1 - Jews in Argentina, National Cinema and Argentinidad

Summary

Jews constitute an ethnic minority in most Latin American countries, and Argentina hosts the largest Jewish community in the region and the seventh largest in the world. Yet Argentina is better known for being a haven for Nazis after the Second World War rather than the home of a sizeable Jewish community whose history has been inextricably intertwined with that of the nation. Most Jews arrived in Argentina at the time of mass immigration, during the period between 1880 and 1930, and their arrival did not go unnoticed. Jews, like the rest of the immigrants, certainly helped shape Argentine national identity. One of their greatest contributions has been to the country's cultural heritage. Literary production, theatre, journalism, music and cinema are all areas in which the Jewish legacy has left an indelible mark, not to mention that Jews were among those who introduced and developed psychoanalysis in Argentina, a therapy that has become deeply rooted in the Argentine upper and middle classes.

The influential role Jews have had in Argentine culture and society merits a historical account of their presence in the country. Such an account is also timely in order to understand that Jewish cinematic representation does not happen in a vacuum but is informed by historical and cultural issues, with the interplay between Jewishness and argentinidad being one of the most significant points that concerns us in this chapter and in this study in general. Interwoven with the history of the nation, the history of the Jews in Argentina has from the outset been in constant interaction with ideological pronouncements about argentinidad. This does not mean, however, that the question of argentinidad vis-à-vis Jewishness has been Argentine Jews’ sole matter of interest through the years. Aside from issues that encompass national and ethnic identity, a wide range of other concerns have preoccupied Jewish Argentines, including the Shoah, the political situation in Argentina, Zionism, the cultural differences between Ashkenazim and Sephardim and the AMIA bombing.

By the same token, the history of Argentine cinema has been interlaced with the notion of argentinidad through cinematic narratives that have reaffirmed, questioned and discarded the theme of national identity. Undoubtedly, this theme has captured the imagination of many film-makers since the inception of cinema in the country at the end of the nineteenth century.