This collection of papers in Spanish and English, originally presented at the Ninth World Jewish Congress (Jerusalem, 1985), represents much of the best research being conducted in the field of Latin American Jewish studies. The volume is both a major bibliographical addition and an indication that a new generation of scholars has embarked on investigations of far-reaching and exciting new topics.
The essays are grouped according to topic, e.g., immigration, community organization, colonial and nineteenth-century history, Zionism, anti-Semitism, literature, and Jewish identity. These categories conform to traditional areas of research in Jewish studies. However, many of the papers do not take approaches typical of that field. Rather, it is the questions asked by those who see themselves in Latin American studies that dominate the methodological and theoretical background of the finest papers. As a group the studies of immigration are the most sophisticated. David Bankier’s investigation of the ideological and political positions of anti-Nazi Jewish refugee groups in Mexico is excellent. Leonardo Senkman’s study of the refugee issue in postwar U.S.-Argentine relations is part of a larger project on immigration policy. Both Nelson Viera’s “Símbolos judíos de resistencia en la literatura brasileña moderna” and Ignacio Klich’s “A Background to Perón’s Discovery of Jewish National Aspirations” are provocative and convincing.
Haim Avni argues, in his introduction, that research on Latin American Jewry should be examined from “two seemingly opposing perspectives: the uniqueness of the community and its parallels with other Jewish societies in the Diaspora.” The best essays in the collection, however, tend to be broad in their orientation. This perspective, furthermore, is topically limiting. Brazil, for example, with Latin America’s second-largest Jewish community, receives five times less coverage than Mexico, with one-third of Brazil’s Jewish population.
Judaica latinoamericana is an encouraging and exciting collection. Its sophistication and scope will certainly appeal to those interested in both Latin American and Jewish studies.
