ESENT I PR AR D N A I R A Questmesor ah CHOLENT WITH THE GAUCHOS TEXT AND PHOTOS BY Ari Greenspan and Ari Z. Zivotofsky lthough all of us have heard about We knew there were large fascinating or far-flung Jewish communities Jewish communities in the big around the globe, it’s always hard to imagine cities of Argentina, but entire something so different from how we live. Even kehillos of Jewish ranchers Aseasoned travelers like ourselves who have become acquainted with a range of Jewish communities would not be quite prepared on the vast South American for what we were to find in the most unusual Jewish town of Moises Ville on the pampas of pampas? Although today the Argentina. Argentina, initially settled by Spanish town of Moises Ville is but a conquistadors in the 16th century, is a huge country taking up most of the lower half of remnant of its Jewish heyday, South America. For North American and European-centric Jews it might be difficult we were able to meet the last of to imagine that Argentina has the sixth largest Jewish community in the world, with over 200,000 Jews. But it wasn’t the large the Yiddishe gauchos, whose and vibrant kehillah in Buenos Aires that piqued our interest. After driving close to grandparents fled from pogroms 400 miles over dirt roads, with cows in every direction and open grassy, fertile plains as and oppression to stake out their far as the eye could see, we finally passed the sign welcoming us into Moises Ville, a hamlet turf in the Southern Hemisphere with just over 2,000 people including about 200 Jews. Yet in the 1940s, nearly the whole MISHPACHA 65 Cholent with the Gauchos town of about 5,000 was Jewish. How did would not be kosher. But the richness of women’s balcony of the Brenner shul on gift, the group of shochtim gave us a to drink. The Jews would not eat the an entire Jewish city come to be in these the culture, the unique location, and the Yom Kippur and spend the entire day huge piece of prime cut meat. On Erev nonkosher meat some friendly gauchos rural South American plains, and then inherent kinship of the Jewish People there. Shabbos we bought some vegetables offered them, and instead survived on a practically disappear within the last 70 combined to make it an intriguing and en- For sleeping accommodations in the F and eggs, and presto, a cholent was up few hard cookies that had to be soaked years? joyable Shabbos. tiny hamlet, we were directed to a small 1. and cooking. Actually, obtaining the to become eatable. They were living in Before arriving, we contacted a member bed and breakfast that is owned by a frum vegetables wasn’t as easy as we thought, boxcars in Palacios’s unfinished train Cholent to Go We immediately knew of the local Jewish community, Judit absentee landlord and so there were because every store in town is closed for station when Dr. Wilhelm Lowenthal, there was something special about this Blumenthal. She and Batsheva Fischer, mezuzahs on all of the rooms. Although siesta from 12 to 4. Finally, a friendly a Jewish European doctor hired by the town when we noticed the street signs who were our hosts and tour guides, are wherever we travel, we always come teenager who wanted to be kind to Argentinean government, found them with names like Baron Hirsch, Estado experts in every aspect of the history of prepared for Shabbos with challah, wine, some foreign tourists woke his mother floundering after 62 of them, mostly de Israel (the State of Israel) and Hertzl this sleepy town and know every nook salami, and gefilte fish, we also enjoy to sell us some produce (he’d obviously children, had already died of typhus, Street, and saw Hebrew engraved on some and cranny. Batsheva is fifth generation preparing something fresh that we can never heard of Dama exposure, and malnutrition. There was of the buildings from the early 1900s. Moises Ville, has never been to Israel share with the locals. Assuming there 2. ben Nesinah of of course no Jewish cemetery yet, so the Even the elaborate theater building bore (though she hopes to come soon) and would be no kosher food to be found, we F Kiddushin 31a, who bodies of these children were stored in the Yiddish sign “Farain Kadima” — the yet, having learned in the local Jewish brought along a shechitah knife and some refused to wake his kerosene cans until a cemetery was later Kadima Association. In order to really get teacher’s seminary, speaks fluent Hebrew. kashering salt and were hoping to buy a father to sell a Parah established. to know this obviously Jewish (or former- Her grandfather’s grandfather was among Muscovy duck (see sidebar), or at least Adumah). The survivors of this particular group ly Jewish) town and its unusual history, the original settlers, although when he a chicken, and shecht and prepare it for moved a few miles over and founded what we decided to spend Shabbos there and became a widower, he made aliyah and Shabbos. But luck was with us and our Swindled In the would become the town of Moises Ville. join the remnant community for davening died in Jerusalem in 1917. Not religious chalaf was unnecessary. We had stopped late 1800s, hundreds In 1889, when the first Jews arrived, and a Shabbos night meal — even though herself, she wistfully reminisced how at one of the large kosher slaughterhouses of thousands of Jews the Argentinean pampas was a vast, wild we suspected that there would probably as a child she would watch her great- in northern Argentina the day before suffering underterritory, similar in many ways to the not be a minyan and that the food they ate grandmother climb the stairs to the arriving in Moises Ville, where, as a parting the great burdens Wild West of the US. But in Argentina of widespread po- the Jews didn’t have to worry about groms and oppres- Indians because most of the natives had sion immigrated been killed off first by the Spaniards to the US, Western and then by an extermination program F3. Europe, Palestine, of the Argentinean government. The South Africa, and main enemy of the first settlers were the even South America. gauchos, equivalent to cowboys of the In 1881, although there were only 1,200 western US. Wary of the newcomers, they Jews in Argentina at the time, the Ar- killed more than a few of them. It seems gentine president signed a decree pro- that in those early days, the Jews fought moting Russian Jewish immigration. back and killed a fair number of gauchos Eight years later, a group of 813 Jews as well. The two groups eventually learned set sail on the steam ship Wesser to Ar- to put up with each other, and a new breed gentina and to the parcels of farm land developed: Jewish gauchos. 1. LIVING PROOF The old horse-drawn they thought they had bought while in Moises Ville became an essentially hearse of the chevra kaddisha was broken Russia. Jewish city in the middle of the South and rotting, but we could imagine how it The short version of the story of American plains. The Jews who found a separated between life and death through the village streets those first immigrants is that they were safe haven in these territories braved the cheated, arriving only to find that the tough conditions and became farmers land was not theirs. Eventually other and cattlemen, paving the way for other 2 JEWISH COWBOY Zelig, our new friend land was found for them, and so they immigrants who found their way to these and authentic Yiddishe gaucho, proudly made their way by train to Palacios, parts right up to World War II; by 1940 led whatever he knew of the Friday night where the alternate parcels were there were 5,000 Jews in the town. More services located. Aside from the newly procured of these Jewish villages began to develop land, however, there was nothing. No during the early 1900s, and soon entire 3. SIGN LANGUAGE Who would think that tools, no food, no houses, no water swathes of land were almost completely on the pampas of Argentina there would be a town whose streets were named after the Jewish state? 66 MISHPACHA MISHPACHA 67 Cholent with the Gauchos F4. of yesteryear are today’s decrepit to grace the town is far from forgotten. His and Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook. He also old haunted houses and boarded up name was Rav Aharon Halevi Goldman, acted as gabbai tzedakah and would raise storefronts. Dogs roam the streets in and the local history museum even bears funds for Torah and charity institutions packs. We continuously recited the pasuk his name. The rabbi had one of the first in Europe and Israel. He was niftar on “U’lechol Bnei Yisrael lo yecheratz kelev cars in the town and, as the communal 6 Adar 5692 (1932) and his sefer Divrei leshono,” which is traditionally recited to leader, he had a flashing blue light (that Aharon was published posthumously by protect us from dogs. The dogs literally we saw on display in the museum) his family. came into the library and restaurant and attached to the front. And despite the 4. FROZEN IN TIME While the Baron Hirsch shul is still active, in nearby Palacios — although one even managed to get into the shul, small size and remote location of Moises Empty Spaces We wanted to see what the synagogue hasn’t been used for years — before being promptly ejected.