Jewish Presence in Latin America (Latin American Studies)

Introduction

There has been (essentially unproven) speculation that Jews reached the Americas with Columbus’s voyages. It has even been alleged that Jews paid in part for Columbus’s voyages in order to ensure their transport out of Spain. Yet, the best historical facts have Jews first arriving with early settlers as conversos (also called New Christians; Jews who had agreed to convert to Christianity in order to escape expulsion from Spain and Portugal and persecution by the Inquisition) or as crypto-Jews (also called marranos, Jews who feigned conversion to escape the mandate to convert but who continued to practice Judaism to one degree or another, in one form or another). Although conversos were legally prohibited from migrating to the New World, many in fact did. Sincere conversos were often accused of being crypto-Jews and, with the reach of the Inquisition into Latin America, frequently suffered persecution. But individuals of Jewish descent were scattered all over Latin America, although it is true that the greatest concentration was to be found in the great colonial centers such as Mexico, Lima, and San Salvador de Bahia, and in lesser cities such as Bogotá, Santiago de Chile, and Buenos Aires. Scattered Jewish immigration occurred between the colonial period and the late 19th century. The greatest immigration of Jews into Latin America, however, was during the fifty-year period between 1880 and 1930, as part of the combined effect of the flight of Jews from Europe as a consequence of poverty, discrimination (including brutal pogroms), and the rise of Nazism. These were dominantly Ashkenazi Jews. There was also a smaller migration from northern Africa and the Middle East, preponderantly Sephardic Jews. These Jews, while they eventually settled all over Latin America, arrived in particularly large numbers in those countries that had an open immigration policy: Argentina and Uruguay and, to a lesser extent, Venezuela, Colombia, and Brazil. The rise of Nazism promoted additional migration in the 1930s, although nationalistic policies in many countries hindered migration numbers; there were also groups that arrived as refugees after World War II. A diaspora of Jews from Latin America has occurred with the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948 and its active policy of aliyah (return) of world Jews to the biblical homelands. This diaspora has been swollen by recurring military dictatorships, especially authoritarian/neofascist ones in the Southern Cone, in the mid-20th century and by recurring economic crisis. While many of the Jews who have left Latin America in the second half of the 20th century and later have gone to the United States and Europe, Israel undoubtedly continues to exercise a strong draw. In this context, however, it is important to underscore how there is a sentiment among some Latin American Jews that they must stick it out in Latin America and not repeat the diasporic history of their foreparents. Today, there are approximately 500,000 Jews in Latin America, with by far the greatest concentration in Argentina, with Brazil and Mexico somewhat distant seconds, and a third tier consisting of Venezuela, Chile, Uruguay, and Panama. It is important to note here that a major issue of Latin American Jewish studies is the determination of reliable statistical evidence, especially in the face not only of aliyah, but also the diaspora of Latin American Jews to other Latin American countries and outside Latin America. The degree of assimilation or integration varies widely from country to country, although in all cases Jews have played prominent roles in commercial and industrial life and in important sectors of the cultural and academic communities. The author wishes to acknowledge advice from Naomi Lindstrom in the preparation of this essay. The author’s research assistants Ileana Baeza, Arturo Jiménez, and Francisco Serratos also contributed to this project. Statistics on Jewish population in Latin America are drawn from World Jewish Population, 2010, prepared by Sergio DellaPergola for the Berman Institute–North American Jewish Data Bank at the University of Connecticut. It is important to note that the Berman Institute statistics may be considered rigorously conservative.

History of Latin American Jews

Contemporary research protocols have placed an increasing emphasis on the need to speak of Latin American Jews, rather than Jews in Latin America, a move that places important emphases on the ways in which Jewish life has adjusted to Latin American sociohistorical realities, especially in conjunction with other groups of related ethnic origin (Klich and Lesser 1998, Lesser and Rein 2008, Mate and Forster 2007, Rein 2008). Concomitantly, the insistence of speaking, for example, of Jewish Argentines rather than Argentine Jews or Jews in Argentina serves to underscore the particular coordinates of the Argentine experience and to highlight the ways in which that experience differs from Jewish life in any other country of Latin America or elsewhere (Sheinen and Barr 1996). This is particularly true when speaking of differing degrees, circumstances, and policies of anti-Semitism; variously inflected forms of nationalism and nativism; the presence of neofascist, anti-Semitic military dictatorship; and (although less of an issue today than in the mid-20th century) the continuing influence of Nazi ideology and the legacy associated with Axis refugees, particularly in Brazil and the Southern Cone (Milgram 2003). The foundation of the Latin American Jewish Studies Association (LAJSA) in 1982 has served to bring together those interested in Latin American Jewish communities, with a focus on scholars in Latin American, the United States, and Israel (Avni 2011). Elkin’s research (Elkin 1998) is some of the first to be associated with the founding of LAJSA. The earliest work, however, goes back to the 1950s (Shatzky 1952). AMILAT, the Israeli organization dedicated to Latin American Jewish Studies, sponsors the Judaica Latinoamericana series, published by the Magnes Press of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Avni, Haim, Bokser de Liwerant, Judit, DellaPergola, Sergio, Bejarano, Margalit, and Senkman, Leonardo, eds. Pertinencia y alteridad Judíos en/de América Latina: Cuarenta años de cambios. Tiempo Emulado 13. Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2011.
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Some of the most important scholars in Latin American Jewish scholarship (and a central core of the membership of the Latin American Jewish Studies Association) contribute an essential report on work in the field, in thirty-one essays. Eight parts: “Introducción,” “América Latina en Perspectiva Comparativa,” “Transiciones Políticas, Contextos Nacionales y Tendencias Regionales,” “Demografía, Migraciones e Identidad,” “Organizaciones Judías Mundiales y Cmunidades Latinoamericanas,” “Cuarenta Años en la Educación Judía,” “Nuevas Pautas de Identidad y Religiosidad Judía,” and “Transformaciones Lingüísticas y Creación Cultural.”
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Elkin, Judith Laikin. The Jews of Latin America. Rev. ed. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1998.
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Originally published in 1979, Elkin’s work remains the basic starting point for a comprehensive history of Latin American Jews, continuing to exercise an important organizing role in the field. Elkin is founding president of the Latin American Jewish Studies Association.
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Klich, Ignacio, and Jeffrey Lesser, eds. Arab and Jewish Immigrants in Latin America: Images and Realities. London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1998.
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Twelve essays by diverse authors on the relationship, contrasts, and similarities between Jewish and Arab immigration to Latin American societies. Of importance is the attention to social subjects who are both Arab and Jewish (along with other ethnic identities).
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Lesser, Jeffrey, and Raanan Rein, eds. Rethinking Jewish-Latin Americans. Diálogos. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2008.
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Twelve essays by diverse authors that examine Latin American Jews in terms of Latin American and ethnic studies. The unifying goal of the essays is to examine Latin American Jews in terms of their specific relationship to Latin American republics and to break with the traditional view that sees them as an underdifferentiated minority society that happens to reside in Latin America.
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Mate, Reyes, and Ricardo Forster, eds. El judaísmo en Iberoamérica. Enciclopedia Iberoamericana de Religiones 6. Madrid: Editorial Trotta, 2007.
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Ten essays of considerable depth by various authors on Latin American Jewish culture. The volume is noteworthy because of the emergence of a new Spanish concern for Judaic studies, in part as the consequence of Latin American Jewish political refugees in Spain since the death of Francisco Franco in 1975.
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Milgram, Avraham, ed. Entre la aceptación y el rechazo: América Latina y los refugiados judíos del nazismo. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2003.
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Ten essays by diverse authors, surveying the differing political and humanitarian response of the various Latin American republics to needs of Jewish refugees from the Holocaust. The general proposition is that such a response could not be predicted based only on governmental ideologies, but other forces must be taken into account as well.
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Rein, Raanan, ed. Árabes y judíos en Iberoamérica: Similitudes, diferencias y tensiones. Collección Ánfora 4. Seville, Spain: Fundación Tres Culturas del Mediterráneo, 2008.
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Groundbreaking collection of seventeen essays by diverse authors on comparative/contrastive issues regarding Jewish and Arabic communities in Latin America.
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Shatzky, Jacob. Comunidades judías en Latinoamérica. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Ediciones del American Jewish Committee, 1952.
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Important early, country-by-country survey of Jewish communities in Latin America, sponsored by the American Jewish Committee. The preface recognizes that the statistics presented are only “approximate.”
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Sheinin, David, and Lois Baer Barr. The Jewish Diaspora in Latin America: New Studies on History and Literature. Garland Reference Library of the Humanities 1968. New York: Garland, 1996.
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Eighteen essays by diverse authors focusing on mid-20th-century Jewish culture in Latin America, with an emphasis on newer issues and concerns in the field. Haim Avni stresses in his introductory essay the important contrast between a new Jewish diaspora from Latin America, for economic and sociopolitical reasons, and the way in which now-well-established communities are “settling in” as an integral part of national societies.
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Latin American Jewish Culture

Extensive research has been conducted on Latin American Jewish culture (Foster 2009), although the greatest emphasis has been on writing and the arts in individual countries. In general terms, there has been exceptional interest in personal testimonies (Agosín 2002, Ruggiero 2005). Of special interest is writing by Jewish women (Agosín 2005).

Agosín, Marjorie, ed. Taking Root: Narratives of Jewish Women in Latin America. Research in International Studies, Latin America 38. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2002.
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Twenty-two narratives and testimonials of Jewish women’s experiences in Latin American society.
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Agosín, Marjorie, ed. Memory, Oblivion, and Jewish Culture in Latin America. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005.
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Fifteen essays by diverse authors that examine important aspects of Jewish culture experience and production in Latin America, including “Sephardim in Our Memory,” “Journeys,” “The Paradox of Communities,” “A Literature of Transformation,” and “Culture, History, and Representation.”
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Foster, David William, ed. Latin American Jewish Cultural Production. Hispanic Issues 36. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2009.
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Twelve essays by diverse authors on major genres of Latin American Jewish culture, within the following four parts: “Latin American Jewish Identity,” “The Literary Record,” “The Plastic Arts,” and “Film and Photography.”
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Ruggiero, Kristin, ed. The Jewish Diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean: Fragments of Memory. Brighton, UK, and Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press, 2005.
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Thirteen essays by diverse authors, in four categories: “Relocation in the Nazi Years,” “Constructing Memory,” “Identity and Hybridity,” and “Poeticizing, Painting, Writing the Pain.”
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History of Major Jewish Communities

While Jewish communities can be found in all parts of Latin America, the bulk of research is, as one might expect, concentrated on the largest communities in Argentina (see General Studies on Argentina and Anti-Semitism in Argentina and Related Topics), Brazil, Uruguay, and Mexico. Moreover, material relating to smaller communities often takes the form of personal memoirs and anecdotal evidence.

General Studies on Argentina

Numbers vary widely, but the most conservative estimate is that there are approximately 182,000 Jews in Argentina. Many Jews have immigrated for economic and political reasons (Avni 1991, Sofer 1982, Weisbrot 1979), in addition to exercising the option of aliyah, the return to the Jewish homeland (Rein 2001). The vast majority of immigrants are Ashkenazic and arrived during the 1880–1930 period from all over eastern Europe and Russia (Mirelman 1990, Wolff and Zago 1999). Most are concentrated in Buenos Aires, where they currently enjoy a vigorous public presence in terms both of Jewish life in general and participation in all walks of Argentine society (Feierstein 2007). Jewish Argentines have been very active in the arts, theater, and literature, in addition to all sectors of Argentine academic life (Levinsky 2005). Much research has also been conducted on subgroups such as Jewish women in Argentina (Deutsch 2010) and the so-called Jewish Gauchos (Freidenberg 2009, Kapszuk 2001). The AMIA (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina) has played a central role in the life of Argentine Jews (Feierstein and Sadow 2002).

Avni, Haim. Argentina & the Jews: A History of Jewish Immigration. Translated by Gilda Brand. Judaic Studies. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1991.
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Avni is the leading authority on the history of Argentine Jews, and this account is one of the most definitive on Jewish immigration to that country, which contains the largest Jewish population in Latin America. Avni covers immigration from the time of the beginnings of the Argentine nation to circumstances of the Peronist regime, which militated against any significant immigration to that country post–World War II.
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Deutsch, Sandra McGee. Crossing Borders, Claiming a Nation: A History of Argentine Jewish Women, 1880–1955. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010.
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The first systematic history of the role of women in Argentine Jewish communities in the 19th and 20th centuries. Deutsch emphasizes the major contributions of key activist women and women’s groups.
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Feierstein, Ricardo. Vida cotidiana de los judíos argentinos: Del gueto al country. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Sudamericana, 2007.
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Illustrated history of all areas of Jewish social history in Argentina.
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Feierstein, Ricardo, and Stephen A. Sadow, eds. Encouentro: Recreando la cultura judeoargentina 1894–2001; En el umbral del segundo siglo, 11, 12, 13 y 14 de agosto, 2001. Ensayos. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Milá, 2002.
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Sponsored by the AMIA, the central coordinating organization of the Argentine Jewish community, this collection of essays, position papers, cultural documents, and literary texts is both a balance statement of Argentine Jewish society (at least in terms of those individuals who identify with the AMIA) and a memorial to the July 1994 bombing of the AMIA headquarters.
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Freidenberg, Judith Noemí. The Invention of the Jewish Gaucho: Villa Clara and the Construction of Argentine Identity. Jewish History, Life, and Culture. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009.
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The Argentine Jewish Gauchos were those immigrants who were settled in rural farmland communities north of Buenos Aires. Villa Clara was one of the most important of these communities, an important case for the role of Jews in the agricultural development of the region and for the creation of an Argentine identity among Jewish immigrants.
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Kapszuk, Elio. Shalom Argentina: Huellas de la colonización judía / Tracing Jewish Settlement. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Ministerio de Turismo, Cultura y Deporte, 2001.
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Profusely illustrated survey of the dozens of important rural Argentine Jewish settlements that date from the period of late-19th-century immigration. These settlements, many of which now survive precariously, are living museums of that important history of the Jewish Argentine migration.
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Levinsky, Roxana. Herencias de la inmigración judía en la Argentina: Cincuenta figuras de la creación intelectual. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Prometeo, 2005.
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Encyclopedic examination of fifty contemporary prominent Jewish Argentine intellectuals, predominantly in the fields of philosophy, the social and natural and physical sciences, history, education, and journalism.
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Mirelman, Víctor A. Jewish Buenos Aires, 1890–1930: In Search of an Identity. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990.
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This is an examination of the largest Jewish migration to find a place in Argentine society, during the 1890–1930 period, including its sociocultural characteristics and the struggle of new arrivals. It is also an account of the emergence of the community infrastructure to serve their needs. Originally published in Spanish as En búsqueda de una identidad: Los inmigrantes judíos en Buenos Aires, 1890–1930 (Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Milá, 1988).
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Rein, Raanan. Argentina, Israel y los judíos: Encuentros y desencuentros, mitos y realidades. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Ediciones Lumière, 2001.
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Detailed analysis of relations between Israel and Argentina, including a triangulation between the two states and Jewish Argentine society. One recurring theme is the disconnect between the interests of the Jewish Argentine community and the Israeli state. Adolf Eichmann’s arrest in Argentina in 1960 is analyzed as a case study of the diplomatic relations and tensions at issue.
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Sofer, Eugene F. From Pale to Pampa: A Social History of the Jews of Buenos Aires. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1982.
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Examination of the nature of eastern European Jewish immigration to Buenos Aires and its relationship to Argentine social and economic history. Of particular interests are the important contrasts established with the history of Jewish immigration to New York.
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Weisbrot, Robert. The Jews of Argentina: From the Inquisition to Perón. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1979.
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Social history of Argentine Jews.
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Wolff, Martha, and Manrique Zago. Los inmigrantes judíos: Pioneros de la Argentina/The Jewish Immigrants: Pioneers in Argentina. Translated by Harold Sinnott. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Manrique Zago Ediciones, 1999.
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Originally published in 1982. Extensive bilingual photo dossier, based on archival material, of late-19th-century Jewish immigration in Argentina. The volume parallels additional compilations on other immigrant groups.
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Anti-Semitism in Argentina and Related Topics

An important chapter of Jewish Argentine life concerns Jews and military governments (Lotersztain 2008, Rosemberg 2010). Of particular importance in the case of Argentina has been the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Jews (Ben-Dror 2008) and anti-Semitism in general (Lvovich 2003, Senkman 1989, Senkman and Sznajder 1995). Jewish prostitution was a unique phenomenon of the Jewish experience in Buenos Aires (Glickman 2000, Trochon 2006), and views of it in various sectors of Argentine society contributed to anti-Semitic attitudes. Although anti-Semitism remains an issue in Argentina, the prominence of Jews in the Carlos Menem government (1989–1999) represents a significant sociopolitical change (Melamed 2000).

Ben-Dror, Graciela. The Catholic Church and the Jews: Argentina, 1933–1945. Studies in Antisemitism. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008.
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The 1930s and 1940s were a period of intense anti-Semitism in Argentina, fanned in large part by the most-reactionary segments of the Catholic Church and its lay and military advisors, including major intellectuals and politicians. Of special significance were the relations of the church and clergy to Nazism and Jewish refugees.
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Glickman, Nora. The Jewish White Slave Trade and the Untold Story of Raquel Liberman. Garland Reference Library of Social Science 2130. New York and London: Garland, 2000.
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The story of the Zwi Migdal from the point of view of one of the prostitutes who came to denounce the organization, leading to its dissolution and the banning of organized prostitution. An important work of feminist biography.
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Lotersztain, Gabriela. Los judíos bajo el terror: Argentina, 1976–1983. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Ejercitar la Memoria, 2008.
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Journalistic account, including interviews, of the relationship between Jews and Jewish society and the neofascist regime of the Process of National Reconstruction. Of particular importance is the role played by Israel and international Jewry in the Argentine events.
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Lvovich, Daniel. Nacionalismo y antisemitismo en la Argentina. Biografía e Historia. Barcelona: Javier Vergara Editor, 2003.
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An extensive documentary history of the role of Argentine nationalism (or, versions of nationalism) during the first half of the 20th century, until the Peronista period, that fed anti-Semitism.
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Melamed, Diego. Los judíos y el menemismo: Un reflejo de la sociedad argentina. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Sudamericana, 2000.
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Account of the Jews who exercised power, after almost twenty years of anti-Semitic military dictatorship, in the government and larger society of Carlos Menem, the son of Syrian-Lebanese Arabs, who served as president between 1999 and 2009. With Menem’s government, Jews reestablished their leadership positions in Argentine society.
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Rosemberg, Diego. Marshall Meyer: El rabino que le vio la cara al diablo. Paisanos. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Capital Intelectual, 2010.
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Meyer arrived in Argentina in 1959, contracted by the Congragación Israelita de la República Argentina, where he made significant contributions to building up conservative Judaism in Argentina. He went on to be a major voice in denouncing the human rights violations of the 1976–1983 anti-Semitic military dictatorship and to aid its victims. He remained active in Argentina until his return to the United States in 1984.
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Senkman, Leonardo, ed. El antisemitismo en la Argentina. Los Libros Elegidos. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1989.
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Seven detailed essays by seven authors on the social, political, religious, and ideological dimensions of anti-Semitism in Argentina. Of considerable importance is the “Apéndice documental: El antisemitismo bajo el terrorismo de Estado (1976–1983),” pp. 393–476, containing six crucial documents and three testimonies. Originally published in three volumes and a slightly different format (Buenos Aires, Argentina: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1986).
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Senkman, Leonardo, and Mario Sznajder, eds. El legado del autoritarismo: Derechos humanos y antisemitismo en la Argentina contemporánea. Colección Estudios Internacionales. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Nuevohacer, Grupo Editor Latinoamericano, 1995.
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Sixteen essays and two testimonies by diverse authors, on anti-Semitisim during the neofacist military dictatorship (1976–1983) and remnants of its legacy and human rights concerns in general after the redemocratization of Argentina in 1983. Of importance are those essays that focus on the Israel perspective on this history. Based on a colloquium organized by Edy Kaufman in 1992 at the Universidad Hebrea de Jerusalem.
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Trochon, Yvette. Las rutas de Eros: La trata de blancas en el Atlántico Sur; Argentina, Brasil y Uruguay (1880–1932). Montevideo, Uruguay: Taurus, 2006.
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Much has been written on the Zwi Migdal, the Jewish prostitution ring that functioned widely in Buenos Aires, Uruguay, and southern Brazil and that brought thousands of young Jewish women to serve as enforced prostitutes. This is one of the most complete and documentary accounts.
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Brazil

Brazil was a particularly important destination for Sephardic Jews during the colonial period, when the administrative capital was San Salvador de Bahia (Benchimol 1998, Mello 2007); the Inquisition was active at this time (Grinberg 2005). During the period of the Dutch occupation of northern Brazil (c. 1630–1661), many Jewish refugees from Europe and other parts of Latin America were welcomed, leaving an increased Jewish community after the withdrawal of the Dutch from northeastern Brazil (Carvalho 1992, Vainfas 2010, Wiznitzer 1960). Unlike Argentina, Brazil did not receive significant numbers of Jews during the 1880–1930 period, although of note during this later period was the phenomenon of Jewish prostitution (Kushnir 1996). However, the authoritarian (and even quite fascistic) Estado Novo (New State) of the Getúlio Vargas dictatorship in the 1930s grudgingly encouraged the arrival of Jews who could contribute to his plans for Brazilian industrialization (Carneiro 2001, Lesser 1995). Brazil, like Argentina and other Latin American countries, also saw a spike in Jewish immigration after Jews’ entrance into the United States was essentially banned in the early 1920s. Approximately 97,000 Jews now live in Brazil. Although São Paulo is now a particularly vital center of Jewish life in Brazil, there are significant concentrations in other major cities, and Jews are now very much integrated into all sectors of Brazilian social and cultural life (Falbel 2008).

Benchimol, Samuel. Eretz Amazônia: Os judeus na Amazônia. Manaus, Brazil: Editora Valer, 1998.
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Most Jewish immigrants—and mostly Ashkenazic—settled in urban areas, and this study examines Sephardic Jews who settled in the lower Amazonian areas of Manaus and Belem, beginning in the early 19th century.
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Carneiro, Maria Luíza Tucci. O anti-semitismo na era Vargas: Fantasmas de uma geração (1930–1945). 2d ed. São Paulo, Brazil: Perspectiva, 2001.
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Originally published in 1988 (São Paulo, Brazil: Editora Brasiliense). Superbly detailed study of one of the most complex periods for Jews in Brazil, a period in which Jews were strategically welcomed as part of the push by the dictatorship for industrialization and scientific and technological development, but also one in which an overarching nationalism provided a deep vein of anti-Semitism. See Lesser 1995.
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Carvalho, Flávio Mendes. Raízes judaicas no Brasil: O arquivo secreto da Inquisição. São Paulo, Brazil: Editora Nova Arcadia, 1992.
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Documentary registry and accompanying documents of Brazilian victims of three centuries of the Portuguese Inquisition.
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Falbel, Nachman. Judeus no Brasil: Estudos e notas. São Paulo, Brazil: Humanitas, 2008.
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Major sociohistorical survey of all aspects of Jewish life in Brazil from the colonial period to the present, although excluding cultural production. Of particular importance is the long opening survey of the development of Jewish Brazilian studies.
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Grinberg, Keila. Os judeus no Brasil: Inquisição, imigração e identidade. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Civilização Brasileira, 2005.
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Seventeen essays by diverse authors on major issues in Jewish Brazilian social life and history. Of particular importance is the long concluding essay on anti-Semitism in Brazil.
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Kushnir, Beatriz. Baile de máscaras: Mulheres judias e prostituição; As polacas e suas Associações de Ajuda Mútua. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Imago Editora, 1996.
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Examination of the prostitution of Jewish women in Brazil in the early 20th century, and the societies organized to protect them.
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Lesser, Jeffrey. Welcoming the Undesirables: Brazil and the Jewish Question. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
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The standard work on Jewish immigration to Brazil during the Vargas dictatorship (1930–1945), when Jews were welcomed in Brazil as part of the development by the dictatorship of Brazilian industry and technology. In this sense, the Jews were “desirable”—moreover, they were also seen as “whitening” agents of Brazilian society. However, they were “undesirable” as alien elements in Brazilian society, for their religion and ethnic roots, their languages, and their traditions. Lesser examines the double proposition of Brazilian Jews, Jewish Brazilians.
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Mello, Lucius de. A travessia da terra vermelha: Uma saga dos refugiados judeus no Brasil. São Paulo, Brazil: Novo Século, 2007.
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Account, based on personal diaries, of Jewish immigration to the northern part of the state of Paraná in the 1930s and 1940s.
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Vainfas, Ronaldo. Jerusalém colonial: Judeus portugueses no Brasil holandês. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Civilização Brasileira, 2010.
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Documentary history of the relatively good fortunes of Portuguese Jews in northeastern Brazil under brief Dutch rule in the mid-16th century. Of particular interest is the account of the disposition toward the Jews on the part of the great Jesuit intellectual Pedro Antônio Vieira.
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Wiznitzer, Arnold. Jews in Colonial Brazil. New York: Columbia University Press, 1960.
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Early documentary history of Jewish colonies formed during Portuguese settlement in northern Brazil and expanded during Dutch occupation, c. 1630–1661. Translated by Olívia Krähenbühl as Os judeos o Brasil colonial (São Paulo, Brazil: Livraria Pioneira Editora, 1966).
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Mexico

Unlike Argentina and Brazil, Mexico has not been a country of major immigration. Yet, it does have the third largest Jewish population of Latin America, with approximately 40,000 Jews concentrated in Mexico City and in Guadalajara and Monterrey (although the latter two communities are quite small) (Zárate Miguel 1986, Bokser de Liwerant 2001). While there are a large number of Mexicans who trace their Jewish ancestry back to the Sephardic presence during the colonial period, the major influx of Jews into Mexico took place during the rebuilding of the country after the revolution (1910–1920), when Jews with technical and commercial skills were welcomed, as well as part of a policy in the 1930s of allowing immigrants fleeing fascist persecution into the country; other Jews arrived as post–World War II refugees (Cimet 1997, Krause 1987). While Mexican nationalism has kept most Jews “in the closet,” Jews have played important roles in Mexican commerce and industry and in cultural and intellectual life (Goldsmit Brindis and Gurvich Peretzman 2009, Revah Donath and Enríquez Andrade 1998). Of particular historical significance has been the role of the Inquisition in the persecution of Jews in colonial Mexico (Liebman 1970, Toro 2002). Extensive archival documents exist on the Jews in colonial Mexico (Toro 1982).

Bokser de Liwerant, Judit, ed. Imágenes de un encuentro: La presencia judía en México durante la primera mitad de siglo XX. 3d rev. ed. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2001.
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Originally published in 1992. Essay accompanied by an extensive commemorative collection of personal and archive images of Jewish life in Mexico up to the mid-20th century, the point in time in which new World War II refuge groups arrived in the country.
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Cimet, Adina. Ashkenazi Jews in Mexico: Ideologies in the Structuring of a Community. SUNY Series in Anthropology and Judaic Studies. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.
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Historical account of the creation of the Ashkenazic Jewish community in Mexico after the 1910 revolution, and the particular issues of Jewish identity and survival in the context of the strong Mexican nationalism of the period.
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Goldsmit Brindis, Shulamit, and Natalia Gurvich Peretzman, eds. Sobre el judaísmo mexicano: Diversas expresiones de activismo comunitario. Pasado del Presente. Mexico City: Universidad Iberoamericana, Departamento de Historia, Programa de Cultura Judaica, 2009.
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Ten essays by diverse authors on Jewish organizations in Mexico.
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Krause, Corinne A. Los judíos en México: Una historia con énfasis especial en el período de 1857 a 1930. Translated by Ariela Katz Guggenheim. Mexico City: Universidad Iberoamericana, Departamento de Historia, 1987.
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Emphasis falls on the period between the Jews of colonial Mexico and the arrival of immigrants from Spain and Europe during, respectively, the Spanish Civil War and World War II. It does, however, focus on the important arrival in the 1920s of Jews, many of whom were refugees from pogroms in Russia and eastern Europe, as part of the rebuilding of Mexico after the Mexican Revolution, 1910–1920.
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Liebman, Seymour B. The Jews in New Spain: Faith, Flame, and the Inquisition. Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press, 1970.
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While rather outdated, this is a standard work in English, with emphasis on the relations between Jews and the Inquisition in colonial Mexico.
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Revah Donath, Renée Karina, and Héctor Manuel Enríquez Andrade. Estudios sobre el judeo-español en México. Serie Lingüística. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1998.
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In addition to being an analysis of the presence and use of Sephardic Spanish in Mexico, this is also an important examination of the history of Sephardic Jews in the country.
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Toro, Alfonso. Los judíos en la Nueva España: Documentos del siglo XVI, correspondientes al ramo de Inquisición. 2d ed. Sección de Obras de Historia. Mexico City: Archivo General de la Nación, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1982.
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Based on documentary material of the Inquisition in Spain, a sociohistorical survey of Sephardic Jews in colonial Mexico.
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Toro, Alfonso. The Carvajal Family: The Jews and the Inquisition in New Spain in the Sixteenth Century. Translated by Frances Hernández. El Paso: Texas Western Press, University of Texas at El Paso, 2002.
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The Carvajal family was one of the major Sephardic families of colonial Mexico. Luis de Carvajal, governor of the Northern Province of New Spain, and his family came under the scrutiny of the Inquisition in the 16th century, resulting in Carvajal’s death in prison and the burning at the stake in 1596 of nine members of his immediate and extended family. Originally published in Spanish as La familia Carvajal: Estudio histórico sobre los judíos y la Inquisición de la Nueva España en el siglo XVI (Mexico City: Editorial Patria, 1944).
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Zárate Miguel, Guadalupe. México y la diáspora judía. Serie Historia. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1986.
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While not extensive in its documentation, the importance of this volume lies in its publication by a major official organization, evidently as part of the emergence of an awareness of multiethnicity in Mexico.
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History of Other Jewish Communities

Jews make up much smaller communities in the rest of Latin America, their fortune being occasionally disrupted by political events and ideologies that involved varieties of anti-Semitic persecution. Jews have been particularly prominent in political office in Costa Rica, with several vice presidents being from the Jewish community. Panama has a very healthy Jewish community, to a large measure the result of the diversity prompted by the construction of the Panama Canal and American presence in the area. Moreover, Panama was an important destination for Jewish refugees after World War II, and there are now about eight thousand Jews in Panama. Cuba is particularly noteworthy: although there are probably no more than one thousand Jews left in Cuba after flight prompted by the 1959 revolution and considerable subsequent persecution, they now enjoy religious freedom and are attempting to rebuild their communities, with considerable assistance from US Jewish interests. The history of the 17,500 Jews in Uruguay closely parallels that of Argentina (although the military regime that came to power in 1973 appears to have been much less anti-Semitic than the one that came to power in Argentina in 1976), and Uruguayan Jews are very much integrated into national life. Note the impressive list of scholarly studies on Jews in Uruguay. Finally, the Dominican Republic has the historically important Sosua experiment, the project of the dictator Rafael Trujillo to settle Jewish refugees in that northern coastal town in the 1930s, after the rise of Nazism, although the number fell far short of original ambitions.

Bolivia

Bolivia was particularly generous in its reception of Jewish immigrants feeling Nazi persecution (Bieber 2010, Spitzer 1998). In the case of smaller communities, personal memoirs often take the place of systematic historical inquiry in providing useful information about immigrant experiences (Spitzer 1998, Wiener S. 2004).

Bieber, León E. Presencia judía en Bolivia: La ola inmigratoria de 1938–1940. Colección de Ciencias Sociales 20. Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia: Lewy Libros, 2010.
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Detailed historical account of the group of European Jews who arrived in Bolivia immediately before World War II, totaling between some seven thousand to eight thousand refugees, and their presence in Bolivian society, a society until that time unaccustomed to large numbers of immigrants.
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Spitzer, Leo. Hotel Bolivia: The Culture of Memory in a Refuge from Nazism. New York: Hill and Wang, 1998.
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Bolivia became an important recipient of Jewish refugees from Nazism in the 1930s, as countries where Jews had customarily immigrated severely restricted access. A personal memoir of the son of refugees who was born in Bolivia, the study affords an excellent characterization of Bolivian refugee history.
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Wiener S., Guillermo. Recuerdos de un judío boliviano. Colección Historias de Vida. La Paz, Bolivia: Producciones CIMA, 2004.
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Minimal material exists on Jewish communities in Bolivia, making this personal testimonial of an Austrian Jewish refugee useful.
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Chile

Personal accounts often stress the rather difficult problems of adjustment and accommodation for Jewish immigrants in Chile (Agosín 1997). Good social history work has been conducted on Chilean Jews (Böhm 1984–), especially Sephardic immigrants (Friedländer 1966, Nes-El 1984).

Agosín, Marjorie. A Cross and a Star: Memories of a Jewish Girl in Chile. Foreword by Laura Rieco. Translated by Celeste Kostopulos-Copperman. Helen Rose Scheuer Jewish Women’s Series. New York: Feminist Press, 1997.
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Originally published in English in 1995; translation of Sagrada memoria. The memoirs of Agosín’s mother as written by her daughter, one of Chile’s major Jewish writers. Of importance for comments on Jewish life in Chile, in the context of strong Chilean Catholic nationalism in conjunction with a major presence of German Nazi refugees.
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Böhm, Günter. Historia de los judíos en Chile. Santiago, Chile: Editorial Andrés Bello, 1984–.
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Detailed social history of Chilean Jews, with an extensive documentary appendix. Only Vol. 1 was ever published: Período colonial: Judíos y judeoconversos en Chile colonial durante los siglos XVI y XVII; El Bachiller Francisco Maldonado de Silva, 1592–1639.
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Friedländer, Günter. Los héroes olvidados. Santiago, Chile: Editorial Nascimento, 1966.
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Historical analysis of Sephardic Jews in Chile and Peru during the colonial period. Survey of “anonymous immigrants” is followed by an extensive registry of information on individuals from the 16th and 17th centuries.
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Nes-El, Moshé. Historia de la comunidad israelita sefaradí de Chile. Santiago, Chile: Editorial Nascimento, 1984.
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Social history of Sephardic Jews in Chile. Of note is the documentary appendix, pp. 275–335.
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Colombia

There is only one important historical examination of Jews in Colombia (Mesa Bernal 1996), despite a particular interest in Sephardic immigrants (Croitoru Rotbaum 1967–1971, Sourdis Nájera 2003).

Croitoru Rotbaum, Iţic. De Sefarad al neosefardismo: Contribución a la historia de Colombia. 2 vol. Bogotá, Colombia: Editorial Kelly, 1967–1971.
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Extensive documentary history of Sephardic Jews in Colombia. Vol. 2 has separate title: Documentos coloniales originados en el Santo Oficio del Tribunal de la Inquisición de Cartagena de Indias (Bogotá, Colombia: Tipografía Hispana, 1971).
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Mesa Bernal, Daniel. De los judíos en la historia de Colombia. Memoria de la Historia. Bogotá, Colombia: Planeta, 1996.
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Comprehensive overview of participation of Colombian Jews in national life.
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Sourdis Nájera, Adelaida. El registro oculto: Los sefardíes del Caribe en la formación de la nación colombiana, 1813–1886. 2d ed. Colección Germán Arciniegas 1. Bogotá, Colombia: Academia Colombiana de Historia, 2003.
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Social history of the first Jewish community established in Colombia, Sephardic Jews descended from the Spanish and Portuguese expulsions (1492 and 1497, respectively), with its main focus in Barranquilla.
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Costa Rica

The historical examination of Jews in Costa Rica (Sikora Schifter, et al. 1979) has included a particular interest in Sephardic immigrants (Monge-Urpí 2002).

Monge-Urpí, Giselle. Descalzos en Palmares: Los cripto judíos en Costa Rica. San José, Costa Rica: Editorial Juricentro 2002.
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Stresses how one of the many ways in which Costa Rica is unique among Central American countries is because of the large crypto-Jewish component of the colonial period, especially those of Portuguese origin.
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Sikora Schifter, Jacobo, Lowell Gudmundson, and Solera Castro, Mario. El judío en Costa Rica. Serie Estudios Sociopolíticos 4. San José, Costa Rica: Editorial Universidad Estatal a Distancia, 1979.
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Social history of Jewish communities in Costa Rica. The emphasis is on Jews of Polish origin, and an entire chapter is devoted to anti-Semitism in Costa Rica.
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Cuba

While the Jewish community in Cuba has been historically small (Bejerano 1996, Levine 1993), the interaction with the 1959 Castro revolution has led to special interest in the survival of that community (Corrales Capestany 2007).

Bejarano, Margalit. La comunidad hebrea de Cuba: La memoria y la historia. Edited by Haim Avri. Jerusalem: Institute Ibraham Harman de Judaísmo Contemporánea, Universidad Hebrea de Jerusalén, 1996.
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Series of approximately seventy oral history vignettes illustrating Jewish life in 20th-century Cuba.
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Corrales Capestany, Maritza. La isla elegida: Los judíos en Cuba. Prologue by Reynalso González. Testimonio. Havana, Cuba: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 2007.
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Survey of Jewish society in Cuba, followed by thirty-six vignettes of major Cuban Jewish figures. The author stresses the characteristics of the survival of the Jewish community in Cuba following 1959, when many Jews fled the country.
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Levine, Robert M. Tropical Diaspora: The Jewish Experience in Cuba. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1993.
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Although Jews arrived in Cuba in any number only in the early 20th century, 70 percent of Cuba’s Jews left after the Cuban Revolution. Levine devotes a long chapter to the SS St. Louis incident of June 1939, when Jewish refugees, at the instigation of the US government, were turned away from Havana and were forced to return to Europe.
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Dominican Republic

The relatively small Dominican Republic Jewish community (Lockward 1994) includes a community that is part of an important ideological initiative by the mid-20th-century dictator Rafael Trujillo (Wells 2009).

Lockward, Jorge Alfonso, ed. Presencia judía en Santo Domingo. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Taller, 1994.
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Twelve essays by diverse authors on various aspects of the Jewish community in the Dominican Republic. As the editor notes, the Jewish presence is barely recorded in Dominican society.
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Wells, Allen. Tropical Zion: General Trujillo, FDR, and the Jews of Sosúa. American Encounters / Global Interactions. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009.
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Between 1940 and 1945, the Dominican Republic issued visas for the relocation of Jewish refugees to the town of Sosúa, on the northern coast of the country, a project that had the support of the Roosevelt administration. Wells examines the difficulties of this relocation process, which eventually included fewer than eight hundred of the one hundred thousand Jews whom Trujillo had promised to relocate.
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Ecuador

In a pattern typical of the smaller Jewish communities, a documentary history (Kreuter 1997) is complemented by a collection of personal memoirs (Grubel Rosenthal 2010).

Grubel Rosenthal, Manuel. Ecuador: Destino migrantes; Una biografía de la comunidad judía. Quito, Ecuador: Manuel Grubel Rosenthal, 2010.
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Series of vignettes (often subjective in tone) of Jewish life in Ecuador and related topics; emphasis is on the Jewish community as it develops with the arrival of post–World War II refugees and the degree to which Ecuador proved to be a very welcoming environment.
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Kreuter, María-Luise. ¿Donde queda el Ecuador? Exilio en un país desconocido desde 1938 hasta fines de los años cincuentas. Translated by Birte Pederson. Colección Tierra Incógnita 24. Quito, Ecuador: Abya-Yala, 1997.
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Documentary history of World War II Jewish refugees in Ecuador (most arrived 1938–1941) and the process of their social and professional integration in the country.
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Haiti

Research on Latin American Jews focuses almost exclusively on Spanish- and Portuguese-language societies. However, Haiti must not be discounted in the overall portrait of Latin American Jewry (Maurouard 2008).

Maurouard, Elvire Jean-Jacques. Les Juifs de Saint-Dominique (Haïti). Memoriae. Paris: Éditions du Cygne, 2008.
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Brief survey of the Jewish presence in Haiti since 1743. The author stresses how very little is known about Haitian Jews, and their relative obscurity in national history.
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Honduras

As in the case of other smaller communities (e.g., Costa Rica), research on Honduras is balanced between older crypto-Jewish groups (Ventura L. 2008) and modern Ashkenazic immigrants (Amaya Banegas 2000).

Amaya Banegas, Jorge Alberto. Los judíos en Honduras. Colección Códices. Tagucigalpa, Honduras: Editorial Guaymuras, 2000.
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Survey of Jewish life in Honduras, with emphasis on Ashkenazi immigration in the late 19th and 20th centuries.
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Ventura L., Libny Rodrigo. Los criptojudíos en Honduras. Colección Cuadernos Universitarios. Tegucigalpa, Honduras: Universidad Nacional de Honduras, Editorial Universitaria, 2008.
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Although the emphasis is on crypto-Jewish families in Honduras, the author surveys the history of Luso-Hispanic crypto-Jewish society and features in Central America in general.
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Peru

Peru, as a major colonial center, attracted an important immigration of crypto-Jews (Friedländer 1966), although scholarly emphasis has fallen mostly on arrivals in the past two centuries (Böhm 1985, Salcedo Mitrani and Mitrani Reaño 2002, Segal 1999). Of importance are the number of Peruvian Jews who were refugees from Nazi Germany (Trahtemberg Siederer 1987). While Jews are concentrated mostly in major urban areas, Trahtemberg Siederer 1989 provides evidence of nonurban communities.

Böhm, Günter. Judíos en el Perú durante el siglo XIX. Santiago: Universidad de Chile, 1985.
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Series of twenty brief sketches documenting the history of Ashkenazic Jewish immigration in Peru in the 19th century.
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Friedländer, Günter. Los héroes olvidados. Santiago, Chile: Editorial Nascimento, 1966.
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Historical analysis of Sephardic Jews in Chile and Peru during the colonial period. A survey of “anonymous immigrants” is followed by an extensive registry of information on individuals from the 16th and 17th centuries.
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Salcedo Mitrani, Lorry, and Henry Mitrani Reaño. El eterno retorno: Retrato de la comunidad judío-peruana. Lima: Fondo Editorial del Congreso del Perú, 2002.
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Photographic dossier of Jewish life in Peru, emphasizing the 1870–1950 period.
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Segal, Ariel. Jews of the Amazon: Self-Exile in Earthly Paradise. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1999.
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Focusing on Jewish immigration to the Peruvian Amazonian city of Iquitos since 1890, this study examines the social history of the Peruvian Jewish community.
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Trahtemberg Siederer, León. La inmigración judía al Perú, 1848–1948: Una historia documentada de la inmigración de los judíos de habla alemana. Lima, Peru: SESATOR, 1987.
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Documentary history of German Jewish immigration in Peru.
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Trahtemberg Siederer, León. Vida judía en Lima y en las provincias del Perú: Un recuento histórico documentado sobre la presencia judía en el territorio del Perú en el siglo XX. Lima: Unión Israelita del Perú, 1989.
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Documentary history of Ashkenazi Jewish life in Lima and other important Peruvian cities.
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Uruguay

Among the small communities, Uruguayan scholarship on Jewish life has been particularly vigorous (Loy 2007, Friedmann 2006), with emphasis on the experiences of anti-Semtisim (Aldrighi, et al. 2000), Jewish immigration during the Nazi period (Feldman 2001), and questions of assimilation (Porzecanski 2004, Porzecanski 2005, Raicher 2003).

Aldrighi, Clara, María Magdalena Camou, Miguel Feldman, Gabriel Abend, and Tersa Porzecanski. Antisemitismo en Uruguay: Raíces, discursos, imágenes, 1870–1940. Colección Desafíos. Montevideo, Uruguay: Ediciones Trilce, 2000.
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Four essays by diverse authors, oriented toward belying the commonly held claim that anti-Semitism does not exist in Uruguay.
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Feldman, Miguel. Tiempos difíciles: Inmigrantes judíos en Uruguay, 1933–1945. Serie Tesis de Posgrado en Humanidades 1. Montevideo, Uruguay: Universidad de la República, Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación, Departamento de Publicaciones, 2001.
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Documentary history of Jewish immigration to Israel during the rise of Nazism and World War II, with a focus on relations with the previously established Jewish community and the Uruguayan state.
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Friedmann, Déborah. Noventa vidas: Retrato de la comunidad israelita del Uruguay en su noventa aniversario. Montevideo, Uruguay: Kehilá, Comunidad Israelita del Uruguay, 2006.
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The contemporary figures showcased come from all walks of Jewish Uruguayan life.
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Loy, Anabella. Los sefaradíes en el Uruguay: Memoria de la vieja España. Montevideo, Uruguay: Ediciones de la Banda Oriental, 2007.
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Brief (and nostalgic) documentary history of Sephardic Jews in Uruguay. Contains a pair of oral histories as appendices.
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Porzecanski, Rafael. El Uruguay judío: Demografía e identidad. Montevideo, Uruguay: Ediciones Trilce, 2004.
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Important sociological study on the demographic features of Jews in Uruguay, along with analyses of questions of self-identity, including questions of assimilation/integration.
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Porzecanski, Teresa. 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, Uruguay: Linardi y Risso, 2005.
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Eighteen oral histories by Uruguayan Jews. Porzecanski, who is, in addition to being an anthropologist, a major Jewish Uruguayan writer, provides an excellent introduction to their narratives, “Historias de vida y perspectiva antropológica de la inmigración judía uruguaya, contrastes culturales y procesos de enculturación” (pp. 11–40). Expanded edition issued, with two additional oral histories. Originally published as Historias de vida de inmigrantes judíos al Uruguay (Montevideo, Uruguay: Kehilá, Comunidad Israelita del Uruguay, 1986).
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Raicher, Rosa Perla. Uruguay, la comunidad israelita y el pueblo judío. Montevideo, Uruguay: Universidad de la República, Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación, 2003.
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Documentary history of Jewish immigration in Uruguay, beginning in 1900. Of major interest are the crucial intersections between the Uruguayan Jewish experience and national history and the depth of assimilation/integration of Jews in Uruguayan society.
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Venezuela

Despite one major social history (Carciente 1991), most of the information on Jews in Venezuela comes from personal accounts (Goldberg 2006, Guberek 1980).

Carciente, Jacob. La comunidad judía de Venezuela: Síntesis cronológica, 1616–1990, y referencias bibliográficas para su estudio; Crónicas sefardíes. Biblioteca Popular Sefardí 10. Caracas, Venezuela: Centro de Estudios Sefardíes de Caracas, 1991.
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Social history of Sephardic Jewry in Venezuela.
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Goldberg, Jacqueline. Exilio a la vida: Sobrevivientes judíos de la Shoá; Testimonios en Venezuela. 2 vols. Caracas, Venezuela: Dirección de Cultura, Unión Israelita de Caracas, 2006.
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Seventy oral histories of survivors of the Holocaust who found refuge in Venezuela, organized by country.
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Guberek, Simón. Crónica testimonial sobre el judaísmo venezolano. Bogotá, Colombia: Fundación Cultural Simón y Lola Guberek, 1980.
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Survey of the history of Jews in Venezuela is complemented by an extensive collection of testimonials by figures of the Venezuelan Jewish community.
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Literature

Jews in Latin America have played a prominent role in all areas of culture, although much remains to be done in terms of adequate scholarly accounts. For example, the important film industries of Argentina and Mexico have had much Jewish involvement, although no study for Latin America as a whole or for these countries specifically exists as of this writing. Academic life throughout Latin America has long experienced important Jewish involvement, and there seems never to have been anything even remotely resembling the so-called Jewish quota of mainline US institutions in at least the late 19th century and almost two-thirds of the 20th century. Indeed, secondary schools and universities in Latin America were often the most direct access for Jews to real and symbolic power in the various countries. One of the greatest presences of Jews in Latin American culture is in the field of literature, where the record stretches back to important names of the colonial period, but with a special prominence with the growth of Jewish communities in the 20th century (DiAntonio and Glickman 1993, Lockhart 1997). This includes not only literature of specific Jewish themes, but also literature that may be mostly a “Jewish take” on life in the various Latin American societies (Graff Zivin 2008, Sadow 1999), with a particular emphasis on urban life. Jews have also been prominent in journalism, although this remains another area that has yet to be charted by scholarship.

DiAntonio, Robert E., and Nora Glickman, eds. Tradition and Innovation: Reflections on Latin American Jewish Writing. SUNY Series in Modern Jewish Literature and Culture. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993.
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Seventeen essays by diverse authors, discussing works of Latin American Jewish writing that explore conflicting values of tradition and assimilation.
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Graff Zivin, Erin. The Wandering Signifier: Rhetoric of Jewishness in the Latin American Imaginary. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008.
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Examination of the symbolic construction of Jewishness in Latin American literature. Rather than approaching texts of a specific Jewish minority writing, considers the ideological issues surrounding the identification of Jewishness both among Jewish and non-Jewish writers.
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Lockhart, Darrell B., ed. Jewish Writers of Latin America: A Dictionary. Garland Reference Library of the Humanities 1794. New York: Garland, 1997.
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Important scholars of Jewish–Latin American literary studies contribute extensive analyses, with bibliographies, of the major Latin American Jewish writers. An essential reference work.
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Sadow, Stephen A., ed. King David’s Harp: Autobiographical Essays by Jewish Latin American Writers. Jewish Latin America. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1999.
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Fifteen major Latin American Jewish writers are represented in terms of essays or narrative fragments of an autobiographical nature, toward rendering a characterization of being Jewish and a writer in Latin America.
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Argentina

By far, Argentina has produced the greatest bibliography of Jewish writing, and general studies of major authors, often with numerous titles to their credit (Lindstrom 1989, Ran 2011), are complemented by specific foci on the relationship between Argentine Jewish writing and Argentine social history (Aizenberg 2002, Senkman 1983), Argentine Jewish writing on fascism and Nazism (Senkman and Sosnowski 2009), and Argentine Jewish identity (Sosnowski 1987). Jews in Argentina have been particularly involved in the theater (Zayas de Lima 2001), although their role in filmmaking and broadcasting has yet to be systematically studied.

Aizenberg, Edna. Books and Bombs in Buenos Aires: Borges, Gerchunoff, and Argentine-Jewish Writing. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2002.
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Using the 1994 bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina in Buenos Aires as a backdrop, Aizenberg examines the canon of Argentine Jewish writing, in terms of its resistance to national traits of xenophobia and anti-Semitism and how important writers have written works that model viable responses in favor of cultural pluralism and a respect for human rights.
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Lindstrom, Naomi. Jewish Issues in Argentine Literature: From Gerchunoff to Szichman. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1989.
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Critical assessment of the writing by eight major Argentine Jewish writers: Alberto Gerchunoff, César Tiempo, Bernardo Verbitsky, David Viñas, José Rabinovich, José Isaacson, Marcos Ricardo Barnatán, and Mario Szichman. An indispensible literary source.
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Ran, Amalia. Made of Shores: Judeo-Argentinean Fiction Revisited. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 2011.
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Ran examines major Jewish writing in Argentina, in terms of shifting concepts of identity and the material conditions of such writing in different periods of Argentine social history. Of particular importance, in addition to traditional questions of Jewish immigration to Argentina, is that of Jewish Argentine immigration and cultural production related to it, with particular reference to the impact of military dictatorship on Jewish writing.
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Senkman, Leonardo. La identidad judía en la literatura argentina. Colección Ensayos y Estudios. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Pardes, 1983.
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Exhaustive survey, by a sociologist, of references to the Jewish experience in Argentina, based on references and allusions in Argentine writing both by Jews and non-Jews.
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Senkman, Leonardo, and Saúl Sosnowski. Fascismo y nazismo en las letras argentinas. Nuevas Miradas a la Argentina del Siglo XX. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Lumière, 2009.
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Analysis of an extensive array of Argentine literary writers whose works deal directly or indirectly with anti-Semitism, whether to endorse it or to denounce it. Of importance is the emphasis on the sociology of Argentine literature and its relationship to the country’s large Jewish community.
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Sosnowski, Saúl. La orilla inminente: Escritores judíos argentinos. Omnibus. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Legasa, 1987.
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Examination of the complexities of discussing Jewish Argentine writing, with the goal of establishing the interdependence both of Argentine identity and Jewish identity. Focus is on three major writers: Germán Rozenmacher, Gerardo Mario Goloboff, and Mario Szichman.
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Zayas de Lima, Perla. Cultura judía, teatro nacional. Colección de Documentatión Teatral. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Nueva Generación, 2001.
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Assessment of the significant role Jews have played in the history of the theater in Argentina, both in Yiddish and Spanish. Includes extensive documentary material.
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Brazil

Brazil’s strong literary cultural production has included excellent Jewish writers, as reflected by three in-depth studies (Igel 1997, Vieira 1995, Waldman 2003).

Igel, Regina. Imigrantes judeus / escritores brasileiros: O componente judaico na literatura brasileira. Coleção Estudos 156. São Paulo, Brazil: Editora Perspectiva, 1997.
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Intensive survey of the fictional writings of Jewish authors in Brazil, and an extensive registry of virtually all known Brazilian writers of Jewish origins. Although Argentina may have had a greater Jewish immigration than Brazil, Igel stresses the importance of a Jewish lineage in Brazilian letters that extends back to the early colonial period, making it the longest-sustained Jewish tradition in Latin America.
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Vieira, Nelson H. Jewish Voices in Brazilian Literature: A Prophetic Discourse of Alterity. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1995.
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The first authoritative account in English of Jewish Brazilian writing. Vieira focuses on three authors whose voice he characterizes as prophetic as regards the role of Jews in Brazilian society and the interplay between social otherness and egalitarian assimilation: Samuel Rawet, Clarice Lispector, and Moacyr Scliar.
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Waldman, Berta. Entre passos e rastros: Presença judaica na literatura brasileira contemporânea. Coleção Estudos 191. São Paulo, Brazil: Editora Perspectiva, 2003.
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Essays by an important scholar of Jewish Brazilian writing, on four writers: Clarice Lispector, Samuel Rawet, Moacyr Scliar, and Moacir Amâncio. Waldman focuses on the complexities of the interactions of these authors with Brazilian society and letters.
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Chile

Scholarship is still lacking on a Jewish Chilean literary tradition; for the moment only one survey exists (Cánovas Emhart and Scherman Filer 2010).

Cánovas Emhart, Rodrigo, and Jorge Scherman Filer. Voces judías en la literatura chilena. Serie Ensayo. Santiago, Chile: Editorial Cuarto Propio, 2010.
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In three parts: Part 1, a historical survey of Jews in Latin America and Chile; Part 2, a survey of Jewish writing in Latin America and Chile; and an extensive Part 3, a discussion of major Chilean Jewish writers, plus an analysis of the narrative treatment of the story of Francisco Maldonado da Silva, by Guillermo Blanco and the Argentine Marcos Aguinis.
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Mexico

Mexico’s strong literary tradition counts many writers of Jewish origin, although the scholarly bibliography remains surprisingly slim, with one study focusing in the historical phenomenon of crypto-Jewish writers (Rubenstein and Dabbah Mustri 2002), one study on Mexican Jewish women writers (Cortina 2000), and a general study on Mexican Jewish writers and humanistic values (Gordon 1999).

Cortina, Guadalupe. Invenciones multitudinarias: Escritoras judíomexicanas contemporáneas. Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 2000.
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Analyzes the work of four major Mexican Jewish women authors: Margo Glantz, Ethel Krauze, Sara Levi Calderón, and Sara Sefchovich.
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Gordon, José, ed. Humanismo y cultura judía. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Coordinación de Difusión Cultural, 1999.
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Texts by important Mexican Jewish writers on Jewish culture in universal terms, although there is an inevitable resonance as regards Jewish culture in Mexico. Authors included are Margo Glantz, Sergio Nudelstejer, Esther Cohen, Ernesto de la Peña, Judit Bokser, Sara Sefchovich, Esther Shabot, José Gordon, Myriam Moscona, and Sabina Berman.
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Rubinstein, Becky, and Herlinda Dabbah Mustri. Autores judeoconversos en la Ciudad de México. Biblioteca Ciudad de México. Mexico City: Servicios de Edición e Información Galileo, 2002.
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Series of relatively short essays on eleven writers of colonial Mexico, whose personal lives and creative work bear direct or indirect ties to Judeo-Christian cultural characteristics.
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