The Topology of Queerness and Jewishness in Buenos Aires
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Kagawa University Economic Review Vol.89,No.3, December2016,187－215 The Topology of Queerness and Jewishness in Buenos Aires ―― From “Silent Exile” to “Home” ―― Mitsuko Kawabata 1.Introduction This paper explores the relationship between Jewishness and queerness and its influence on the socio-political landscape of Buenos Aires, Argentina. On July 21, 2010, Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner signed a bill to legalize same sex marriage, which was published the very next day. This event garnered both local and international attention due to the fact that it made Argentina the first country to officially recognize gay marriage in Latin America（Díez 2011, 13; Encarnación 2011, 104）. A month later, the Jewish queer organization JAG （also means “celebration” in Hebrew ”חג“ Judios Argentinos Gay ; “Chag” or） released the first Argentine film dealing with queerness and Jewishness, “Otro entre Otros,”（Other among Others）directed by one of JAG’s members, Maximiliano Pelosi（Sztajnszrajber, 2010）. Although JAG seemed to cease its social activities less than a year after the release of the film（Michanie 2013）, its activities have been revitalized since late 2013, when the young charismatic Reform rabbi, Sergio Bergman, became a deputy of the city legislature. In order to illuminate the topology of two identities－Jewish and queer－in Buenos Aires society, I examine the existing literature on Jewish and Argentine queerness and thus present a parallel history of both groups. Drawing on interviews with two figures who were involved with major Argentine queer organizations（JAG and another group called Keshet －188－ Kagawa University Economic Review 596 Argentina）, I consider the meaning of Jewish-queer in the discourse of “diversity” promoted by the city. Daniel Boyarin et al attempt to both explore and problematize the “forging connections”（2004, 9） between Jewishness and queerness. By considering the nature of “queer” as a complex and transgressive concept, rather than a simple replacement for “homosexual,” Boyarin’s study discusses the intersection of Jewish and queer identities. Meanwhile, in his ethnographic study of Jewish and queer organizations in Vienna, Matti Bunzl depicts the processes in which the two groups, both imagined as Other, have been incorporated into the city’s pluralistic cultural landscape（2004）. In contrast to Boyarin’s study, Bunzl takes a comparative approach, considering the two groups as having “parallel histories”（Ibid, 213）. Scholars have taken different approaches to the study of Argentine queer identity. Most studies focus on institutional history as it relates to civil rights movements and international LGBT networks（Díez 2011; Encarnación 2011; Friedman 2012）. These studies have depicted the paradoxical trend in gay-rights movements in Argentina and elsewhere in Latin America where social acceptance of homosexuality and the legalizing of same-sex civil rights do not necessarily correspond（Encarnación 2011）. While some studies have problematized existing forms of dominance in politics, economics, and sexuality, other studies examine the entry of queerness into existing cultural forms, such as tango, where queerness has been criticized as a re-exoticization and re-marketing of this performance art （Savigliano, 2010）. While both types of study have considered the circumstances facing ethnic and sexual minorities, none have explored how queer studies, Jewish studies, and Latin American studies are intertwined. Moreover, these studies fail to consider whether queerness and Jewishness are mutually permeable categories, rather than distinct groups. Regarding the mutability of identity, Judah Cohen discusses Jewish rap and hip-hop as a space where Jewish identity, creativity and masculinity are 597 The Topology of Queerness and Jewishness in Buenos Aires －189－ negotiated（2009）. Furthermore, Amy Horowitz discusses the mutability of musical formations and identities, shifting between insider and outsider, describing how music can cross multiple borders in multiple realms including music, geopolitics, ethnicity, and aesthetics（2010）. Applying the concept of mutability of identity to queer and Jewish identities in Argentina, I argue that JAG, as an organization explicitly dedicated to the gay Jewish community, provides a compelling opportunity to explore the politics of border crossing between two “minority” communities. Furthermore, I consider the dissolution of JAG in 2010－12 and its revitalization after 2013 in association with the social and political meanings of being Jewish and/or queer in Buenos Aires. By combining online archival research of multiple Argentine newspapers, including Clarín, Critica,and Nueva Sión, a brief institutional analysis, and personal interviews, I consider questions of congruence and friction along the multiple borders of ethnicity, religion, and sexuality that JAG embodies. 2. Parallel History of Jewishness and Queerness in Argentina ・The Study of Jewishness and Queerness The rhetorical and theoretical discussion of the relationship between Jewishness and queerness is associated with the ideological constructions of “Otherness” and “Ourness.” Under this dichotomy, scholars have discussed the two identities as either ethnic/racial or sexual Others, positioned against “normative” society. However, the relationship between Jewishness and queerness varies depending on the meaning of queer. One of the attempts to theorize Jewishness and queerness is Queer Theory and the Jewish Question（2003）by Daniel Boyarin et al .The essays in this volume mostly consist of literature studies and analyses of performances of Jewishness and queerness in specific texts. The approaches employed tend toward psychoanalysis or discussions of Jewishness and queerness as －190－ Kagawa University Economic Review 598 they relate to anti-Semitism and homophobia. Some studies explore the interplay between Jewish and sexually transgressive identities as a liminal space where “Jews （gay and straight）and gay men and women（Jewish and gentile）”（Freedman2004） encounter each other. Others, particularly the chapter “Queers Are Like Jews, Aren’t They ?” by Janet R. Jakobsen, argue that these two categories are intertwined but not “coextensive”（2003, 65）. By including Jakobsen’s criticism of the existing analogy between Jewish and queer, Boyarin et al attempt to take a holistic approach to the notion of queerness and help to establish this relatively new area of study ⑴ in both disciplines. In contrast to Boyarin et al , Matti Bunzl considers “the emergence of Jews and homosexuals as a quintessentially modern phenomenon”（2004, 16） in post- Holocaust Vienna. By tracing the trajectory of each sector from the post-war period through the 1990s, Bunzl discusses the transformation of Jews and queers from the subordinated “Others” in the process of national homogenization to a celebrative and “affirmative alterity”（Ibid, 218）in the constructive pluralization of the post-national era. Like Jakobsen, who claims that viewing the relationship between Jews and queers as complicitous reveals networks of power（2003, 80）, Bunzl reconsiders the structural similarities of both sectors as co-actors in the nation building process and thus reveals the transformative relationship between national and post-national powers and groups imagined as “Others.” Another trend in the study of Jews and queers is its incorporation into the discourse of newness. Caryn Aviv and David Shneer（2002; 2005）explore the intersection between Jewishness and queerness. While Aviv and Shneer view queerness as “ambiguous and postmodern”（2002, 8）, they emphasize its “newness” by describing the relationship between Jewishness and queerness as “dialectical” （Ibid）. The authors clearly state that “Queer Jews are new Jews”（Aviv and Shneer 2005, 136）, since individuals as well as organizations straddle multiple communities across countries according to an individual’s allegiances to sexual, religious, and 599 The Topology of Queerness and Jewishness in Buenos Aires －191－ ethnic identities. Aviv and Shneer apply the concept of “home” to queer Jews, and compare queer politics between the United States and Israel, including the institutionalization of the LGBT movement, legal systems, and organizational activities. For example, the authors explain that Israel, “home” for many Jews, offers legal rights for queer Jews, but the society is still “more overtly intolerant of queer sexualities”（Ibid, 118）. In contrast, the United States, regarded as the “diaspora,” can offer a safer place for queer Jews because of the discourse of pluralism in American Jewish life and thus becomes a “home” for them, despite the lack of legal protection at that time. Given such disparate types of “home” for queer Jews, the authors incorporate queer Jews into a broader category of new Jews, ⑵ rather than problematizing the hybridized identity. Other studies, particularly in sociology, consider the topology of Jewishness and queerness by focusing on the negotiation of two identities at an individual level. Randal Schnoor explores the “double-minority” feeling among Jewish gay men in Toronto, Canada（Schnoor 2006）. Schnoor describes how these two identities intersect and are constantly negotiated, categorizing them into the four Jewish-gay types（Jewish lifestylers, gay lifestylers, gay-Jewish commuters, and gay-Jewish ⑶ integrators）based on the “ideal gay types” discussed by Wayne Brekhus（2003）. Similarly, Katie M. Barrow and Katherine A. Kuvalanka also discuss the double- minority feeling among