP, la guerrilla marxista (Buenos Aires, 2001); Daniel de Santis, ed., El PRT-ERP y el peronismo: documentos (Buenos Aires, 2004); Eduardo Weisz, El PRT-ERP: Claves para una interpretación de su singularidad: Marxismo, internacionalismo y clasismo (Buenos Aires, 2006). On the Alianza Anticomunista Argentina (AAA), see Ignacio González Jansen, La triple A (Buenos Aires, 1986). On the atmosphere in those days, see Andrew Graham-Yooll, A State of Fear: Memories of Argentina’s Nightmare (London, 1986). perón’s return to power as reflected in the israeli press 205 he led those elements who had enjoyed his favor while they were still ﬁ ghting the military regime. Now, however, he saw them as an obstacle to pragmatic politics and a threat to his leadership and the stability of his government. Scarcely two months later, however, on 1 July 1974, Perón, the most prominent Argentine leader of the twentieth century, succumbed to a heart condition. His ofﬁ ce passed to his widow and vice-president, María Estela Martínez de Perón—more commonly known by her stage name, Isabel or Isabelita.

Peronism Awakens Fears of Anti-Semitism

After Perón visited Argentina in November 197221—for the ﬁ rst time in 18 years—the Hebrew press began to publish articles on the situation there and the country’s shattered society, as well as on Perón and his movement. In a long article in Ha’aretz, Abraham Paz wrote about Perón’s charismatic leadership and the various phases he had gone through since assuming the presidency for the ﬁ rst time in 1946, although the article did not make a single serious reference to his political doctrine.22 On the following day, two additional articles appeared on the subject. Both expressed concern about the consequences that Perón’s return might have for Argentine Jews, a community then numbering some 300,000 people.23 One article talked about the fears of Jews in Buenos Aires concerning “a new wave of anti-Semitism,” and the other one also linked Perón with the possibility of an anti-Semitic outburst in that country.24 About seven months later, Ha’aretz reported that “Perón

21 Ernesto Goldar, “Hace 20 años: El retorno de Perón,” Todo es Historia 304 (Nov. 1992): 8–31; Marianne González Alemán, “Le premier retour de Perón: Charisme et mobilisation populaire en novembre 1972,” Nuevo Mundo/Mundos Nuevos (7 Dec. 2008), http://nuevomundo.revues.org/index39102.html. 22 “From Defeat to Return” [Hebrew], Ha’aretz, 20 Nov. 1972. 23 Historians and demographers disagree on the size of the Jewish community in Argentina in the second half of the twentieth century. See Sergio Della Pergola, “Demo- graphic trends of Latin American Jewry,” in The Jewish Presence in Latin America, ed. Judith Laikin Elkin and Gilbert W. Merkx (Boston, 1987), 85–133; U. O. Schmelz, “Evaluación crítica de las estimaciones de población judía en la Argentina,” in Comunidades judías de Latino America, 1973–1975, ed. Comité Judío Americano (Buenos Aires, 1977), 198–223. A description of the community at that time can be found in Haim Avni, Argentine Jewry: Its Social Status and Organizational Profi le [Hebrew] ( Jerusalem, 1972). 24 Ha’aretz, 21 Nov. 1972. 206 chapter nine promised an Israeli delegation a friendly stance” on the part of his followers—although it immediately undermined this comment by citing anonymous “sources” who maintained that “when Perón was in power [. . .] his government did not show an overly friendly attitude towards Israel, and displayed anti-Semitism in its treatment of Argentine Jews.”25 (Historical research in the past several years has completely refuted both these claims.)26 In the same issue, Ha’aretz described Peronism as a political movement based on guerrilla groups and prone to violence. The image of Peronism presented here was clearly negative. In contrast, in June 1973 the morning paper Davar, identifi ed with the governing Labour Party (successor to the historic MAPAI), published articles focusing on the Argentine government’s pro-Israel position in international organizations. One article stressed that “the Argentines rejected a call to expel the Israeli delegates” and also took a balanced stand on the Arab-Israeli confl ict, going so far as to argue with the Syrians. Another article mentioned that the Peronist weekly Mayoría had published a feature entitled “Israel Is a Quarter of a Century Old: An Example of Resurrection and National Faith.”27 Davar also highlighted the fact that the minister of the economy in the Peronist government was Jewish, adding a few biographical facts about José Ber Gelbard, who had headed the Confederación General Económica (General Economic Confederation) and was Perón’s liaison with the business sector.28 Clearly Davar’s main criterion for judging the characteristics of different governments around the world was their attitude towards Israel and the confl ict in the Middle East. By this standard, the Argentine regime was portrayed as favorably disposed towards the Jewish state and therefore deserving of Israel’s friendship regardless of internal Argentine affairs, even matters involving the local Jewish community. This outlook informs the way the Israeli press has covered international news up to the present day.

25 Ha’aretz, 14 June 1973. 26 See the already cited works by Rein, Senkman, and Klich. On Perón’s treatment of Jews up to the fall of his regime in 1955, see also Jeffrey Marder, “The Organización Israelita Argentina: Between Perón and the Jews,” Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 2, no. 39–40 (1995): 125–152; Leonardo Senkman, “The Response of the First Peronist Government to Antisemitic Discourse, 1946–1954: A Necessary Reassessment,” Judaica Latinoamericana (1997), III: 175–206; Lawrence D. Bell, “The Jews and Perón: Communal Politics and National Identity in Peronist Argentina, 1946–1955” (Ph.D. thesis, Ohio State University, 2002). 27 Davar, 5 June 1973. 28 Egon Friedler, “A Jewish Minister in Argentina” [Hebrew], Davar, 18 June 1973. For a biography of Gelbard, see María Seoane, El burgués maldito (Buenos Aires, 1998). perón’s return to power as reflected in the israeli press 207

On the eve of Perón’s return to Argentina, Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs sent a delegation to Madrid to meet with him. The delegation was headed by ex-ambassador Yaacov Tsur, and included Joel Bar- romi, then in charge of the South American desk at the ministry, and Rafael Migdal, Israel’s consul-general in Lisbon (Israel did not have full formal diplomatic relations with Spain until 1986).29 The purpose of the meeting was to showcase Perón’s positive attitude towards Israel, as a counterbalance to what seemed to be growing pressure from Arab governments on Argentina and various Peronist circles.30 A recent visit to Perón’s home by seven Arab ambassadors had set off alarms in Jerusalem. The Israeli press covered the visit by Tsur and his companions extensively. Ma’ariv highlighted the personal aspect of the event with a headline that read: “General Perón Embraces a Representative of the Israeli Foreign Ministry in Madrid,” followed by reference to “the emotional meeting.”31 The visit with Perón was apparently an Israeli diplomatic success, and Perón was portrayed as categorically pro-Israel. “It is a good beginning to the relations that are developing between Israel and the new regime in Argentina,” wrote the Ma’ariv journalist. In its report of events in Argentina, the evening paper emphasized in particular the Jewish/Israeli angle, paying less attention to their domestic political, social, and economic aspects. Davar’s report of the meeting between Tsur and Perón also focused on Perón’s positive attitude towards Israel.32 The Davar editorial emphasized that the Argentine leader was “one of the most prominent persons in the [Latin American] arena in the last 30 years,” and although it also called him “an old man, who committed not a few errors as president,” that “old man” was presented as the person who would strengthen Cámpora’s government and support Israel and the local Jewish community.33

29 This subject is discussed in Raanan Rein, In the Shadow of the Holocaust and the Inquisition: Israel’s Relations with Francoist Spain (London, 1997). 30 Author’s interview with Joel Barromi ( Jerusalem, 2 Dec. 1986). 31 Report by Yehoshua Bitzur in Ma’ariv, 18 June 1973. 32 “Perón Returns to Argentina” [Hebrew], editorial, Davar, 21 June 1973. 33 Nevertheless, during Tsur’s meeting with Perón, José I. Rucci, secretary-general of the CGT—an organization dominated by Peronists—entered the room and accorded a very cool reception to the Israeli guest. “He belonged to the anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli wing of the Confederation,” wrote Tsur in his memoirs (Credential No. 4, p. 213). Abra- ham Alon, who represented the Israeli Histadrut (Workers’ Federation) in Buenos Aires, was not surprised by Rucci’s behavior; he described him as a reactionary linked to the extreme right who held anti-Semitic beliefs and hostile views on Israel. See Alon to 208 chapter nine

Defi nite sympathy for Peronism and its leftist aspect can be detected in Al Hamishmar, the organ of MAPAM, the Unifi ed Workers’ Party. This newspaper linked Peronism to socialism. In the context of an article entitled “Argentina’s Most Beautiful Days,” one reporter interviewed minister Victor Shem-Tov of MAPAM, who headed the Israeli delegation that attended Héctor Cámpora’s inauguration in Buenos Aires.34 “The impression I received from the slogans and from the talks I held,” Shem-Tov was quoted as saying, “is that there is a new word in Argentina; it is a word that is the key to the heart of the public and its trust, and that word is socialism.”35 The article expressed the hope that now that the military regime was at an end, Cámpora’s government would be a success. As for the Argentine Jewish community and the relations between the two countries, Shem-Tov was optimistic, and the newspaper reported that the minister had received red-carpet treatment everywhere he went. On the eve of the presidential elections, Al Hamishmar published an article entitled “Perón Is the Winner, Peronism Is the Problem.”36 The article asked why the Peronists needed Perón, and answered its own question: Perón’s presence is necessary for the neo-Peronists as well, to obtain his blessing for the adoption of the measures required to mediate and even to decide between the various factions, all of which mention the Peronist myth. The author, referring to the limitations of Cámpora’s power, saw Perón as a fi gure around whom the diverse Peronist coalition could be rallied.

M. Hatzor, 20 Aug. 1973, P. Lavon Archive of the Labour Party, Tel Aviv, Division 219-4, File #10. From the time he assumed his position, at the beginning of 1971, Alon sent out various reports expressing his worry about the growing inﬂ uence of nationalistic and anti-Semitic views in some of the Argentine unions. 34 Dalia Shchori, “Argentina’s Most Beautiful Days” [Hebrew], Al Hamishmar, 17 June 1973. 35 Interestingly, Yaacov Tsur, too, after returning from his meeting with Perón in Madrid, tried to explain to the Israeli public that Perón represented the revolutionary left in the entire South American continent, and that, although he did not go to Fidel’s extremes, “the distance between Castrismo and Peronismo is not great. They are the embodiment of the Latin American phenomenon of the rise of the poor classes.” See Eli Ayal, “Perón, Too, Is One of the Intermediaries” [Hebrew], Yamim VeLeilot supplement, Ma’ariv, 20 July 1973, 10–11, 47. 36 Al Hamishmar, 24 June 1973. perón’s return to power as reflected in the israeli press 209

If we compare Al Hamishmar’s stance with the views it had held during Perón’s fi rst presidency, we can see an interesting change in its attitude to the Líder and his movement. Around the end of the 1940s and the beginning of the 1950s, Al Hamishmar identifi ed with the Argentine socialists and communists who were fi ghting Peronism, a movement it perceived at the time as a South American version of fascism. However, in the early 1970s, it was clearly attempting to emphasize the social and even socialist dimension of the Peronist doctrine, surrounding Perón’s image with a positive glow.37 MAPAM itself had travelled a long road since its initial admiration of Stalin’s Soviet Union, and it was now looking for alternative models of socialism in Western Europe and the third world. In any case, Al Hamishmar covered Cámpora’s election more extensively than any of the other Israeli dailies. Moreover, just as the different trends within Peronism read the Peronist experience selectively in the context of their attempts to justify their views and to appropriate the Peronist myth as their own, Al Hamishmar now adopted a selective reading similar to that of the contemporary Peronist left. Of the fi ve newspapers examined, Yediot Aharonot showed the clearest stance. As we will see later, it wrote about Perón’s return and Argentina’s social and political upheavals as though describing a soap opera. The general tone was disparaging and arrogant. On 21 June, for example, it published an Associated Press wire photo showing Franco, Perón, and Cámpora together in Madrid. The caption the daily gave this photo was “The tyrant, the president, and the ruler.”38

The Ezeiza Massacre

The bloody confrontation between the different Peronist factions in the area surrounding the Ezeiza International Airport, where crowds were awaiting Perón’s return to Argentina, was described by Yediot Aharonot as “They came to greet Perón and were met by ﬁ re.” According to the newspaper, some two million people were waiting to see the president,

37 On socialist inﬂ uences on the Peronist doctrine, see Idit Gil, “Argentine Leftist Intellectuals, Nationalism and Social Justice (1894–1947): The Origins of Peronism?” [Hebrew] (Ph. D. diss., Tel Aviv University, 1998); Raanan Rein, In the Shadow of Perón: Juan Atilio Bramuglia and the Second Line of Argentina’s Populist Movement (Stanford, Calif., 2008). 38 Yediot Aharonot, 21 June 1973. 210 chapter nine and those responsible for the massacre were “Trotzkyists” who had begun shooting at Peronist groups. In the following paragraph, the aggressors were described as “Marxists.” Ha’aretz, in contrast, provided a much more nuanced account of the affair, including an explanation of Peronism’s internal divisions. The newspaper linked the “bloodbath” to the weakness of the elected head of state: “In the meantime, it appeared as though Perón had been elected president and Cámpora was barely his prime minister.”39 In addition to describing the people’s joy at the return of their leader, Ha’aretz supplied a skeptical, critical analysis of what was going on in the movement: “The activation of the Peronist militia brought back an armed, partisan police force, one that could not guarantee peace even within the Peronist camp.” Ma’ariv published a report of the incident on its front page, illustrated with a photograph. However, in contrast to the Ha’aretz article, the item contained no real political interpretation, but merely described the violent incidents in detail: Thirteen people died and 250 were injured in the bloody battle that turned what should have been Juan Perón’s triumphant return to Argentina after 18 years of exile into a bloodbath and horror show.40 Coverage of this dramatic event by Al Hamishmar and Davar was more limited in scope. Davar reported “20 dead in Argentina,” and added information on the measures Cámpora had adopted in response to the incident.41 Al Hamishmar, shocked by the events, wrote its account on the basis of international wire stories: “the shots began among leftist extremists supported by urban guerrillas, ex-Peronists who want a socialist country, and orthodox Peronists, whose motto is the Peronist homeland.”42

Perón’s Election to the Presidency

Perón’s victory in the presidential elections created a clearer situation, at least for a time, although the problems Argentina faced were far from

39 Ha’aretz, 22 June 1973. 40 Ma’ariv, 21 June 1973. 41 Davar, 22 June 1973. 42 Al Hamishmar, 22 June 1973. In this respect, see also Hatzofeh, 22 June 1973. perón’s return to power as reflected in the israeli press 211 being resolved. Davar, the organ of the Histradrut, rejoiced over the results of the elections and portrayed their winner as a representative of the unions whose triumph included the hope for democratization, particularly in light of events on the other side of the Andes. “The irony of fate,” wrote Davar, “is that now that the democratic regime in Chile has been wiped out, Argentina has become the democratic state par excellence of the Southern Cone.” The newspaper reminded its readers that it was Perón who had politicized and improved the situation of the working classes, and that “neither the democratic governments nor the military regimes [that succeeded him] managed to diminish his impact on those classes.”43 Davar then stressed the fact that Perón had been elected democratically and that the main social base for his new government was the working class. Other papers reported Perón’s election less enthusiastically. Shaul Ben Haim, editor of Ma’ariv’s international news section, portrayed Perón’s election not as an expression of the popular will and the result of a proper democratic process but as the obvious triumph of emotions over reason and common sense. Under the heading “Even the Trotsky- ists Support Perón,” Ma’ariv ridiculed Perón as a president backed by 100 percent of the public, an idea it considered absurd.44 Certainly the workers and unions nursed the hope that the return of Peronism would guarantee an economic policy that would protect their interests; employers, for their part, saw Perón as a kind of Argentine version of Charles de Gaulle, a symbol of conservative stability and a bulwark against revolutionary tendencies and anarchism. For the Argentine left wing, Perón was the only leader who could maintain the anti-imperialist struggle that aimed at national liberation. Ex-ambassador Tsur, then serving as chairman of the board of the Jewish National Fund, headed the Israeli delegation that attended Perón’s inauguration. He wrote: Upon returning to the Argentine capital, I had the impression that miraculously this divided nation had united; conservatives, nationalists, and reactionaries on one side, progressives, liberals, and revolutionaries on the other, all kept repeating: Please let this last. In his old age [Perón] appeared in the political arena as a savior, with the panacea for all the country’s ills in his hand. He embodied the wishes of those seeking order, a stable regime, and a strong government, at the same time that he incarnated the dreams of the high-spirited young university students

43 Davar, 25 Sept. 1973. 44 Ma’ariv, 23 Sept. 1973. 212 chapter nine

who were betting on the revolution. No one was able to explain how these contrasts could be combined in this complex fi gure, but the answer to all these diffi cult questions was: Perón.45 Ben Haim, however, in his Ma’ariv article, questioned Perón’s ability to exert any effective control over events in his country, given his declining health and ambiguous political platform, and the undiscerning standards of the Argentine public, who at the polls had considered nothing beyond the charisma of the former leader. The article concluded with this sentence, “Perón came back looking like a modern painting: Everyone sees in it what he wants to see.” Even more critical was an article by writer Hanoch Bartov, who related processes in Latin America to the bloody coup d’état that had overthrown Chile’s president-elect, the Marxist Salvador Allende.46 Part of his article harshly criticized Perón: “An old dictator, who fl irted openly with fascism and was protected for 18 years by Franco, returned victoriously to his country, and reseated himself in the presidential chair.” Bartov, the author of several novels and a biography of the commander-in-chief of the Israeli army during the Yom Kippur War, Lieutenant-General David (Dado) Elazar, did not conceal his disillu- sionment over the situation in Argentina, and ridiculed the presumption of its inhabitants: “These voters, the miserable gauchos who seek charisma, who seek law and order, who still adore Evita even now.” The message he tried to convey in his two articles in Ma’ariv was that Argentina did not belong to the club of developed Western countries, which supposedly had an educated and rational public. Instead, it was a third-world developing country in which the voters were swept away by a charismatic leader, captivated by nostalgia for some lost golden age and heedless of the political purposes or platforms of any candidate, or disregarding the candidate’s actual potential to effect changes. Despite its signifi cantly different political outlook, Al Hamishmar took a similar approach in a supercilious article fi lled with stereotypes, although, as the organ of a socialist party, it aspired to a more serious ideological analysis. Matters there [in Argentina] are not governed by pure logic and political reason [. . .]. Peronism is a special fantasy in Argentina, a kind of mixture

45 Tsur, Credential No. 4, p. 216. 46 Hanoch Bartov, “Viva Zapata” [Hebrew], Ma’ariv, 25 Sept. 1973, 5. perón’s return to power as reflected in the israeli press 213

of fascist factors and modalities with a non-Marxist socialist ideology called Justicialism.47 As mentioned, Al Hamishmar was less hostile to Peronism than the other papers were, despite certain reservations concerning the Per- onist socialist doctrine, which it did not consider sufﬁ ciently Marxist. It presented Perón’s election as inevitable and expressed the hope that his charisma and his voters’ nostalgia might be enough to unite the Argentine nation. Ha’aretz also opted, on this occasion, for an apparently objective tone. The results of the Argentine elections were published on the front page,48 and the following day brought an article analyzing both the implications of the election results and the challenges that the new president would face. This daily emphasized that turnout for the elections had been higher than expected, even though Isabelita, a less-than-popular public ﬁ gure, was Perón’s running mate, a choice that Ha’aretz contended was opposed by most Argentines. Perón, the article maintained, was perfectly aware of the dark shadow that the coup d’état in neighboring Chile had cast over political events in his own country, but this was only one of the problems he faced as president. The article analyzed the gamut of challenges that loomed on the horizon, emphasizing the skill the old Argentine caudillo had always shown in similar situations in the past. Ha’aretz never mentioned a Peronist movement or party—only a charismatic leader recruited to save his country from disaster: Politicians from almost the entire spectrum in Argentina believe that if there is a person capable of imposing his authority on both the left and the right and putting an end to terrorism, that person is Perón. Yediot Aharonot was the most categorical. It published an article by Shlomo Shamgar, accompanied by a photo of a smiling Perón, under the unequivocal headline “Perón’s Election: A Tragedy for Argentina.”49

47 Al Hamishmar, 25 July 1973. The Peronist doctrine is called justicialismo (“justicialism”), its name reﬂ ecting the movement’s ambition to impose social justice. The ideological components of Peronism are analyzed in Alberto Ciria, Perón y el justicialismo (Buenos Aires, 1971); Juan Corradi, “Between Corporatism and Insurgency: The Sources of Ambivalence in Peronist Ideology,” in Terms of Conﬂ ict: Ideology in Latin American Politics, ed. Morris Blachman and Ronald Hellman (Philadelphia, 1977); Mariano Plotkin, “La ideología de Perón: Rupturas y continuidades,” in Perón del exilio al poder, ed. Samuel Amaral and Mariano Plotkin (Buenos Aires, 1993). 48 Ha’aretz, 24 Sept. 1973. 49 Yediot Aharonot, 25 Sept. 1973. 214 chapter nine

The author explained that the recently elected president “rose from the rank of a military offi cer, but was the cleverest of all: He knew how to fl atter the masses, and array his regime with an opportunistic ‘ideology’ that he called ‘justicialism.’ ” The article went on to argue that “after shady political exercises, Perón returned to his country and to the seat from which he had been ejected 18 years earlier, before coming to pay the price of his failure.” The article culminated in a perfect expression of this evening paper’s aggressive sensationalism: Juan Perón is a scarecrow, an old demagogue whom they failed to lynch before he fl ed the country in 1955. It is a failure for which Argentina may yet pay a high price in the near future. A review of the Hebrew-language dailies and their reports on Perón’s election reveals considerable discussion in all of them of the objective diffi culties that any Argentine president would have faced in those days: tension between the armed forces and the political party system, divisions within the Peronist movement, confrontations between left and right, and, of course, economic problems and galloping infl ation. How- ever, certain differences can be perceived from one paper to the next. Whereas Davar was generally hopeful that Perón would be the answer to the political and economic crisis in Argentina, Ha’aretz presented a more neutral viewpoint, and Ma’ariv dramatically predicted chaos even before Perón took offi ce. Al Hamishmar was inconsistent in its portrayal of the justicialist leader, although it tended to be more sympathetic than the leading evening papers, Yediot Aharonot and Ma’ariv. All the publications stressed Perón’s charismatic leadership and the fact that in Argentina’s current chaotic situation he might be the only person capable of guaranteeing “order and stability.” The Israeli reader was likely to receive the impression that although Perón was not exactly a champion of democracy, his election had been democratic and he might be able to rescue the country from its continued state of crisis.

The Shadow of López Rega

During the fi rst months of Perón’s government, the daily press in Israel paid little attention to what was happening far off in Argentina. This lack of interest in South American affairs can be attributed to the Yom Kippur War and the upheaval it caused in the social and political systems of the young Middle Eastern state both during the perón’s return to power as reflected in the israeli press 215 confl ict and afterwards.50 The presence at Perón’s inauguration, in the middle of the war, of an Israeli delegation led by ex-ambassador Tsur and the acting ambassador, Eliezer Doron, was therefore all the more remarkable. Israeli newspapers reported that the delegation was well received.51 The war had broken out less than a week before the ceremony, but the foreign ministry in Jerusalem decided that Tsur would leave for Buenos Aires anyway. Upon his arrival he was besieged by journalists pumping him for news of the battlefronts in the Sinai desert and the Golan Heights. Initially, the interest that Argentine Jews showed in the situation in Israel was less than what might have been expected, whether because their attention was occupied by the dramatic events in their own country—notably Perón’s return and subsequent election after a series of internal upheavals—or whether because, after the experience of the 1967 war, they assumed that Israel would quickly overcome its enemies.52 Yaacov Tsur remarked that the Jews believed that in this war, too, like the one six years previously, Israel was not disclosing the extent of its victories, in order to prevent the great powers from intervening, and the leaders did not trust the news that came from the Arab capitals, even those reports that were true (such as the Syrian announcement that the Israeli enclave on Mount Hermon had fallen), since they had grown accustomed to the Arabs’ empty boasting.53 Real fear awakened as the confl ict continued; and in this war more than the previous ones, many Argentine Jews had relatives who had emigrated to the new country and were now being mobilized (and, by the same token, killed or wounded). Natan Lerner, who in the late 1950s had been vice-president of the DAIA, an umbrella organization encompassing all the Argentine Jewish associations, remarked, with some exaggeration, that the war renewed Jewish solidarity in circles that

50 For a recent study of this war, see Abraham Rabinovich, The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter that Transformed the Middle East (New York, 2004). 51 Ha’aretz and Davar, 23 Oct. 1973; Aurora, 17 Oct. 1973. See also Tsur, Credential No 4. 52 On the Argentine Jewish communty’s reaction to the war of 1967, see Haim Avni, “The Impact of the Six-Day War on a Zionist Community: The Case of Argentina,” in The Six-Day War and World Jewry, ed. Eli Lederhendler (Bethesda, Md., 2000), 137–165. 53 Observations by Yaacov Tsur in The Identifi cation of the Nation with the State in the Wake of the Yom Kippur War [Hebrew], ed. Moshe Davis ( Jerusalem, 1975), 237–238. 216 chapter nine had previously eschewed conventional community activities, especially circles with left-wing tendencies. These people were now busy organizing public assemblies and promoting the publication of pro-Israel paid announcements by non-Jews.54 Hundreds of young Jews registered as volunteers to fi ght in Israel’s defense, although most of them never made it out to the Middle East. Others organized publicity events for Jewish and non-Jewish audiences.55 Anyone who had expected a miracle once Perón returned to the Casa Rosada was doomed to disappointment. The old general was already in the twilight years of his life, old, sick, and surrounded by aides, at least some of whom were less than trustworthy. The most prominent among them was José López Rega who since May 1973 had held the social welfare portfolio. “Lopecito” had been a low-ranking police offi cer in the federal police until 1961. While still in uniform he had written a wordy, 740-page treatise entitled Astrología esotérica (Esoteric Astrology) which contained strange theories about colors of names and countries and the importance of different musical styles in national idiosyncrasies. His mystical proclivities earned him the popular nickname of El Brujo (The Sorceror). After retiring from the police force, he joined Perón’s entourage in exile as a nurse, gradually accumulating power and infl u- ence until he had become the leader’s personal secretary, arranging the ex-president’s agenda to suit himself and promoting the people he liked. Many understood that since they had to go through López Rega to get to Perón, they were well advised to keep on good terms with him. Juan Manuel Abal Medina, the secretary-general of the Justicialist Party at the time, recounted 25 years later that the more the General’s health deteriorated, the more López Rega’s infl uence grew. According to Abal Medina, in November 1972 López Rega did not participate in a single political meeting. He was only present at such meetings to serve coffee. By the end of February 1973 he was taking part in the meetings and sharing his ideas with everyone. In April he was already sitting in Perón’s offi ce and participating in meetings as a member of the leadership. López Rega meddled in everything, Abal Medina related,

54 Natan Lerner, “Overview,” in The Yom Kippur War: Israel and the Jewish People, ed. Moshe Davis (New York, 1974), 125–137. 55 On the various reactions within the community in Argentina, see “Desde la aggresión a Israel y al pueblo judío en Iom Kipur al cese del fuego,” in Informativo DAIA (Buenos Aires, 1973), 6–10. perón’s return to power as reflected in the israeli press 217 and Perón allowed him to do so.56 Eliezer Doron, the Israeli ambassador in Buenos Aires during that period, wrote of López Rega: When Perón returned to Argentina, [López Rega] was appointed minister of social welfare in the government, and unoffi cially as the ‘Rasputin’ of President [Isabel] Perón, the widow of the deceased president. Most of the Argentine public suspected him of corruption, despotism, dominat- ing Perón when he was old and weak, and imposing his will on Mrs. Perón after she assumed the presidency. He managed to escape back to Madrid before the military coup d’état [in March 1976], leaving behind his reputation as a frivolous, thoughtless thief and criminal [. . .] he had also won fame as an anti-Semite [. . .] he was interested in astrology and parapsychology, and through these sources and by studying the Talmud and Kaballah (so he maintained in his own defense), he learned to value the Jewish people and their qualities.57 López Rega was considered to have encouraged a pro-Arab shift in Argentine foreign policy, strengthening ties with Libya in particular, which aroused concern both in the foreign ministry in Jerusalem and among Argentine Jews.58 Libya was Argentina’s principal supplier of hydrocarbons, and, after signing various economic agreements with the Tripoli regime, López Rega announced that the presence of Jews in the national government (a clear allusion to José B. Gelbard) put the country in an awkward position for negotiating with Arab countries.59 López Rega became the channel by which ‘offi cial’ Arab anti-Semi- tism achieved greater infl uence than in the past in Argentina, joining the traditional repertory of popular anti-Semitic images of Jews: the national cultural group that would not assimilate, the revolutionary communists, the capitalists who were ruining the economy, and the Zionists with double loyalties.60

56 Página 12, 20 June 2003. On Perón’s declining health in the last months of his life, see Andrew Graham-Yooll, Agonía y muerte de Juan Domingo Perón (Buenos Aires, 2000). 57 Eliezer Doron, Observing and Confronting: From the Diary of an Israeli Ambassador [Hebrew] ( Jerusalem, 1978), 293. In his memoirs, Tsur describes López Rega as an imposter, “ignorant, but claiming to know everything, from astrology to the mysteries of the sacred Zohar.” Tsur, Credential No. 4, 211–212. 58 A symbolic expression of the rapprochement between the two countries was the agreement between the Third World Institute at the University of Buenos Aires and the Libyan embassy in Buenos Aires to distribute Muammar Kaddaﬁ ’s books in Spanish, and an anthology of Perón’s speeches translated into Arabic in Libya. See Aurora, 28 Jan. 1974. 59 Lerner, “Overview.” For more on the growing economic ties between Libya and Argentina in those months, see Aurora, 7 Feb. 1974, 29 May 1974. 60 Haim Avni, “Anti-Semitism in Argentina: Borders of Danger” [Hebrew], in Society and Identity in Argentina: The European Context [Hebrew], ed. Tzvi Medin and Raanan 218 chapter nine

A delegation of DAIA leaders, given an audience with Perón, expressed their concern about the proliferation of anti-Semitic publications and aggressive accusations against Jews. Perón rejected the theory of an anti-Argentine conspiracy that had supposedly been devised with Jewish participation. The DAIA saw to it that his views were published in October 1973. Nevertheless, Perón did not go so far as to condemn or disown anti-Semitic elements in his diverse band of followers. As long as they called themselves Peronists and did not claim to speak in the name of their leader, they could express their various and sometimes divergent opinions on any subject, including the Jewish question. It should be noted that although the four presidents who passed through the Casa Rosada in the course of 1973 all spoke out against anti-Semitism, in practice anti-Jewish activity increased, putting Argen- tina at the top of the list of countries in which anti-Semitic incidents occurred.61 Much talk was heard about the ‘Andinia Plan,’ according to which the ‘Elders of Zion’ were supposedly conspiring with international Zionism and the State of Israel to engineer the secession of the Argentine Patagonian provinces and the establishment of a second Jewish state there.62 In addition publications such as Ulises and Cabildo agitated against the allegedly heavy Jewish inﬂ uence in Buenos Aires.63 This period also saw an expanded use of the word ‘sinarquía’ (synarchism) to signify the international conspiracy against Argentina in which capitalism, communism, Zionism, and Masonry theoretically all participated. Perón himself used this word on various occasions and, before returning to power, associated it with Jews and Zionists, among others.64 Moreover, anti-Semitic discourse was only part of the problem; acts of physical damage were perpetrated, some of them attributed to

Rein (Tel Aviv, 1997), 165–197; Leonardo Senkman, “The Right and Civilian Regimes, 1955–1976,” in The Argentine Right: Its History and Intellectual Origins, 1910 to the Present, ed. Sandra McGee Deutsch and Ronald H. Dolkart (Wilmington, Del., 1993), 119–145. 61 Comité Judío Americano, Comunidades judías de Latino America, 1973–1975, 36–47; Naomi F. Meyer, “Argentina,” in American Jewish Yearbook 74 (1973) and American Jewish Yearbook 75 (1974–75). 62 Aurelio Sallairai, “El Plan Andinia,” appendix in Los Protocolos de los Sabios de Sión y la subversion mundial (Buenos Aires, 1972), 269–274. For an analysis and refutation of the plan, see DAIA, Versión argentina de la mayor superchería del siglo (Buenos Aires, 1972). 63 On Cabildo and its anti-Semitic views, see Carlos Waisman, “Capitalism, Social- ism, and the Jews: The View from Cabildo,” in The Jewish Presence in Latin America, ed. Elkin and Merkx, 233–252. 64 Primera Plana, 23 July 1971; La Razón, 13 Dec. 1972; Juan D. Perón, “Prólogo,” in Coloquios con Perón, by Enrique Pavon Pereyra (Madrid, 1973), 9. perón’s return to power as reflected in the israeli press 219 the right-wing, anti-Jewish Alianza Libertadora Nacionalista (Nationalist Liberation Alliance). Such incidents included attacks on the Sephardic Shalom synagogue in Buenos Aires and a number of community centers around the country, in addition to anti-Semitic grafﬁ ti painted on the walls of buildings in different locations. Regrettably, these actions must also be viewed within the broader context of the wave of general violence that engulfed all of Argentine society in the 1970s. To win favor from the different Peronist factions, even in the post- Perón era, the DAIA published a collection of speeches made by Perón in the 1940s and 1950s and reports of meetings he had held with DAIA leaders during 1973–1974, in all of which he had expressed friendly feelings for the Argentine Jewish community and categorical condemnation of anti-Semitism and racism.65

Perón’s Death

Perón’s death on 1 July 1974 provided an occasion for the Israeli media, like the rest of the world press, to publish features and assessments, as each newspaper expressed its views not only on recent events, but also on the Peronist phenomenon in general. Yediot Aharonot, habitually more sensationalistic than the other dailies, once again was lavish with photographs of Argentina and descriptions of tears and hysteria in the streets of Buenos Aires. It also mentioned that the World Cup game that the Argentine national soccer team was playing in Germany was not postponed despite the president’s death. Al Hamishmar, which in the 1940s and 1950s had more than once tried to examine the signiﬁ cance of the Peronist social and political movement, now, paradoxically, published very little on Argentina and said nothing about Perón’s imposing funeral, a ceremony that recalled the images of mass mourning associated with Evita’s death in July 1952.66 The day after Perón’s death the paper published the news under the heading “Perón Is Dead! Juan Perón, Argentina’s strong man in the ‘40s and ‘50s, who returned to the government last year.”67 The following day it printed an article entitled “The Legend of the Peróns,” which

65 DAIA, Perón y el pueblo judío (Buenos Aires, 1974). 66 A more detailed account of the funeral and the crowds that attended it was published in Hatzofeh, 5 July 1974. 67 Al Hamishmar, 2 July 1974. 220 chapter nine included a short historical sketch and a reference to the “problematic” background of Perón’s widow, Isabel Martínez, who had been “an oriental dancer in Panama” and was now to inherit the presidency.68 Al Hamishmar made no mention of Perón’s methods of government or of the characteristics of his cabinets, nor did it make any predictions as to who would succeed him in Argentina. However, the short article did highlight the deceased general’s good relations with Israel, contrast- ing them with his weak ties with the Arab countries. In general terms it can be said that Al Hamishmar viewed Perón favorably on the eve of his return to Argentina, but cooled somewhat afterwards. Other dailies displayed an even clearer dichotomy, stressing Israel’s good relations with Peronist Argentina (mentioning the condolence telegrams sent to Buenos Aires by president Efraim Katzir, foreign minister Yigal Allon, and Knesset speaker Yisrael Yeshayahu, and the decision by the interior minister, Shlomo Hillel, to lower Israeli fl ags to half-mast as a sign of respect for Argentine mourning)69 while painting a harshly critical picture of a rigid, tyrannical regime that kept the opposition on a leash. All the media emphasized both the admiration that many Argentines had for Perón and the hostility felt by many others who opposed his government. Thus, for example, Ma’ariv asserted that many Argentines hated Perón for the means by which he maintained himself during his fi rst two presidential terms in the 1940s and 1950s, when he took advantage of the popular support he enjoyed to repress the opposition and deny individual liberties, although many more loved and respected him even during the 18 years of his exile.70 The article reviewed the steps Perón had taken during his last term as president, emphasizing the enormous diffi culties he had been forced to confront. Accordingly, the late leader was not presented negatively, despite his past errors. Three days later, Ma’ariv published an extensive

68 Al Hamishmar, 3 July 1974. 69 Davar, 3 July 1974, Hatzofeh, 3 July 1974. Actually, from 1973 on Argentina was clearly beginning to adopt foreign-policy positions more favorable to the Arabs, judging by its voting patterns in international organizations when Middle Eastern issues were debated. See Regina Sharif, “Latin America and the Arab-Israeli Confl ict,” Journal of Palestine Studies 7, no. 1 (1977): 98–122. See also Edy Kaufman et al., Israel-Latin American Relations (New Brunswick, N.J., 1979). 70 “Juan Perón Is Dead—The President Who Was Argentina’s Great Hope” [Hebrew], Ma’ariv, 2 July 1974. perón’s return to power as reflected in the israeli press 221 essay by the diplomat Yaacov Tsur casting Perón in a very positive light.71 Tsur, who understood the Peronist phenomenon better than most Israeli offi cials, included his personal point of view as someone who had been on relatively familiar terms with Perón. The veteran diplomat set himself to reveal the human side of the deceased head of state and to explain the many paradoxes of his personality. He was apparently trying to decipher the secret of Perón’s charisma and success and thus answer the question of why his death left such a void. Clearly Tsur admired Perón as a powerful ruler with qualities that, in a younger man, could have brought about the change the country needed. In an editorial, Davar opined that “the decline of Peronism after Perón’s death will be even much more rapid than the decline of Gaul- lism after De Gaulle’s retirement.”72 But that process in France did not include violent confrontations, partly because of the Gallic democratic tradition, which both Argentina and Peronism lacked; in Argentina there was reason to fear serious upheavals “and even bloodshed.” The organ of the Labour Federation warned that the new circumstances posed a defi nite threat of anti-Semitic violence, and called upon the leadership of the Argentine Jewish community to stay alert and to keep abreast of developments. Ha’aretz, too, believed that Juan Perón’s death left a void that the Argentines will fi nd diffi cult to fi ll. All the political and social forces of the country were organized around him. His absence would lead sooner or later to a sharpening of the ideological lines of the parties. His death will also result in a schism between the very diverse elements that Perón had managed to unite.73 Evident here was a degree of evaluation that had not been conspicuous in the news published by this daily in previous months. Just before Perón’s death Ha’aretz published an article remarking that the president’s illness, described as very serious, paralleled the deeper malaise of the Republic. Perón, who had been exiled in Spain, in fact returned at the request of the military rulers when the country’s social situation was on the verge of exploding [. . .]. The workers’ movement continued to be ‘Peronist.’ But in the faintly fascist populism that

71 Yaacov Tsur, “The Return and Death of Juan Perón” [Hebrew], Ma’ariv, 5 July 1974, 20. 72 “[A] Peronism without Perón” [Hebrew], Davar, 3 July 1974. 73 Ha’aretz, 5 July 1974. 222 chapter nine

had characterized the movement during his ﬁ rst government there was a schism between the right and the left, where the left keeps adopting methods of urban terrorism, which threatens civil war in Argentina.74 Ha’aretz also emphasized that in his last presidential term, Perón’s policy had shown some degree of moderation and conservatism, compared with his policies in the 1940s and 1950s. Of all the dailies in Israel, Ha’aretz was the only one that continued to provide regular updates on events in Argentina after Perón died and was succeeded by his widow.

The Dancer: From the Cabaret to the Casa Rosada

Less than two weeks after Perón’s death, the Histadrut envoy in Buenos Aires wrote: It is still very diffi cult to evaluate the real signifi cance of the disappearance of the man who for the last 30 years was the central axis of political life in Argentina [. . .]. It is a fact that the impartial observer will fi nd post- Perón Argentina to be a country suffering from internal confl ict, lacking both international prestige and decent leadership, and plunged in a deep economic crisis. Even worse than all this, there are no indications that the country will be able to overcome the shock caused by the demise of its leader any time soon. On the contrary, it appears that a power struggle between the different factions of the Peronist movement can be expected [. . .]. The solution familiar to Argentines for several generations may appear in the form of a new military coup d’état, which will lead the country into another phase of instability and bitterness.75 Naturally, the image of Isabel Martínez de Perón, the new president, aroused great interest in the communication media around the world, including Israel, among other reasons because at age 43 she was the fi rst woman in history to attain such power in the Western hemisphere.76 Everyone insisted that she had inherited her post, regardless of her experience or abilities. Yediot Aharonot portrayed the situation as a chapter in a romantic novel—one of the soap operas that in later years would popularize the word ‘telenovela’ in Hebrew—describing

74 Ha’aretz, 1 July 1974. 75 Alon to M. Hatzor, 12 July 1974, P. Lavon Archive of the Labour Party, Tel Aviv, Division 219-4 IV, File #10 A. 76 For a recent biography, see María Sáenz Quesada, Isabel Perón (Buenos Aires, 2003). perón’s return to power as reflected in the israeli press 223 the ascent of the impoverished dancer and saying nothing about the concrete consequences that current events in Argentina would have for the lives and fates of millions of people.77 Al Hamishmar, too, mentioned the “problematic” origins of the new head of state. Ma’ariv, not noted for its pro-Perón sympathies, published a contemptuous article about Isabelita’s efforts to imitate Evita’s style. This paper reprinted a column by Henry Ackerman, Associated Press correspondent, which mentioned Mrs. Perón’s strong belief in astrology.78 The new president’s biography was presented in unfl attering terms: The slender brunette, who worked as a dancer in a Panama cabaret where she met Juan Perón, was fi rst his secretary, then his wife, and now was being sworn in as acting president of Argentina. The various newspapers reminded readers that Isabel was from a poor family, that she had not completed her elementary education, and that only thanks to her mother’s efforts had she been able to continue her dance classes. They also emphasized that Perón himself had imposed his wife on the entire political system.79 For several weeks the media had trouble describing the line that the widow would follow, and they mentioned her with doubt and mistrust: The big question in Argentina now is whether Mrs. Perón will be able to forestall both the left and the right and take advantage of the opportunity [. . .] to try to tackle the problem of gaining control of the country.80 The newspaper published by the National Religious Party, Hatzofeh, did not normally publish much on Argentine issues, unless they involved topics connected to the Jewish community, religious conversion, or emigration to Israel. However, during this period it ran an article asking a series of questions about Isabel’s ability to maintain the governing party’s base of social and political support. At the same time, it emphasized that with Perón’s death, his widow had become “the new symbol of Peronism,” and that the fear of returning to a period of crisis and uncertainty was what had led all the bastions of power, military offi cers and leaders of the main political parties, to close ranks in support of

77 “An Ex-Cabaret Dancer—President of Argentina,” Yediot Aharonot [Hebrew], 1 July 1974. 78 “Isabelita Perón Tries to Imitate Evita’s Style” [Hebrew], Ma’ariv, 1 July 1974. 79 “Mrs. Perón, 43, Was Elected Vice President at the Wish of her Husband Several Months Ago” [Hebrew], Ha’aretz, 1 July 1974. 80 Ibid. 224 chapter nine

María Estela Martínez so that she could carry on the administration begun by her late husband. To those supporters must be added the multitudes who on July 4 stood in the heavy rain in Buenos Aires in order to bid their last farewell to their leader, thereby expressing “their sympathy and support for the new president of their country.”81 Ha’aretz decided to publish a Hebrew translation of an article by Jonathan Candell that had originally appeared in The New York Times and that expressed a cautious optimism about the young widow’s political performance.82 However, it was very soon apparent that the optimism was misplaced. Isabel Perón was in power for less than two years, during which time the country’s descent into the abyss of murderous political violence accelerated. Just in her second week as president, the ex-minister of the interior, Arturo Mor Roig, was shot dead; during the presidency of General Lanusse he had orchestrated the transition to an elected civilian government, opening the door to Perón’s return. It was not clear whether the murder had been committed by the Ejér- cito Revolucionario del Pueblo (People’s Revolutionary Army) or by the Montoneros. The Israeli press emphasized the fact that the same week had seen the assassination of the manager of the La Plata daily El Día, David Kraiselburd, who was of Jewish origin.83 In practice, an open war had begun between the left and the right. According to Amnesty International reports, in 1974 alone there were 300 political assassinations in Argentina. Statistics published by the Buenos Aires Herald indicate a total of 1,100 dead by political violence during 1975. Most of these deaths were the work of right-wing brigades. The concept of ‘subversion’ was broadened and applied arbitrarily, so that fear could be sown among the political parties, the press, the universities, the judicial system, and the unions.84 The phenomenon of

81 S. Aharoni, “In Argentina the Future Is Viewed with Apprehension” [Hebrew], Hatzofeh, 9 July 1974. 82 “Isabel, from La Rioja to the Presidency” [Hebrew], Ha’aretz, 5 July 1974. 83 Kraiselburd was kidnapped in broad daylight in the center of La Plata, the capital of Buenos Aires province, by a group of a dozen or so armed men. A few days later his body was found in a house in a La Plata suburb, following an armed confrontation between police offi cers and two people classifi ed as “extremists” according to the usual terminology of the time. Hatzofeh wrote that Kraiselburd had “defended Israel and Jewish affairs vehemently from the pages of his daily. He had been a member of the Association of Friends of the Hebrew University [in Jerusalem] in La Plata.” It was also noted that he was buried in the Jewish cemetery in La Plata. Hatzofeh, 19 July 1974, 21 July 1974. 84 On the sources of state terrorism in Argentina, see Raanan Rein, “ ‘Subversion,’ Torture, and Liquidations: What Did the French Teach Argentine Military Offi cers?” perón’s return to power as reflected in the israeli press 225 kidnappings and disappearances, so closely identifi ed with the military regime that booted Isabel out in March 1976, was already widespread in 1975. The government headed by Perón’s widow, which also adopted a right-wing economic policy with authoritarian features, was notorious at the time for the political and fi nancial crisis, terrorism, and galloping infl ation. The Alianza Anticomunista Argentina (AAA—Argentine Anticommunist Alliance), which operated with the blessing of Minister López Rega, preferred on many occasions to seek its prey among Jewish leftists, and sometimes also acted against Jews who had nothing to do with the left. However, the members of this paramilitary organization enjoyed great impunity. The combination of political violence, spiraling infl ation, and a president who lacked both political and moral authority was almost an open invitation to a military coup. December 1975 saw an abortive attempt led by an ultranationalist air-force offi cer, which the other armed forces did not join. Andrew Graham-Yooll, an editor at the Buenos Aires Herald in those days, wrote in his book: The army, navy and air force had encouraged rumours about a coup d’état since the failure, just before Christmas, of an air force uprising [. . .]. Since then, the government was ridiculed in every headline [. . .]. There was an unabashed crowing at every stumble of a preposterous administration [. . .]. The armed forces had scented blood and they liked it.85 On 24 March 1976, the armed forces coordinated their actions and seized the reins of power. The new government began to dismantle the various institutions of the Peronist welfare state and to liquidate the different factions of the left, extracting a high price in blood—with Jews paying an especially dear price.86 To recapitulate, the Israeli press devoted a fair amount of space to the events in Argentina, and paid close attention to what was happening in Buenos Aires. This is all the more striking in light of the fact that from October 1973 on, both the Israeli political system and Israeli society—and consequently the communication media—were busy digesting

[Hebrew], Zmanim 87 (Summer 2004), 40–51; Samuel Amaral, “Guerra revolucionaria: De Argelia a la Argentina, 1957–1962,” in Investigaciones y ensayos 48 (Buenos Aires, 1998), 173–195. 85 Graham-Yooll, A State of Fear, 65–66. 86 On the relatively large proportion of Jewish victims in those years, see Centro de Investigaciones Sociales de la DAIA, Informe sobre la situación de los detenidos-desaparecidos judíos durante el genocidio perpetrado en Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1999); Gabriela Lotersztain, Los judíos bajo el terror, Argentina 1976–1983 (Buenos Aires, 2008). 226 chapter nine the crisis caused by the Yom Kippur War and its high casualties, as well as assigning responsibility for the debacle. In this period—as in the ﬁ rst Peronist era, which ended in September 1955—the regime’s image in the Israeli press was neither one-dimensional nor uniform, although as time passed newspapers changed their emphasis. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the image of Peronism was more complex. For the most part Perón was portrayed as a friend of Israel, someone who had extended a hand to help the young state as it fought for its existence and struggled with serious economic difﬁ culties in its efforts to absorb the mass waves of immigration arriving on its shores. This image of Perón recurs less frequently in the 1970s. The fact that the partisan and ideological press had begun to take a back seat to the commercial press also tended to dissipate discussion about justicialism and its social characteristics. Davar expressed its satisfaction that Peronism was back in power. As the organ of the Histadrut, it emphasized the grassroots, working-class base of the Peronist movement, while its links to the government led it to stress the direct interests of the State of Israel and Israeli foreign policy. Al Hamishmar, which was sponsored by MAPAM, reversed its formerly hostile stance on Peronism and showed a certain zest for strengthening the left wing of the justicialist movement. Accordingly, it expressed satisfaction at Cámpora’s victory and Perón’s return to the country. Gradually, owing in part to Perón’s swing to the right, its enthusiasm began to fade. Ma’ariv and Ha’aretz provided wider and more varied coverage of events in Argentina, with Ma’ariv taking a haughty, critical view of Argentine politics in general and Peronism in particular. In the 1970s Israel was already a developed country that had left behind the memory of its time of economic austerity, whereas Argentina was beginning to be considered a third-world country. It is therefore hardly surprising that Yediot Aharonot should depict Perón’s return to his country and to the government as a sort of Latin American telenovela, presenting readers with a series of stereotypes and clichés that helped sell papers. CHAPTER TEN

SOCCER AS A DOUBLE-EDGED WEAPON: ARGENTINE EXILES IN ISRAEL PROTEST AGAINST THE 1978 WORLD CUP

The coup d’état of 24 March 1976 was the sixth military coup in the history of the Argentine Republic—and the bloodiest. In the name of the ‘doctrine of national security’ and the battle against ‘subversion,’ tens of thousands of citizens were kidnapped, imprisoned, tortured, and murdered. What the military authorities proclaimed as the ‘Process of National Reconstruction’ became known all over the world as the ‘dirty war.’ In 1978, on the eve of the World Cup football (or soccer, as it is called in the United States) tournament in Argentina, the magnitude of the military dictatorship’s crimes of state terrorism was no longer a secret. Even the US government, headed by the leader of the Demo- cratic Party, Jimmy Carter, had joined those who were openly criticizing the Argentine military junta’s continual human-rights violations. This was a reversal of the approach taken by the preceding Republican administration, which, according to now declassifi ed documents, had supported the perpetrators of the military coup and even advised them to intensify the repression before US public opinion demanded an accounting.1 It was under these circumstances that Argentina would host the World Cup, an event that the military offi cers in power seized upon to show both the world and the local population the image of a developed, orderly country under the guidance of an effi cient military government. Much has been written about the political exploitation of sports events by dictatorial regimes. An extensive bibliography is available on the manipulation of such events to distract attention from personal or collective daily miseries, or as a tool for reinforcing capitalist social

1 On Argentine-US relations during the dictatorship, see David M. K. Sheinin, Argentina and the United States: An Alliance Contained (Athens, Ga., 2006), ch. 6; Ariel C. Armony, Argentina, the United States, and the Anti-Communist Crusade in Central America, 1977–1984 (Athens, Ga., 1997); Joseph S. Tulchin, Argentina and the United States: A Confl icted Relationship (Boston, 1990), ch. 8. 228 chapter ten discipline.2 This phenomenon has also been studied in the case of Argentina, some going so far as to speak of ‘the theology of football’ there.3 A notable example was the World Cup held in Argentina in 1978, which allowed many to ‘look the other way,’ avoiding any debate or even thought about the true character of the military regime.4 This chapter seeks to analyze certain questions concerning the protests mounted against the 1978 World Cup. After a brief review of the military government’s efforts to use the World Cup to legitimize its dictatorship, to Argentine society as well as the rest of the world, I will examine the reactions of world public opinion to the fact that this event was being held in a country ruled by a repressive, criminal regime. My focus, however, will be on the people and groups in Israel who used the occasion of the World Cup to protest and denounce the crimes committed in Argentina. The Israeli case is particularly interesting because of the close relations between Israel and the Argentine dictatorship, as well as the fact that Israel had a large community of Latin American immigrants, most of them Argentines. Their numbers steadily increased as several hundred exiles fl ed the horrors of the aforementioned ‘Process of National Reconstruction.’5 Argentina was declared a candidate to host the World Cup in July 1966—only a few weeks after a military coup calling itself ‘the Argentine Revolution’ had managed to topple President Arturo Illia. During the Peronist administration headed by María Estela Martínez de Perón, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) confi rmed Argentina as the host of the eleventh World Cup, to be held in 1978.6

2 See Eduardo P. Archetti, Masculinities: Football, Polo and the Tango in Argentina (New York, 1999); Allen Guttmann, Games and Empires: Modern Sports and Cultural Imperialism (New York, 1978); idem, From Ritual to Record: The Nature of Modern Sports (New York, 1978); Joseph L. Arbena, ed., Sport and Society in Latin America (New York, 1978); James Walvin, The People’s Game: A Social History of British Football (London, 1975); Paul Hoch, Rip Off the Big Game: The Exploitation of Sports by the Power Elite (New York, 1972). 3 Certainly almost all of Argentina’s previous governments, civilian as well as military, made political use of sports, especially soccer. See Ariel Scher, La patria deportista—Cien años de política y deporte (Buenos Aires, 1996); Pablo A. Ramírez, “Los gobernantes y el fútbol,” Todo es Historia, 324 (1994), 90–3; Raanan Rein, “El Primer Deportista: The Political Use and Abuse of Sports in Peronist Argentina,” The International Journal of the History of Sport, XV (1998), 54–76. 4 Umberto Eco also used the Argentine World Cup as a paradigm of sports being used as a substitute for political debate. See Peter Pericles Trifonas, Umberto Eco and Football (Cambridge, 2001). 5 On the Latin American community in Israel, see chapter 2 in this volume. 6 New York Times, 16 Feb. 1975. soccer as a double-edged weapon 229

The military junta that took power in March 1976 realized immediately that football was an asset it could put to good use. On the very day of the coup, 24 March 1976, all the radio stations and television channels were placed under military control; regular programming was suspended and replaced by military marches and the Junta’s communiqués. The only program from the pre-coup schedule that was broadcast as originally planned was the qualifying football match played in Poland by that country and Argentina. All programs were banned except for one: the football game.7 It is not farfetched to suppose that the authorization of this particular broadcast reﬂ ected not only political exploitation of a sporting event, but also the new authorities’ understanding of the limited margin of manoeuvre they had in this ﬁ eld. Cancelling the broadcast of the game might have undermined the legitimation that they were seeking throughout society. A few months after the military coup, in July 1976, President Jorge Rafael Videla announced that hosting the World Cup was a national duty of the highest priority, and would consequently receive preferential attention from the government. The military’s eagerness to take advantage of the occasion was clear, particularly since the Junta’s international image was deteriorating as the foreign media publicized the crimes committed by the Argentine military. The money the Junta invested in construction and services related to the World Cup was estimated at 10 percent of the national budget, or $700 million, swelling the already unwieldy foreign debt.8 Four years later Spain would invest only a third of this amount in hosting the 1982 World Cup; by way of comparison, Argentina’s investment in the 1978 World Cup represented 40 percent of its annual spending on education at that time. The projects planned and carried out included the construction or renovation of three football stadiums, in Mendoza, Córdoba, and Mar del Plata, to bring them into accordance with international standards; infrastructural improvements ranging from roads to sewers; the renovation of telecommunication networks; and the introduction of color television. This last innovation had been demanded by FIFA in order to guarantee the broadcast of

7 See “Cuando la pelota se manchó de sangre” in the anthology compiled by Laura Santos, Ulises Muschietti, and Andrés Mazzeo, 1976 / Investigaciones / Testimonios / Cronologías (Buenos Aires, 2006), 18–23. 8 According to an Associated Press report dated 30 May 1978. On the Junta’s use of the World Cup for propagandistic purposes, see Mabel Veneziani, “El Mundial,” Todo es Historia, CCXXIX (1986), 30–54; Tony Mason, Passion of the People? Football in South America (London, 1995): 71–5. 230 chapter ten the games to nearly a billion spectators around the world (although Argentines would have to follow the ups and downs of the contest in black and white only). Other kinds of projects that were not directly related to the World Cup were postponed. The Junta’s objective was clear: a perfectly organized World Cup and the victory of the Argentine team, whatever the cost. Seeking to ﬁ eld the best possible team, it drew up a list of players who could not be sold, or who were to be released from European clubs. The only exception was Mario Kempes, dubbed ‘the Matador,’ on the Spanish team from Valencia. Here we see the dissonance between the ultraliberal policy adopted by the military authorities in economic matters and the nationalist economic attitude employed in sports: the establishment of a centralist state entity linked to the government, massive investment by the state, and intervention to limit the transfer of outstanding players to foreign clubs.

Protests a round the World

In the months leading up to the World Cup, groups around the world began to mount protests calling for a boycott of the competition in Argentina, for two main reasons: the wholesale, recurring human rights violations by the military junta that was ruling the country, resulting in thousands of desaparecidos; and the fear that armed organizations opposing the military regime might carry out acts of violence during the event.9 In an attempt to silence both protests and fears, the military spokespersons declared that Argentina was enjoying a period of social peace and that no violent incidents were anticipated. The Junta launched an international campaign to improve its image and to discredit those accusing Argentina of systematic human rights violations. Seeking to reinforce the image of a peaceful Argentina, the regime spent the months before the World Cup redoubling its repressive efforts, and slum residents in the cities appointed to host World Cup events were forced to leave their homes in order to demonstrate that poverty “no longer exists.” The dictatorship set up a disinformation ofﬁ ce in Paris for the

9 Marina Franco, “Solidaridad internacional, exilio y dictadura en torno al Mundial de 1978,” in Exilios: Destinos y experiencias bajo la dictadura militar, ed. Pablo Yankelevich and Silvina Jensen (Buenos Aires, 2007): 147–86. soccer as a double-edged weapon 231 purpose of disseminating propaganda. The choice of the French capital was a calculated one. Paris was the site of a center of solidarity with the Argentine victims of the dictatorship which had initiated a campaign to boycott the World Cup. This center produced posters, publications, appeals, fi lms, and even recordings that were distributed by the tens of thousands. All of these materials bore the symbol of the boycott: the offi cial World Cup logo surrounded by barbed wire.10 The fi rst calls to boycott the World Cup were published in the daily Le Monde in October 1977, under the bylines of the Polish intellectual Marek Halter and the journalist Alain Fontaine. Later a boycott committee was organized, bringing together human-rights militants (many of them members of Amnesty International) and radical left-wing activists. Halter knew Argentina well and had visited the country towards the end of the 1960s, when he had met with local militants of the left. The organization created to orchestrate the boycott was called COBA (the French acronym for ‘Committee for the Boycott of the World Cup in Argentina’). Before long it had managed to develop a strong base of solidarity and protest throughout France; more than 200 local COBA committees were created in the major cities and in the provinces.11 COBA brought together Argentine exiles belonging to different solidarity committees created in France, notably the CAIS (Comité Argentina de Información y Solidaridad—Argentine Information and Solidarity Committee), as well as leftist militants, intellectuals who had been involved in the student and worker protests of May 1968, and even the association of physical-education teachers.12 To judge by the reaction of the Junta, their campaign was quite effective, leading the

10 See, for example, the recording of Argentine protest music, COBARGENTINE Solidarité, Argentina 78, Boycott de la Dictature! (Paris, 1978). 11 Morgane Auge et al., Réfl exions sur la constitution de réseaux de solidarité autour des exilés argentins dans les années 1970. Et considérations sur l’évolution de l’accès au droit d’asile en France (Paris, 2006), 34. 12 The philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy joined the boycott campaign. At the age of twenty-nine, the young intellectual went to Buenos Aires as a special correspondent for several weekly news magazines: the French Le Nouvel Observateur, the Italian L’Espresso, the Spanish Cambio 16, and the US New Republic. He was detained by the Argentine federal police for several hours at the end of May 1978, and throughout his stay in Argentina he was closely followed by plainclothes police offi cers. See the Associated Press report of 30 May 1978 and Bernard-Henri Lévy, “Cómo me echaron del Mun- dial,” Cambio 16, 16 Nov. 1978. 232 chapter ten military authorities to deploy, via the government-controlled media, a local counter-offensive to ‘the anti-Argentine campaign.’13 The idea of boycotting the World Cup was also promoted by solidarity organizations in the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, the Federal Republic of Germany, Switzerland, the United States, Sweden, Finland, and, to a lesser degree, Mexico, Spain, and Israel. Those advocating the boycott argued that sports could not be separated from politics, and that the military junta was using and abusing the event to convey an image of a peaceful Argentine society, when in fact state terrorism was committing the worst possible crimes. Nevertheless, not everyone shared this opinion. Not all left-wing parties joined the boycott, either because they opposed the views on human rights of the then-US president, Jimmy Carter, or because the Soviet Union maintained preferential economic relations with Argentina. One of the weekly magazines of the Partido Comunista Argentino (PCA—Argentine Communist Party) even expressed the hope that the World Cup might offer the vision of a prosperous, peaceful society, and show the critics that there was no reason for a boycott.14 The PCA’s position infl uenced other Communist parties. The French Communist leader Georges Marchais actively opposed the boycott and called on the members of the French football team to participate in the tournament. Social democratic parties also opposed the boycott, and the French leader François Mitterand publicly espoused a position similar to that of Marchais. In Israel, as we will see further on, neither the Communist Party nor the two parties that belonged to the Socialist Internationale, the Labour Party and MAPAM (United Workers’ Party), supported the boycott. Despite the international campaign against the World Cup, none of the 15 foreign teams withdrew from the competition. Only two Dutch footballers, the team captain, Wim van Henegem, and Johan Cruyff—both among the best players of that era—refused to participate

13 Marina Franco and Pilar Gonzáles Bernaldo, “Cuando el sujeto deviene objeto: La construcción del exilio argentino en Francia,” in Represión y destierro. Itinerarios del exilio argentino, ed. Pablo Yankelevich (La Plata, 2005), 31; Bill L. Smith, “The Argen- tinian Junta and the Press in the Run-up to the 1978 World Cup,” Soccer and Society, III (2002): 69–78. 14 Coincidencias, 5 May 1978. On relations between Argentina and the Soviet Union in those years, see Isidoro Gilbert, El oro de Moscú: La historia secreta de las relaciones argentino-soviéticas (Buenos Aires, 1994), chs. 14–17; Aldo César Vacs, Discreet Partners: Argentina and the USSR since 1917 (Pittsburg, 1984). soccer as a double-edged weapon 233 in the World Cup on political grounds. The French coach, Michel Hidalgo, made a personal commitment to discover the fate of eleven desaparecidos, in particular two French nuns who had been kidnapped in December 1977.15 Scores of reporters arrived in Buenos Aires to cover the World Cup. For the most part, they wrote only about the football matches; a few of them were even won over by the dictatorship’s propaganda. A correspondent of the London Times wrote that the Argentines were “neither unhappy nor, any longer, repressed.”16 Other correspondents took advantage of their expense-paid World Cup assignments to write about the situation of the desaparecidos or the struggle of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Two German television journalists did this, for example, while broadcasting the opening ceremonies. Other reporters compared the Junta’s political exploitation of the event to Benito Mussolini’s actions in the 1934 World Cup and those of Adolf Hitler at the 1936 Olympic Games.17 The German footballer Seep Maier tried to join one of the demonstrations of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo but the FIFA authorities intervened and threatened to expel him from the competition. The captain of the German team, Hans Hubert ‘Berti’ Vogts, for his part declared that “Argentina is a country where order reigns, and I did not see a single political prisoner.”18 The urban guerrilla groups that operated clandestinely in Argentina, having been harshly treated by the armed forces both before and after 24 March 1976, apparently either decided unilaterally not to mount any armed attacks during the World Cup or agreed to a truce.19 There are indications that the Montonero leaders did observe some kind of

15 AP news report, 30 May 1978. 16 According to Simon Kuper, Soccer against the Enemy (New York, 2006), 213. 17 On the Olympic Games held in Germany in 1936, see David Clay Large, Nazi Games: The Olympics of 1936 (New York, 2007); Duff Hart-Davis, Hitler’s Games—The 1936 Olympics (London, 1986); Richard D. Mandell, The Nazi Olympics, 2nd ed. (Urbana, Ill., 1987). On sports and politics in Fascist Italy, see Victoria de Grazia, The Culture of Consent: Mass Organization of Leisure in Fascist Italy (Cambridge, 1981), especially pp. 169–180; Felice Fabrizio, Sport e fascismo: La politica sportiva del regime, 1924–1936 (Rimini, Italy, 1976). 18 This type of statement was described diplomatically by the then-Israeli ambassador to Buenos Aires, Ram Nirgad, in a letter sent to the foreign ministry in Jerusalem on 16 June 1978: “People are very engrossed in the football games, and for someone who does not worry about what is happening behind the scenes, everything seems to be going wonderfully well” (author’s archives). 19 Mason, Passion of the People?, 163; Richard Gillespie, Soldiers of Perón: Argentina’s Montoneros (New York, 1982): 257–8. 234 chapter ten time-out during the games, reportedly prearranged at a meeting held in Paris towards the end of 1977 and attended by Admiral Massera and the Montonero leader, Mario Firmenich. In an interview granted to the French weekly L’Express on 10 April 1978, another leading Montonero, Rodolfo Galimberti, declared that the boycott “is not a realistic policy,” and even asserted: “we tell everyone: They can go [to Argentina]. The Montoneros will not take any action during the World Cup that might endanger athletes or journalists.” In the interview he proposed “a truce” to the de facto president, Videla.20 The leftwing guerrilla group Ejér- cito Revolucionario del Pueblo (ERP—People’s Revolutionary Army) took no action during the World Cup either, probably because of its organizational disarray—a large number of its militants and leaders were dead, in prison, desaparecidos, or in exile. Indeed, no violent occurrences were recorded during the World Cup. Most of the matches took place with little incident. In the meantime, the Junta tried to counteract the pessimism prevailing in wide sectors of the population by means of a meticulously orchestrated campaign that incorporated the radio, the television, the daily press, the weeklies, and propaganda posters.21 The major weeklies Gente and El Gráﬁ co, owned by the Atlántida publishing house, played a key role in the campaign. An editorial in El Gráﬁ co explained that for those on the outside, for all those insidious and malicious journalists who for months pursued a campaign of lies about Argentina, this competition is showing the world the reality of our country and its ability to do important things responsibly and well. As for those on the inside, for the unbelievers whom we had in our own house, we are certain that the World Cup has managed to shake them up, thrill them, and make them proud.22 Radio and television announcers kept repeating the slogans dictated by the military censors and propagandists, including the phrase in the

20 Juan José Sebreli, La era del fútbol (Buenos Aires, 1998), 194. On Galimberti see Marcelo Larraquy and Roberto Caballero, Galimberti: Crónica negra de la historia reciente de Argentina (Madrid, 2002). 21 On military control of the mass media during the World Cup, see Pablo Llonto, La vergüenza de todos: El dedo en la llaga del Mundial 78 (Buenos Aires, 2005); Eduardo Blaustein and Martín Zubieta, Decíamos ayer: La prensa argentina bajo el proceso (Buenos Aires, 1998). 22 El Gráﬁ co, 6 June 1978. soccer as a double-edged weapon 235

World Cup anthem to the effect that the games were played by 25 million Argentines—in other words, any citizen who opposed or boy- cotted the World Cup was no longer part of the nation. The regime used every marketing and publicity tool it could muster, including the endless repetition of the same sentences. Public entities and private enterprises joined the campaign, increasing its impact. In the fi nal game the Argentine team played the Dutch team. The fi rst 90 minutes ending in a tie, the Argentine team scored two goals in overtime and was awarded the World Cup. General Videla presented the cup to the captain of the Argentine team, Daniel Passarella, amid wild applause from the crowd;23 this popular support can be considered to refl ect the zenith of most Argentines’ acceptance—whether from fear or indifference—of the military regime. The fi nal took place in the River Plate Stadium, a few hundred meters away from the Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada (ESMA—Navy School of Mechanics), which was used as a torture center during the dictatorship and came to be known as ‘the Argentine Auschwitz.’ In his book Soccer against the Enemy, Kuper quotes General Enciso as saying that the Argentine victory in the World Cup was “an explosion of ecstasy and hysteria. All the country was on the streets. Radicals embraced with Peronists, Catholics with Protestants and with Jews, and all had only one fl ag: the fl ag of Argentina!”24 When Kuper asked the general if he could compare this explosion of happiness to that observed during the Malvinas/Falklands War, he responded, “Exactly! It was exactly the same!” Hebe de Bonafi ni, one of the founders of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, remarked, “For the crowds it was a fi esta—for the families of the disappeared, a tragedia.” The governor of Buenos Aires province, General Ibérico Saint Jean, who was one of the harshest oppressors, declared for his part, All of us in the stadium that day saw the spectators saying the Lord’s Prayer and cheering the leaders of the different forces. We saw the masses participate in this unexpected event, and at the end they sang the national anthem.25

23 Ricardo Gotta, Fuimos campeones (Buenos Aires, 2008). 24 Kuper, Soccer Against the Enemy, 209. 25 According to Marguerite Feitlowitz, the street parties celebrating Argentina’s World Cup victory reminded one journalist covering the competition of the explosions of 236 chapter ten

These words from the brutal ofﬁ cer brought together all the ideological elements of the military message: nationalism, militarism, religious zeal, and sports mania.

Close Relations b etween Israel and the Argentine Dictatorship

The Israeli government had excellent relations with the Argentine military regime. Despite the Junta’s anti-Semitism,26 ties between the two countries grew closer during the government of the right-wing Likud party headed by Menachem Begin, although these relations had already been established during the government of the previous prime minister and Labour leader, Yitzhak Rabin. While the elections that swept Begin to power in 1977 represented a historically signiﬁ cant political turning point after nearly three decades of Labour hegemony in the government, no major changes took place in Israel’s relations with the Argentine dictatorship.27 Although these relations were signiﬁ cant, especially in military affairs, news of them was censored in the Israeli press. The existing military censorship of the Israeli mass media prohibited the publication of any news items or commentary concerning Israel’s military relations with other countries, and this case was no different. Consequently, the nature of these ties was never the subject of any true public debate. On the parliamentary level, the ex-minister and then-member of the Israeli Knesset (parliament) Shulamit Aloni wrote that she was silenced when she tried to initiate a parliamentary debate on Israeli arms sales to the Argentine military regime:

joy that greeted Nazi Germany’s surrender on 8 May 1945 (V-E day). See Marguerite Feitlowitz, Lexicon of Terror: Argentina and the Legacies of Torture (New York, 1998), 36. 26 Graciela Ben-Dror, “Antisemitism in Argentina from the Military Junta to the Democratic Era,” Antisemitism World Wide 2002/2003 (Tel Aviv, 2004), 5–28. 27 No comprehensive study has as yet been published on the relations between Israel and Argentina during those years. On certain aspects of those relations, see Luis Roni- ger and Mario Sznajder, “From Argentina to Israel: Escape, Evacuation and Exile,” Journal of Latin American Studies, 37 (2005): 351–77; Joel Barromi, “Were the Jews of Argentina Abandoned?” [Hebrew], Gesher 133 (Summer 1996): 53–71; Marcel Zohar, Let My People Go to Perdition: Betrayal in Blue and White [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1990); Leon- ardo Senkman, “The Salvation of Jews in Argentina during the Military Dictatorship, 1976–1983,” in A Light unto the Nations: Israel’s Foreign Policy and Human Rights [Hebrew], ed. Daphna Sharfman (Tel Aviv, 1999): 91–118; Yitzhak Mualem, “Between a Jewish and an Israeli Foreign Policy: Israel-Argentina Relations and the Issue of Jewish Disap- peared Persons and Detainees under the Military Junta, 1976–1983,” Jewish Political Studies Review XVI, no. 1–2 (2004). soccer as a double-edged weapon 237

At the time not only did they shut me up, but the late Knesset member Yigal Horowitz threatened me personally and ordered me not to open my mouth. This was at a time when the Israeli government was deliver- ing arms to the brutal Argentine military regime that was exterminating citizens right and left. On the fi fth fl oor of the Knesset the relatives of desaparecidos in Argentina would meet with Knesset members to ask for aid and advice. After one of these meetings I submitted a motion for the Knesset agenda to discuss the scandalous arms sales. It was refused. I was told that this subject could not be debated in the Knesset, but that it would be discussed in the Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee. As far as I know, the subject was never debated, since otherwise they would have invited me.28 According to a special report published by the Centro de Investiga- ciones Sociales (Social Research Centre) of the DAIA (Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas de Argentina—Delegation of Argentine Jewish Associations, the body that represents the Jewish community in Argen- tina), close to 1,300 Jews disappeared during the military regime. This is a considerable number, given the proportion of Jews in the Argentine population.29 Relatives in Israel of desaparecidos and political prisoners in Argentina appealed to the Israeli prime minister, cabinet ministers, Knesset members, senior offi cials, and even foreign diplomats. The Interministerial Commission created in Israel two decades later to investigate the fate of the Jews in Argentina emphasized in its report: The families felt that their interests were not being treated effectively enough, that time was passing, and that there was no help or information at all; or if there was, the families were unaware of it. Seeking to pool their efforts and exert a more effi cient infl uence, a group of families created the Committee of Relatives of Desaparecidos in Argentina (which later became the Memoria Association), an organization that called for active intervention from the State of Israel. Among other things, the relatives’ committee appealed to various Knesset members, asking them to intervene. Some of them, from a range of political factions, indicated

28 Shulamit Aloni, “Ethics in Security, Indeed” [Hebrew], Ha’aretz, 24 May 2006. Aloni’s comments were in response to an article by journalist Yossi Melman, entitled “Moral Rules Are Needed to Deal with Security Questions” [Hebrew], Ha’aretz, 17 May 2006. 29 See Centro de Investigaciones Sociales de la DAIA, Informe sobre la situación de los detenidos-desaparecidos judíos durante el genocidio perpetrado en Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1999). On the way the Argentine security services viewed Jews, see Emmanuel N. Kahan, Unos pocos peligros sensatos. La Dirección de Inteligencia de la Provincia de Buenos Aires ante las instituciones judías de la ciudad de La Plata (La Plata, 2008). 238 chapter ten

their willingness to collaborate,30 but efforts to put the topic on the Knesset agenda were in vain. The speaker of the Knesset, Menachem Savidor, would not allow it to be discussed by the plenum. After many requests to the Knesset Secretariat which went unanswered, the Committee of Relatives decided to appeal to the Supreme Court. As a result the Knes- set plenum discussed the subject in anticipation of the Supreme Court’s deliberations, and a parliamentary commission went to Argentina for the ﬁ rst time to study the issue. However, after two days in Argentina, the commission cut short its mission and returned home early to participate in a parliamentary vote of no conﬁ dence in the government. The trip produced no results. This incident reinforced still further the relatives’ conviction that no clear policy existed that would take into account all the information presented to the various authorities and all the interests concerned. This impression grew because, as far as the families knew, the government never discussed the problem of the desaparecidos in any organized, institutionalized manner, as an important item on the national agenda.31 After the Interministerial Commission completed its work, its head, Pinchas Avivi (the deputy director-general of the Israeli foreign ministry), declared that “we now know that more could have been done for the desaparecidos.” As a diplomat, Avivi himself had been posted in Buenos Aires during the years of the dictatorship.32 Despite the censor’s best efforts, the close relations between Israel and the Argentine military regime were an open secret. According to the Interministerial Commission’s report, the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires was responsible for developing the economic relations between the two countries, and especially for promoting Israeli exports; the

30 Including Geula Cohen, Dror Zeigerman, and Menachem Hacohen. 31 Interministerial Commission on Jewish Desaparecidos in Argentina, Conclusions, Testimony, and Recommendations [Hebrew] ( Jerusalem, 2003): 2–3. On this commission, see http://www.nic.gov.il/MFA/About+the+Ministry/Structure+and+departments/ Interministerial+Commission+on+Jewish+Desaparecidos+in+Argentina.htm. The journalist Marcel Zohar, at the time an Israeli press correspondent in Buenos Aires, made the harshest accusations against Israeli governmental passivity, publishing them in his book Let My People Go to Perdition. In 2002 the fi lmmaker Nurit Keidar produced a documentary entitled Asesino (Murderer), which reproduces testimony of this kind. It should be noted that years later, one of the leaders of the Committee of Relatives of Missing Persons and the founder of Memoria, Luis Jaimovich, who was president of the DAIA in Córdoba and whose daughter Alejandra was kidnapped by security forces in June 1976, said that he “understood” the limitations of the Israeli government and its representatives in such a situation. See “Israel and the Dirty War” [Hebrew], Ha’aretz, 11 Feb. 1990. On the Memoria organization, see http://www.memoria.org.il. 32 Yossi Melman, “The Director of the Interministerial Commission on Desapa- recidos in Argentina Declares that Israel Did Not Do All It Could to Save Them” [Hebrew], Ha’aretz, 2 July 2003. soccer as a double-edged weapon 239 ambassador was not involved in any other kind of business, including military equipment sales and training courses for that equipment. Such matters were dealt with directly by the military attaché and the companies involved. However, the ambassador did work to improve his relations with those agents of power whose job it was to decide on or authorize such purchases.33 This diplomatic wording suggests that Israel was indeed supplying military equipment and offi cer training, and that the ambassador was engaged in improving ties with the Argentine offi cers accused of systematic human rights violations. During a visit to Argentina in July 1978, the ex-chief of staff of the Israel Defence Forces, Mordechai ‘Motta’ Gur, said hyperbolically, “There is no secret. The whole world knows that Israel is one of the major providers of arms to Argentina.”34 In those days, the recently retired senior offi cer was promoting Israeli arms sales in Latin America. While the Junta received military support from Israel—military support that was not devoid of political implications—the Jewish Agency (in coordination with Israeli state entities) strove to facilitate the escape of politically persecuted Argentines. These were all of Jewish background, and did not arrive in Israel as political refugees, but by virtue of the ‘Law of Return.’ The exact number of these exiles is diffi cult to pinpoint, since offi cial records categorized them as “immigrants from Argentina.” According to estimates, hundreds arrived between the end of 1975 (before the military coup, but at a time when the death squadrons of the extreme right and the security forces operated unhindered) and the World Cup. They probably totalled more than 400, at any rate. Many of them were not affi liated with any Jewish community organization, did not think of themselves as Zionists, and, by the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, abandoned

33 Interministerial Commission on Jewish Desaparecidos in Argentina, Conclusions, Testimony, and Recommendations, 70. 34 Michal Kafra, “The Devil’s Dilemma” [Hebrew], Ma’ariv weekly supplement, 28 July 1986; Bishara Bahbah, Israel and Latin America: The Military Connection (New York, 1986), 126. According to Aharon Kleiman, a well-known researcher of the Israeli military industry, it was not only economic reasons that led to an increase in the export of Israeli arms to Argentina. “In cases where it is important to the United States that a given country adopt its military doctrine and equipment, but where political considerations preclude supplying arms directly, Israel might be asked to act as an alternative supplier, assuming the interests and political assessments of the two governments run parallel. Arms to the Lebanese Christians, Argentina, and Central American republics illustrate this approach.” See Aaron S. Kleiman, Israel’s Global Reach: Arms Sales as Diplomacy (Washington, D.C., 1985): 44–6. 240 chapter ten

Israel in droves for Western Europe, especially Spain and France. Others returned to Argentina when the dictatorship fell in 1983. These exiles, together with young people who had been emigrating to Israel since the 1970s in the framework of the Zionist youth organizations, and a small group of young left-wing Israelis, were the main force driving the protest in Israel against the Argentine military regime and declaring their support for the political prisoners and desaparecidos.35 The fi rst groups began meeting in Israel in the fall of 1975, a few months before the coup. These meetings brought together Israeli left- wing militants, the fi rst exiles, and veteran Argentine immigrants to carry out activities expressing solidarity with political prisoners and the relatives of those kidnapped and killed by the squadrons of the extreme right. It was not until March 1976, however, and as a consequence of the coup, that these solidarity networks gradually became institutionalized. In early April the fi rst formal, national meeting of the Junta’s opponents in Israel was held at a tea house in north Tel Aviv. The meeting took place under the surveillance of members of the Israeli security services, dressed in civilian clothes but still conspicuous, who posted themselves at the entrance to the tea house. The meeting was attended by 150 exiles and immigrants who for the fi rst time agreed to create a local solidarity committee specifi cally to support the relatives of the thousands of desaparecidos and political prisoners. Beyond this single point of agreement, the participants discussed questions of Argentine internal politics—and here a fi erce argument arose. The exiles who belonged to the PCA explained that support must be offered to political prisoners and the victims of repression, but without attacking the ‘anti-Pinochet Junta.’ In their view, the Argentine military regime was different from the Chilean one, and, according to the party leadership, the Argentine Junta ought to be defended since it represented the ‘democratic sectors’ of the armed forces, as opposed to the ‘Pinoche- tists.’ They refused to repudiate the Junta when the majority of the participants wanted to publish a press release denouncing the ‘fascist military dictatorship’—a position that was supported by most of the exiled members of the Peronist left wing, the Argentine revolutionary left, and the immigrants.

35 Roniger and Sznajder, “From Argentina to Israel.” soccer as a double-edged weapon 241

As a result of this dispute, the exiles split into two factions: the minority (notably residents of Tel Aviv) and the majority (residents of Jerusalem, Haifa, and the kibbutzim, or agricultural communes). The larger group supported solidarity with the prisoners and desaparecidos, assigning responsibility for the recurring massive human-rights violations to the ‘fascist military dictatorship.’ Thus was born the Comité Israelí de Solidaridad con el Pueblo Argentino (COSPA—Israeli Committee of Solidarity with the Argentine People). Subsequently, on the eve of the World Cup, a third group was created, comprising relatives of the desaparecidos who had fl ed to Israel to escape persecution at home, or who had exhausted every recourse for fi nding their loved ones alive. The fi rst press release in Hebrew issued by this group, the Comité Israelí de Parientes de los Desaparecidos y Detenidos en Argentina (Israeli Committee of Relatives of Missing and Detained Persons in Argentina), towards the end of 1977, noted we are 21 Jewish families living in Israel. This Committee was created for the exclusive purpose of making every effort to free the political prisoners and to persuade public opinion and the Israeli government to exert pressure on the Argentine military regime to provide full information on the fate of our missing relatives.36

The Boycott Campaign in Israel

The idea of boycotting the World Cup in Argentina came from COSPA, in early 1978. Just before the second anniversary of the military coup, on the afternoon of Saturday, 23 March 1978, hundreds of people demonstrated in front of the Argentine embassy in Tel Aviv. One of the Committee activists in those days described the protest: We had a problem, and it consisted in how to hold a demonstration in front of the embassy when some of the potential demonstrators had immigrated to Israel before the coup and wanted to return to Argentina to visit relatives and friends. The exiles, too, had relatives in Argentina. A demonstration in front of the embassy confronted us with a dilemma that was difﬁ cult to resolve. We knew that we were being photographed from inside and outside the embassy, even though it was not a working day and the diplomatic legation was closed. Nor could we require identiﬁ cation from all the news photographers who came to cover the

36 Author’s archive. 242 chapter ten

event.37 The solution was simple: most of the demonstrators would cover their faces with masks, and only Israelis who had no relatives in Argentina demonstrated with uncovered faces. This was also a gimmick to show that the demonstrators feared for the fate of their relatives and friends in Argentina. A few press releases were published, and there we declared the start of the campaign against the World Cup. In that month other articles and commentaries were published in the Israeli press calling for a boycott of the tournament.38 A relatively large number of news items on this subject appeared in the press during March 1978. Four pieces were published in Ha’aretz that month, including two opinion columns calling for a boycott, one of them by Marek Halter. Other articles dealing with the subject appeared in Davar, Ma’ariv, Jerusalem Post, and the weekly Ha’olam Hazeh. At the end of the month, the morning paper Ha’aretz published, for the ﬁ rst time, an article by Marcel Zohar on the situation of the Jews in Argentina entitled “Where Have More than 300 Jews Disappeared To?”39 That month a total of twelve articles and commentaries were published. However, of the three Israeli Spanish-language weeklies that existed at the time, only Semana reported COSPA’s call for a boycott of the World Cup. The other two, Tiempo and Aurora, published nothing on the subject.40 On the second anniversary of the coup, Israeli residents who were related to desaparecidos prepared to hold a major public event at the Tzavta Theatre in downtown Tel Aviv. At the last minute, however, the

37 The organizers had good grounds for their fears. On 29 March 1979 the Hebrew daily with the biggest circulation in Israel, Yediot Aharonot, published a long column under the title “An Adviser at the Argentine Embassy Collected Information on Demonstrat- ing Immigrants,” signed by Marcel Zohar. This item was published days after the demonstration in front of the embassy was held to mark the third anniversary of the coup. According to Zohar, Juan Carlos Guerra, an adviser to the Argentine ambassador, was collecting “information about immigrants demonstrating in front of the diplomatic quarter.” This accusation had come from a young Israeli woman who was dating the diplomat and decided to break off the relationship when she discovered what he was doing. According to her, Guerra had said, “I am only photographing them, but when they return to Argentina they will get the treatment they deserve.” 38 Letter from B.S., a COSPA activist, currently living in Buenos Aires, January 2007. 39 The article opens with this sentence: “Every morning hundreds of young women arrive at the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, asking to see the consul [. . .]. Almost every day the consul, Moshe Peer, and his team issue ofﬁ cial documents in which Israel under- takes to grant asylum to Jews detained in Argentina.” Ha’aretz, 29 March 1978. 40 Aurora published news from the World Cup relating to the results of the games in a special weekly section edited by Julio César Mosches, but never made any reference to Argentina’s political or social situation. soccer as a double-edged weapon 243 event was cancelled “because of Israel’s current situation,” according to the press release issued by the organizers. The reference was to the mobilization of a large part of the population for Operation Litani, when Israeli forces entered Lebanon to carry out reprisals for a serious attack perpetrated a few days earlier. The purpose of the event had been to create a broad-based Israeli committee for human rights in Argentina with the participation of local celebrities. This committee was never formed. Throughout the week that began with Sunday (a working day in Israel), 24 March, various smaller events protesting the Argentine military junta were held, including meetings at the universities. On 27 March, at a meeting of 50 people in the city of Haifa, the Israeli Committee for the Boycott of the World Cup in Argentina was founded, mostly by members of COSPA or Israeli militants who did not belong to the Labour movement, MAPAM, or the Communist Party of Israel (CPI). At this founding meeting it was resolved to create ﬁ ve centers of activity, in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Beer Sheva, Haifa, and the kibbutzim—particularly those kibbutzim where a large proportion of the residents were of Latin American origin. Another resolution was to participate in the International Week of the World Cup Boycott, which, organized by the French COBA, was to take place from 22 to 28 April. One of the activists, B.S., recalls: The Israeli Committee had connections with the COBA, which provided materials in Spanish and French that were translated in Israel into Hebrew and occasionally into Arabic. Members of the Israeli Committee even went to Paris, to the COBA headquarters which was operating in a large old house at number 14, rue Nanteuil, to pick up materials and coordinate the campaign with the rest of the world. I don’t think we had any great interest in the games. I don’t even remember seeing a single match on television. I’m not sure that all the comrades of the Committee saw the games. We wanted to use the World Cup as a reason to talk about the brutal repression in Argentina. We saw how the dictatorship was using the World Cup, and we thought we should act against the dictatorship using the World Cup in the opposite way. We knew that there was a big debate between Argentine exiles in other countries on the question of whether to boycott the World Cup or not, and we were also aware that very important Argentine political forces had spoken out against the boycott. But all that didn’t matter to us. Probably because the members of the Israeli Committee didn’t include any representatives of those forces, or maybe because we agreed that it was ‘now or never’—that is, if we did not mobilize during the World Cup, for months we would be 244 chapter ten

paralyzed in [the matter of] solidarity with the Argentine people, political prisoners, and the desaparecidos. Shlomo Slutzky, an Argentine-Israeli journalist and documentary fi lm maker, also refused to watch the games: During the World Cup I was doing my compulsory military service in the Israeli army. In my unit I declared a ‘protest strike’ against the World Cup. In that remote military base in the Jordan Valley, the soldiers did not understand why the young Argentine immigrant was refusing to watch the World Cup games. I patiently explained to all my comrades in arms that the World Cup was nothing but a show mounted by the military junta in order to continue murdering Argentine citizens. Accordingly, each time a game was broadcast, I asked to be assigned to some chore, and explained in a loud voice to anyone in earshot what my reasons were.41 Slutzky arrived in Israel at the age of nineteen as a member of the left- wing Zionist youth movement Hashomer Hatzair, two months after the military coup in Argentina. He had been a contributor to the progressive Jewish weekly Nueva Sión, and knew about the crimes against humanity that were being committed in Argentina. Slutzky was a kibbutz member, but at that time he was performing his compulsory military service and was not in contact with the various solidarity committees. I was not a member of the World Cup Boycott Committee because I was a soldier, and it was very diffi cult to reconcile these two activities. But for many months, in my room at the Nahshon Kibbutz, I displayed the Committee’s poster calling for the boycott. That is, in one way or another I knew what the committee was doing, but I was not an activist. The Israeli committee’s protest activities were energized when the local press published the news that Israeli police and military instruc- tors were training offi cers of the Argentine federal police (which for decades served as a political police force) in anti-insurgent combat in the months preceding the World Cup.42 One of the activists of the Israeli committee recalls: According to the information we managed to obtain, the Israeli delegation included 60 offi cials and police offi cers, and they returned to Israel three months before the games ended. We tried to get the news published in the local press, but without success. Probably the military censor prevented its publication. What was published in Ma’ariv and Ha’aretz was

41 Conversation with author (Tel Aviv, Feb. 2007). 42 This news was published by Ma’ariv (26 May 1978) and Ha’aretz (1 June 1978). soccer as a double-edged weapon 245

based on ‘foreign sources.’ Anyway, we tried to get ‘revved up’ to counter the military censorship, and we launched an appeal, in the context of a campaign against Israeli arms sales to Argentina. To our great surprise, thousands of citizens signed our petition, which was sent to the speaker of the Knesset together with a request for an audience. And as was usual in these kinds of relations with the Israeli establishment, they did not even acknowledge receipt of the letter. Even the Histadrut union confederation never answered us. We wrote to the secretary-general and the international division of the workers’ confederation, but they never answered.43 At the same time, we knew that Argentine military offi cers had arrived in Israel to buy arms. Months before the World Cup a group of senior navy offi cers arrived in Israel, including the murderer Admiral Massera’s deputy, Admiral Lambruschini. They wanted to buy patrol ships like those that Israel was selling at the time to the racist South African regime. In those months Argentine offi cials made numerous visits to Israel, and Israeli public fi gures visited Argentina. All these visits and ‘good will gestures’ show clearly that there were very close relations between the Argentine military offi cers and the Israeli government. Consequently, it was very important to us to carry out this campaign against the arms sales. We published posters and fl yers, organized meetings at schools, kibbutzim, and private homes. Thousands signed our petition during the months that we were camped in the center of Jerusalem, in front of the entrance to the Hamashbir Latzarchan department store, and in the Hadar Hacarmel neighbourhood in the city of Haifa, in Beit Hakranot. We knew that the Israeli establishment was not going to support us, and for that reason it was extremely important that we reach the ordinary citizen. Shopkeepers, too, including those of Argentine origin, agreed to put the Hebrew boycott poster up in their shop windows. The petition begins with this sentence: “The undersigned call on the members of all the parliamentary factions to use every means to act against anti-Semitism and the systematic violation of human rights in Argentina.”44 With the aid of the Buenos Aires telephone directory, sent specially from Argentina, and the directories for Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, we mailed postcards with slogans calling for the liberation of political prisoners and a

43 Not only did the boycott activists not receive a reply, their petitions were not even archived in the meticulously kept ﬁ les of the international division or of the secretary-general, which were stored in the historical archive of the union confederation in north Tel Aviv, the Lavon Institute. It should be noted that several employees in the administration of the international division of the Histadrut were of Argentine origin, and this ofﬁ ce had to close its delegation in Argentina after the coup. The Histadrut envoys in Argentina from early 1970 up to the coup dispatched detailed reports to Tel Aviv on the political, economic, and union situation—including the increasing repression by the state and the extreme right, which enjoyed the active assistance of the orthodox Peronist union leadership. 44 Letter from B.S. ( Jan. 2007). The petition, “An Appeal to the Israeli Parliament” [Hebrew], n.d., is in the author’s archive. 246 chapter ten

boycott of the World Cup. Hundreds of messages were sent in envelopes addressed to Argentine public institutions, with Israeli institutions as the return address, in order to circumvent the censorship exercised over the Argentine mail and to avoid compromising anyone. The activists also used envelopes with the logo of Israeli state entities. We spent a total of ﬁ ve or six months in intensive activity. We wanted to get our message into every home in Israel. Obviously we could not do that. No political party supported us, not even the parties of the left. The Histadrut did not respond to our requests either. The parliament was deaf to our demands. We did not even have any money, so the posters, messages, demonstrations, travel, and postal and telephone expenses were ﬁ nanced with the meager resources of the militants, most of them students who worked at night and on weekends, and members of the kibbutzim, who received no wages. We can say that compared to what was accomplished in the boycott campaign in France or Sweden, we didn’t do too much. But considering the situation in Israel in those years, we did the most we could.45 When the World Cup was over, the militants of the boycott committee went back to working in COSPA, which operated until after the Malvi- nas/Falklands War in 1982. The Memoria organization of relatives of the desaparecidos continued to function for at least another decade.

The Israeli Left and the Boycott

The forces of the Israeli left did not take part in the World Cup boycott, and made very limited gestures of solidarity with the Argentine people during the military dictatorship. The Labour Party and MAPAM, which were part of the government up until 1977, did not support the boycott. The Histadrut, controlled by Labour, also abstained. Not even the CPI and its electoral front Hadash (Democratic Front for Peace and Equality) joined the cause—although, unlike the other left-wing parties, the Israeli Communists had worked for years in solidarity with the Latin American peoples, and were even the architects of two committees of solidarity with the Chilean and Uruguayan peoples, respectively, created before the coup in Argentina. The Chilean committee was formed in 1973, at the time of General Pinochet’s bloody coup, and the Uruguayan one in 1974. The reason that the Israeli Communists supported the anti-dictatorial struggle of the Chileans and the Uruguayans but not that of the Argentines was rooted in the foreign policy of the Soviet

45 Letter from B.S. ( Jan. 2007). soccer as a double-edged weapon 247

Union. For years the domestic and foreign policies of the Communist Parties of Argentina and Israel were shaped by their verticalism with respect to Moscow. In 1974, the CPI published a 50-page anthology in Hebrew and Spanish expressing solidarity with Chile and including poetry by Pablo Neruda, Mordechai Avi-Shaul, Víctor Jara, Samich El-Kassem, and others, but it refused to publish COSPA ﬂ yers and circulars.46 The members of the CPI (including those of Latin American origin) did not participate in COSPA’s activities, and COSPA militants were not invited to the events organized by the Chilean and Uruguayan committees. However, fearing political isolation, the CPI leadership made sure that all the Latin American committees took part in the demonstrations held each year on 11 September (the day of Pinochet’s coup) in front of the Chilean embassy in Tel Aviv. On 4 July, all the committees joined forces and despite a strong police presence managed to disrupt a ceremony held on the Mount Scopus campus of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem to award an honorary doctorate to Milton Friedman, recipient of the Nobel prize for eco- nomics. The invitation to the demonstration, disseminated in advance under the heading “Milton Friedman, Go Home!”, noted: During 1975 Milton Friedman went to visit his pupils in Chile under fascist control. [. . .] Thanks to his advice, the budget was cut again, and unemployment reached 25 percent [. . .]. Friedman collaborates with that fascist regime, and accordingly Milton Friedman is not welcome in our country! We oppose the decision of the university authorities to award this perpetrator of true economic genocide an honorary title. The invitation, distributed in Hebrew and Arabic, was signed by the committees of solidarity with Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay; the CAMPUS left-wing student movement (‘CAMPUS’ was the Hebrew acronym for Political and Student Involvement Group); and the Union of Arab Students of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.47 The Communist weekly Zu Haderech did not publish the ﬁ rst news of the military coup in Argentina until three weeks after it had taken

46 The bilingual anthology was entitled ¡Por Chile! ¡Venceremos! and was published by the Israeli Committee of Solidarity with the Chilean People in July 1974. Author’s archive. 47 The manifesto “Milton Friedman—Go Home!” can be viewed in the electronic Israeli Left Archive at http://www.israeli-left-archive.org/gsdl/collect/campus/index/ assoc/HASH017b.dir/doc.pdf. 248 chapter ten place. The article reporting it, signed by the veteran journalist Hans Lebrecht, was entitled “The Communist Party in Argentina Proposes a Democratic Military Government,” with a subtitle of “Supports Some Proposals of the Military Authorities.” It emphasized that at the end of March the Central Committee of the PCA published a press release declaring that “although our party does not identify with all the political positions expressed by the new regime, it identiﬁ es with the programmatic positions taken by the Junta that carried out the coup d’état on 24 March, since many of these principles are identical to those advocated by the PCA.”48 Although the weekly Zu Haderech customarily published news, commentary, and photographs relating to actions of solidarity with Chile and Uruguay, between April 1976 and July 1978 not a single line appeared concerning COSPA’s activities. Nevertheless, as the months and years passed, it began to publish news of the continual violation of human rights in Argentina, including arrests, disappearances, and murders of Communist militants, although without any clear indication of who was responsible: ‘government elements’ or ‘military groups’ were the usual euphemisms. The implication was that all this systematic violation of human rights was the work of factions within the regime or the armed forces, rather than a policy of the military dictatorship. Even the article published at the end of the World Cup included, after a purely sports-oriented description of the games, the information that “the attacks against human rights continue,” without any details as to who was responsible for this trend or anything about the propagandistic role that the World Cup played within the dictatorship’s strategy of repression. The 10 issues of the theoretical partisan quarterly Arachim—Ktav-Et Lebayot Hashalom VeHasotzialism (Values—A Journal Dedicated to Issues of Peace and Socialism) that were published between February 1976 and August 1978 contained numerous articles on the political, economic, and social situation in South America, including countries under military regimes such as Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay. Authors published in Hebrew included the veteran Communist leaders Luiz Carlos Prestes of Brazil and Volodia Teitelboim of Chile. The Argentine situation did not receive much attention from the editors of this theoretical journal. Number 35 of the journal (May 1976) carried an article signed by a

48 Zu Haderech, 12 April 1976. soccer as a double-edged weapon 249 member of the Central Committee of the PCA, Alberto Cohen, entitled “Who Beneﬁ ts from Terrorism in Argentina?”: Despite the coup atmosphere, part of the armed forces opposes the break- down of constitutional order and the wave of repression. The military understand clearly that their relations with the people can crack. This article was written before the coup and clearly reﬂ ected the PCA’s position, although in other respects it had no basis in fact. Cohen remarked that “the PCA calls for a democratic national unity government [. . .] we can build a government based on a broad civilian-military coalition.”49 The second article published in this period was by the veteran Argen- tine Communist leader Athos Fava. This article, appearing in Febru- ary 1978, did its very best to demonstrate that the military regimes in Argentina and Chile were different from each other: Observers see the Argentine situation as similar to the Chilean one. Analysis of the circumstances of these two countries shows that indeed there is some similarity. Without going into greater detail, we can state that the bloodshed in Argentina is no less than that recorded in Chile and even surpasses it. But beyond that statement there is no possible parallel. In the case of the Chilean armed forces it is Pinochet’s minions who are in charge of the process. But in Argentina, the military junta did not ban the political parties, except for the groups belonging to the extreme left wing. In his article, Fava urged readers “not to act irresponsibly by objec- tively favoring the Pinochetist government circles.”50 Given the timing of publication, this could be interpreted as a call to abstain from the World Cup boycott. During the World Cup the state-sponsored terroristic repression, torture, and kidnapping continued, although 1978 saw a drop in disappearances compared to the previous two years.51 One of the leaders of the

49 Alberto Cohen, “Who Benefits from Terrorism in Argentina?” [Hebrew], Arachim—Ktav-Et Lebayot Hashalom VeHasotzialism, II (May 1976): 76. 50 Athos Fava, “Argentina: The Struggle for Democratic Renewal” [Hebrew], Arachim—Ktav-Et Lebayot Hashalom VeHasotzialism, I (Feb. 1978): 46–52. 51 On repression in those years, see the report published in 1984 by the CONADEP (National Commission on the Disappeared), Nunca más, at http://www.desaparecidos. org/arg/conadep/nuncamas/nuncamas.html. See also Amnesty International, Danish Medi- cal Group, Results of Examinations of 14 Argentinian Torture Victims (Copenhagen, 1980); Amnesty International, Sezionne Italiana, Testimonianza sui campi segreti di detenzione in Argentina (Rome, 1980). 250 chapter ten left, Otto Vargas (head of the Partido Comunista Revolucionario), who operated clandestinely in Argentina during those years, remembers: When we were considering what to do about the World Cup, we thought that perhaps we could carry out some of those actions that we called armed propaganda, which had tremendous repercussions. But we soon realized that we were alone in the struggle, except for the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo and a few Peronists [. . .]. I realize that in our life as revolutionary militants, circumstances as tremendous as that are unlikely to recur, when the dictatorship managed, through the passion our people have for sports and football in particular, to unite millions of Argentines around the dictators to celebrate the triumph [. . .]. That is to say that they were very hard years, which showed once again that it is very diffi cult to separate football and sports from politics.52 Left-wing militants of the rank and fi le have similar memories: I remember during the World Cup my son, who was four, coming out of kindergarten and shouting happily with the other kids “Argentina, Argentina!” So much delight [. . .]. The dictatorship managed to make the people happy in the middle of a massacre! The player who made the great goal in the last game, the one that won, was named Daniel Ber- toni. And when I heard on the radio that Daniel Bertoni was the player who had won the game I felt a chill. Because I knew another Daniel Bertoni, whom we used to call ‘the Colo,’ who was kidnapped from the Veterinary Faculty of the University of La Plata, where he worked, on 2 September 1977. Months after he disappeared, we found out that he had been tortured to death in the concentration camp operating in the ESMA. All this happened before the World Cup. A comrade and I were sent by the party to tell his wife what had happened to ‘the Colo,’ since his family had had no news of him since his kidnapping.53 Among the millions around the world who watched the World Cup was a resident of Jerusalem, Ismael Viñas, a well-known left-wing Argentine intellectual who had fl ed his country. For a few moments, Viñas was excited by the Argentine victory in the World Cup, but his anger was

52 Jorge Brega, Ha muerto el comunismo? El maoísmo en Argentina: Conversaciones con Otto Vargas (Buenos Aires, 1997): 259–60. 53 Testimony of R.G., a resident of Buenos Aires and a militant of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party ( Jan. 2007). Bertoni, the football player, said, in the documentary Mundial 78, la historia paralela, broadcast on the Argentine television channel Telefé on 27 June 2003, that he recognized the role the military authorities had attributed to the Argentine team, and emphasized that “thanks to our victory, they gained a little in power.” See Clarín, 27 June 2003. soccer as a double-edged weapon 251 aroused when he saw General Videla on television. In an interview with the daily Ma’ariv, Viñas explained: The other Argentina did not appear on the screen. When the celebrations are over and the masses awake from this sports binge, they will return to the terrible everyday situation [. . .]. The opening ceremony of the World Cup made me angry. I saw the governing criminals together with their fawning court and I could not continue watching the broadcast. I went into another room. I looked at them and I saw a prison. The exiled intellectual tried to explain the reason for his anger: Emotionally, I wanted the Argentine team to win the World Cup. Is it the players’ fault that Argentina is governed by a military dictatorship? But when they won I was not happy. I did not toast their victory. I could not. Because behind that triumphant Argentina, there is another Argentina, sad and repressed.54 Another, better known, exile, the journalist Jacobo Timerman, founder and editor of the morning paper La Opinión, who was jailed and later held under house arrest, arriving in Israel a year after the World Cup ended, wrote from Tel Aviv that during the football tournament he hoped the Dutch team would win rather than the Argentine team that was being coldly exploited by the generals in power.55 In conclusion, the protest and boycott organized in Israel against the World Cup football championship held in Argentina in 1978 were yet another instance of the solidarity which many countries, particularly in Europe, were promoting. In Israel, unlike those other countries, the Israeli team’s failure to qualify removed from the agenda any debate concerning a more active boycott that would have prevented the team from participating in the tournament. The only Israeli representative at the World Cup was a referee named Abraham Klein.56 Compared to the activities carried out in the boycott campaigns in the Scandinavian countries, France, and the Netherlands, the protests

54 Levi Yitzhak Hayerushalmi, “The Other Argentina” [Hebrew], Ma’ariv, 30 June 1978. 55 Jacobo Timerman, “We Were All Dutch,” New York Times, 20 Feb. 1980. For Timerman’s description of the diffi cult days in prison during the dictatorship, see Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number (New York, 1982). For an extensive biography of Timerman, see Graciela Mochkofsky, Timerman: El periodista que quiso ser parte del poder (1923–1999) (Buenos Aires, 2003). 56 Klein was one of 32 referees invited to participate in the World Cup. The United Press news agency voted him “outstanding referee” at the World Cup. Ma’ariv [Hebrew], 27 June 1978. 252 chapter ten in Israel were minor. Most of the activists were Argentine exiles; a smaller number were Israeli left-wing militants. These exiles’ boycott cannot be said to have had any infl uence on Israeli society or governmental policy. Their infl uence was limited by a number of variables, notably a cultural gap in political practice and, in many cases, their relatively short time in Israel. Moreover, the fact that some of these exiles did not identify with Zionism or Israeli society meant that wide sectors of the Israeli public paid no attention to their arguments. Probably the greatest fl aw in the boycott campaign was the failure to get a public debate going on relations between the State of Israel and the Argentine dictatorship; the Israeli authorities managed to prevent it. The efforts of some Knesset members failed as well. The repression and massive violation of human rights in Argentina were simply not a topic of discussion, outside of a few articles in the press and the odd broadcast on state television. An example is Arie Palgi’s article, “A Round Ball in a Square World,” published in the morning paper Al Hamishmar, in which the author compared the World Cup to the Olympic games held in Nazi Germany in 1936.57 Another example is the previously mentioned article by Ismael Viñas published in Ma’ariv, or the fi lm Ernesto, directed by Yohanan (Jorge) Weller and broadcast by state television in 1981, which was about actions of solidarity with Argentina.58 The other dailies, including the reputedly liberal Ha’aretz, mostly confi ned themselves to publishing news on the football matches— deliberately withholding any details on the violation of human rights in Argentina or the protests in Israel. Only in recent years has any real debate emerged as to the nature of the relations between Israel and the Argentine Junta at the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s. This debate is not yet over, and cannot be complete as long as researchers do not have free access to the offi cial documents of that era, particularly those maintained at military or intelligence institutions involved in the arms sales and training that were the basis for Israeli cooperation with the Argentine military dictatorship.

57 Al Hamishmar [Hebrew], 13 June 1978. 58 Ernesto, directed by Y. (J.) Weller (Tel Aviv University, 1980). BIBLIOGRAPHY