THE JEWS OF LATIN AMERICA Revised Edition JUDITH LAIKIN ELKIN HOLMES & MEIER NEW YORK / LONDON Published in the United Stutes of America 1998 b y ll olmes & Meier Publishers. Inc . 160 Broadway ew York, NY 10038 Copyr ight © 199 by Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1.nc. F'irst edition published und er th e title Jeics of the u1tl11A111erica11 lle1'11hlics copyright © 1980 The University of o rth Ca rolina Press . Chapel Hill , NC . All rights reserved . No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any elec troni c o r mechanical means now known or to be invented, including photocopying , r co rdin g, and information storage and retrieval systems , without permission in writing from the publishers , exc·ept by a reviewe r who may quote brief passages in a review. The auth or acknow ledges with gra titud e the court esy of the American Jewish lli stori cal Society to reprint the follo,ving articl e which is published in somewhat different form in this book: "Goo dnight , Sweet Gaucho: A Revisio nist View of the Jewis h Agricultural Experiment in Argentina, " A111eric1111j etds h Historic(I/ Q11111terly67 (March 1978 ): 208 - 23. Most of the photographs in this boo k were includ d in the exhibit ion . "Voyages to F're dam: .500 Years of Je,vish Li~ in Latin America and the Caribbean ," and were ma de availab le throu ,I, the court esy of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith . Th e two photographs of the AMIA on pages 266 - 267 we re s uppli ed by the AMIA -Co munidad Judfa de Buenos Aires. Typesetting by Coghill Bo oks Typese ttin g, C hester. VA. This book has been pri nted on acid-free pap e r. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Elkin, Judith Laikin, 1928 - The Jews of Latin America I Judith Laikin Elkin. - Rev. ed . p. Ctn . Rev. ed. of: Jews of the Latin American rep ublics. 1980. Includ es bibliographical refer ence· and index . ISBN 0-84 19- 1368-4 (cloth : alk. paper ). - ISBN 0-84 19- 1,'369-2 (pbk. : alk. pap r) I. J ws- Latin Americu - History. 2. Latin America - lli sto ry. I. Elkin, Judith Laikin, 1928 - Jews of the Latin American repub lics. 11. Title. Fl419 .)4E 44 1998 980' 004924 - dc2 1 97-3940.5 C IP Manufactured in the United S tates of America North Atlantic Oc:un ,-~ti -~~~~-rc;;;~~~~--~~ .. North Pacific Ocun South Padflc Ocean ..-- - -------· . .. ia:.... --- \. -- Frontispi ece. The so uth rn Am ericas are home to 481,000,000 p eople, includin g some half-million Jews. CHAPTER 11 Jews and Non-Jews ..." ... "Buenos Aires, shtot mein Liebe, lch bin fadibt in dein tsebliter yugnt (Buenos Aires, beloved city, -I'mYi inddish love version with your of a flowering Carlos Gard youth I tango ) FOR LATIN Americans, the reality of Jewish life is obscured by mythol­ ogy. Only the dissipation of myth allows the reality of Jews and Judaism to MANY appear. Appar ntly, this happens more readily at the personal than at the societal I vel. The acceptability of Jews as marriage partn rs is wid spread, causing Jewish leaders to express more cone rn about assimilation than about anti-Semitism. Yet happy exogamous marriages exist sid by side with murder­ ous manifestations of race hatr d. Within Jewish spaces, b hind the symbolic walls of th kehillah, highly organized Jewish communiti s regulate the behavior of their members by excluding the intermarried, the criminal, and the politically radical. The politi­ cally correct clubs and synagogues and beneficent so ieties that result pr s nt to non-Jews the appearance of a p ople unifiedin character and goals. But th suave facade of country club life masks the abandonment of Judaism by those who do not find thnic allegiance compelling, as well as the emigration of others who desire to live a less circumscribed life as Jews. The numb r of Argentines who id ntify themselves as Jews has dropped by on -third in th past thirty years; across the continent, total numbers have decreased in this period from 550,000 to 377,000. In public spaces, Latino J wish entrepreneurs, academics, artists, and lite­ rati have experienced increasing success. As third and fourth generations accul­ turate, the social acceptability of Jews incr ases. In recent years, this has translated into wider acceptance of political participation by Jewish individuals. But acculturation has not diminish d the hostility directed at J.ews by s ctors of the military and the church, which emerges in extreme forms when these sectors attain political dominance. No wonder then that the texture of relations between Jews and non-Jews 251 252 JEWS AND THEIR WORLDS in Latin America continues to puzzle observers. Dichotomies of attra tion and r pulsion, marginalization and integration, assimilation and particularism, anti­ Semitism and philo-Semitism animate the literature on Latin American Jewry. Conclusions that may be valid for one country may rightly be challenged if applied to another. Argentina is not Brazil is not Nicaragua. This chapter attempts to interpret the nature of the relationship betw n Jews and non­ Jews in Latin America. Because the largest Jewish population is to b found in Argentina and this community hasb en the most intensively studied, atten­ tion is first focused there. Argentina: Attraction and Repulsion The most obdurate anti-Semitism is that which1 d rives from the conviction thatnacionalismo, Judaism ls a worldwide conspiracy aim d at d stroying Christianity and subjecting the world to domination by Jews. This b li f is c ntral to Argentine and it is practically impervious to reality-based evidence. At most, nationalists may harbor a differencepopulistas, of opinion as to whether the prop nsity to subversion isinte dilutedgralistas, by distance fromthe Jewish p ople and Judaism through intermarriage and assimilation. For assimilation r nders Jews ac­ ceptabl . For however, once a Jew, always a Jew, even if formal conversion has taken place. Both brands of nationalists reject the lib ral philoso­ phy that brought non-Catholics and non-Latins to Argentine shores, and both reject the multicultural society that is emerging from the immigration2 period. Their ideal is an organic soci ty overseen by a corporate state, and J ws, the ultimate nonconformists, are the sp cial targ t of their hostility. D spite the persistence of extreme anti-Semitic b liefs, it has b en said that Argentina as a nation never adopted an anti-Semitic policy. It is clear that, with the xception of laws and policies cone rning immigration, there has not been a systematic legislative effort to dis­ criminate against Jews in Argentina. But it is also worth noting that there was often room in the interstices of legislation for the administrative expression of anti-Semitism. For much of the period discussed [1930-83] Jews wer effectively excluded from certain ar as of official life. For example, there was not a single Jew in th middle or upper officer ranks, although both Chile and Brazil had Jewish generals. The for ign service was also ss ntially dos d to Jews. During the tenure of the military regime of 1943, many Jewish teachers were dismissed from their jobs. Under the military governments of 1966 and 1976 a gr at many Jews were3 removed from the civil servic posts and univer­ sity positions they had acquir d when the [ d mocratically elected] Radi­ cals were in power. Avni argues that the closest Arg ntina has come to adoption of an anti­ Semitic policy was when it r fused to admit Jewish refugees from Nazism. Catholic religious instruction in the public schools has b en another sensitive 253 Jews and Non-Jews area; while not explicitly anti-Semitic, it has allowed for the transmission of anti-Semitic ideas. Local legislation outlawing kosher slaughter or restricting the public use of the Yiddish language also shaped the Argentine J wish experience, although some of these measures were transitory:' It may b that discrimination, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Perhaps Argentine Jews, like Mao Zedong's allegorical fish who do not know what water is, are so acclimated to high levels of free-floating anti-Semitism that they accept it as the natural order of things. As individuals and as a group, they accept limitations and discriminations that appear outrageous to North Americans as the cost of living in a Catholic society that partially excludes them, yet exerts a sweet charm over them. The romanticized story of the agricultural colonies has rooted them in the very earth of Argentina. Those who came to the city were mostly able to attain a satisfactory way of life. Criollo ways-the close-knit family ties, the intense intell ctual life of cafes and bookstores, the streets and restaurants filled with throngs of p ople until well past midnight-contrast d lightfully with dark memories of the old country or more recent impressions of chilly northern climes. There seemed to be no reason why life should not continue to unfold pleasantly into the indefinite future. This dream began to crumble in the fifties and sixties during the administra­ tions of two democratically elected presidents. It is part of the Argentine paradox that the viability of Jewish life in that country was brought seriously into question during the constitutional administrations of Presidents Arturo Frondizi (1958-62) and Arturo Illfa (1963-66)." Within the context of an ongoing economic crisis and tension between civilian and military forces, anti­ Semitic verbal and physical attacks escalated.