The history of the Jews of Argentina harks back to the days of the Spanish Inquisition and Portuguese Inquisition when Jews fleeing persecution settled in what is now Argentina.[1]
Many of the Portuguese traders in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata were Jews, but an organized Jewish community developed only after Argentina gained independence from Spain in 1810. At that time, Jews from France and other parts of Western Europe began to settle in Argentina. [2][1]
The number of Jews immigrating to Argentina increased in the late 19th century due to the efforts of the French Jewish philanthropist Baron Maurice de Hirsch. After the death of his son and heir, de Hirsch devoted himself to Jewish philanthropy and alleviating Jewish suffering in Eastern Europe. He came up with a plan to bring Jews to Argentina as autonomous agricultural settlers. [3] This plan meshed with Argentina's campaign to attract immigrants. The 1853 constitution guaranteed religious freedom, and the country had vast, unpopulated land reserves. Under President Domingo F. Sarmiento, a policy of mass immigration was introduced that coincided with the violent pogroms in Russia in 1881. [4]
In the late 19th century and early 20th century, many Ashkenazi Jews arrived in Argentina from Eastern Europe; they were called "rusos" ("Russians") by the local population.[1] Today, Ashkenazim compose 80% of Argentinas entire Jewish population.[5] While many of them settled in major cities, many of these immigrants acquired land through the Jewish Colonization Association[1] and established small agricultural colonies ("comunas") in the interior of the country, especially in the provinces of Santa Fe and Entre Ríos.[6]
Between 1906 and 1912, Jewish immigration increased at a rate of about 13,000 immigrants per year, with most from Eastern Europe but others from Morocco or the Ottoman Empire. By 1920, approximately 150,000 Jews were living in Argentina.[1]
Jews in Argentina came to play an important role in Argentine society, but anti-Semitism reared its head from time to time. In January 1919 in Buenos Aires, pogroms fomented by the police as a response to a general strike targeted the Jews and destroyed their property.[1] In the strike's aftermath civilian vigilante gangs went after agitators ("agitadores"), claiming scores of victims, mostly Russian Jews who were falsely accused of masterminding a Communist conspiracy.[7] In the 1930s and 40s Argentina's manufacturing sector grew in numbers but maintained its earlier composition of a few large companies and many smaller firms. Manufacturing was still a foreigner's occupation: in 1939 half the owners and workers of small manufacturing plants were foreigners, many of them newly arrived Jewish refugees from Central Europe.[8]
Argentina kept its doors open to Jewish immigration until 1938. After that, new regulations were imposed by the government and the flow was severely curtailed at the very moment when the Jews sought a safe haven from the Nazis. [9]
In the 1950s and 60s, the Tacuara Nationalist Movement, a fascist organization with political ties, began a series of anti-Semitic campaigns with street fights and vandalism of synagogues and Jewish cemeteries.[10]
In the 1990s, the Jewish community was the target of two major terrorist attacks, both of which remain unsolved: the Israeli Embassy was bombed in March 1992, killing 32 people, and in July 1994 the Jewish community center (AMIA) in Buenos Aires was bombed as well, killing 85 people and wounding over 200. During the economic crisis of 1999–2002, approximately 4400 Argentine Jews made aliyah to Israel.[11]
Today, approximately 185,000-250,000 Jews live in Argentina,[12][13][5] down from the peak of 310,000 in the early 1960s,[5] and from the widely used (but never properly documented) estimate of 500,000 in vogue during 1960-1990. Most of Argentina's Jews live in Buenos Aires, Córdoba, and Rosario.[14] Argentina's Jewish population is the largest Jewish community in Latin America, the third-largest in the Americas (after that of the United States and Canada), and the sixth-largest in the world.[12][5] (See Jewish population)
In Argentina Jews are legally granted the two days of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and the first two and last two days of Passover as legal holidays.[15]