Raanan Rein

Challenging Particularity: Jews as a Lens on Latin American Ethnicity

Scholarly interest in Jews as a subject of Latin American Studies has grown markedly in the last two decades, especially when compared to research on other Latin Americans who trace their ancestry to the Middle East, Asia or Eastern Europe. In this context, we propose the use of the term ‘Jewish-Latin American’, rather than ‘Latin American Jewry’, in order to shift the dominant paradigm about ethnicity in Latin America by returning the ‘nation’ to a prominent position at a moment when the ‘trans-nation’, or perhaps no nation at all, is often an unquestioned assumption. After analyzing the historiography of the Jewish presence in Latin America as a means of understanding the state of the ‘field’, we advance a series of propositions that might be useful to all students of ethnicity in the region, particularly to scholars working on minorities whose ancestors were characterized religiously as non-Catholic.

In pursuit of votes and economic treaties: Francoist Spain and the Arab world, 1945–56

During the second half of the 1940s the Franco regime found itself isolated in the international arena and confronting severe economic distress. As a strategy for ending the diplomatic boycott imposed on it by the United Nations and expanding foreign trade, Spain began to cultivate close relations with the Arab world. This article examines Francoist Spains systematic campaign to woo the Arab countries, in the course of which even the regimes failure to establish diplomatic relations with the Jewish state founded in 1948 became a vehicle for improving its ties with the Arabs. In contrast to the diplomatic front Franco was only partially successful in his efforts to foster economic cooperation with these Muslim countries. Finally, all his hopes that hostility towards Israel and political and economic relations with the Arab countries would allow him to maintain Spains control over northern Morocco proved illusory.

From Juan Perón to Hugo Chávez and Back: Populism Reconsidered

Extensive research has been done on Latin American populism and still there is much controversy surrounding it. This chapter sketches 10 key components necessary for a better understanding of present and past populist politicians and movements in Latin America and their challenge to the liberal meanings of citizenship. It highlights the fact that populist efforts to include previously excluded groups in the economic sphere are noticeable in the area of consumption in general and food consumption in particular. As Eduardo Elena has shown for the Argentine case and Spanakos for the Venezuelan case, both Peron’s and Chavezs policies of economic distribution have encouraged consumption, and being able to consume has become a fundamental component of people’s identity as citizens. Perons nationalization of railways in mid-1940s Argentina and Chavez’s petroleum and steel policies can be seen as part of their efforts to establish sovereignty over country’s major natural resources and industries. Keywords:Argentina; citizenship; Hugo Chavez; Juan Peron; Latin America; populism; Venezuela

Sport, Politics and Exile: Protests in Israel during the World Cup (Argentina, 1978)

This article seeks to analyze certain questions concerning the protests mounted against the 1978 World Cup. After a brief review of the military governments efforts to use the World Cup to legitimize its dictatorship, to Argentine society as well as the rest of the world, we examine the reactions of world public opinion to the fact that this event was being held in a country ruled by a repressive, criminal regime. Our focus, however, is on the people and groups in Israel who used the occasion of the World Cup to protest and denounce the crimes committed in Argentina. The Israeli case is particularly interesting because of the close relations between Israel and the Argentine dictatorship, as well as the fact that Israel had a large community of Latin American immigrants, most of them Argentines. Their numbers steadily increased as several hundred exiles fled the horrors of the military dictatorship.

Las Imágenes Conflictivas Del Peronismo En Israel (1946–1955)

Sumario. La hostilidad del judaismo argentino y las sospechas del norteamericano frente a la gestion de gobierno de Juan Domingo Peron (1946-1955) no se corresponden con las imagenes del peronismo en Israel, exentas de monocromatismo y homogeneidad. A partir de un analisis de contenido de cronicas y articulos de fondo en siete organos de prensa hebrea, este trabajo demuestra que los diarios israelies le asignaban a la situacion argentina mayor importancia de lo que es dable esperar a priori, amen de reflejar una actitud mas compleja frente al peronismo. Generalizando, es posible ver entre los periodicos de izquierda una hostilidad a veces extrema respecto del peronismo, equiparado con el fascismo, en tanto que los organos de derecha revelan simpatia, en algunos casos incondicional, para con el gobierno argentino.

Becoming Brigadistas: Jewish Volunteers from Palestine in the Spanish Civil War:

Nearly two hundred men and women left Mandatory Palestine between the years 1936–1938 in order to defend the Second Spanish Republic. Despite the expressions of solidarity with the Spanish Republic, most of the political parties in the Jewish Yishuv were against sending youth from Palestine to join the International Brigades. The goal of strengthening the Jewish presence in Palestine was given priority over and above international solidarity or the anti-Fascist struggle. Therefore, most of the volunteers were Jewish members of the Palestine Communist Party. This article relies on autobiographical writings, individual testimonies and personal correspondence, analysed here for the first time. It is here that the private voices of the Jewish men and women who left Palestine in order to fight against the nationalist rebellion in Spain ring more clearly. The paper examines the history of these Jewish volunteers, their motivations, and the process that they went through from the time they left Palestine until they became active members of the International Brigades. As Communists, most volunteers who left Palestine to fight in Spain tended to emphasize the international solidarity of the working class and similar universalistic motivations. The idea of affirming their Jewish identity was alien to them. Reading their letters and testimonies, however, it becomes clear that their ethnic identity as Jews was certainly a key factor in their decision to risk their lives in the Spanish fratricide.

A Trans-National Struggle with National and Ethnic Goals: Jewish-Argentines and Solidarity with the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War

This article examines the scope and various manifestations of Jewish-Argentine solidarity with the Spanish Republic. While many Argentines sympathized with the Republic as part of their struggle for a democratic, pluralist and socially just Argentina, Jewish-Argentines had additional reasons to support the Republicans. On the one hand, they worried about the fate of their relatives back in Europe if yet another tyrannical regime rose to power with the help of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. At the same time, they sought to protect their space in Argentina at a time of growing right-wing Nationalist influence in political, military, and intellectual circles. The Jewish-Argentine experience serves as a lens through which to discuss the relationship between transnational solidarity and the ways in which distinct social groups organized for political and social change. It includes Jewish-Argentines in the geographies of 1930s transnational solidarity and, in so doing, adds the ethnic dimension to political mobilization for transnational ends.

The New Jewish Argentina

The New Jewish Argentina aims at filling in important lacunae in the existing historiography of Jewish Argentines. Moving away from the political history of the organized community, most articles are devoted to social and cultural history.

Músico, Exilio y Memoria — La Lucha Por Los Restos De Manuel De Falla

Abstract En visperas de la guerra civil, Espana era uno de los centros intelectuales mas efervescentes de Europa. A partir de 1898, tras perder los ultimos restos del Imperio en el Nuevo Mundo (Cub...

“For an Arab There Can Be Nothing Better Than Another Arab”: Nation, Ethnicity and Citizenship in Peronist Argentina

In a speech delivered on 17 October 1950, President Juan Domingo Perón presented to the tens of thousands of people gathered in the Plaza de Mayo of Buenos Aires the Twenty Fundamental Truths of the Peronist doctrine, known as Justicialism (from the word justice). The sixth tenet, proclaimed in front of the cheering crowd, stated that “There can be nothing better for a Peronist than another Peronist.”1 Four years later, in a speech before Arab-Argentine leaders, Perón added an additional fundamental “truth” to his populist vocabulary, this time with an ethnic twist: