Jewish Acculturation: Identity, Society and Schooling Buenos Aires, Argentina (1890-1930)

Abstract

Jewish Acculturation:Identity, Society and Schooling Buenos Aires, Argentina (1890-1930) M. Fernanda Astiz (bio) Introduction As in the United States (U.S.), between 1890 and 1930 millions of Europeans arrived in Argentina. Although immigrants arrived from several European countries, Italians, Spaniards and Jews (the latter mainly coming from Eastern European countries and the Ottoman Empire) were among the largest groups. Jews migrated to Argentina because of its flexible and attractive immigration laws and the laicism of its social and political institutions, such as the educational system. The influx of Jewish people was so steady that Buenos Aires, Argentina's capital city, became one of the largest Jewish centers of the world, and the most important one in Latin America.1 Even though immigrant assimilation and citizen production is usually discussed as a central task of nation building, how this has happened through schools is still not well understood in the Argentine context. While there is extensive historical research of this process in the U.S., not many historians have looked into the institutional links among the nation-state, mass schooling, and the assimilation process in Argentina, particularly in the city of Buenos Aires at the turn of the twentieth century. The few studies that examined this topic in the Argentine context tend to deemphasize ethnic differences among immigrant groups and accept the predominant melting pot theory.2 The purpose of this study is to examine Jewish acculturation into Argentine society. In this sense, it functions as a case study of the larger question the role immigration and schooling played in the constitution of Argentina's national identity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Looking beyond the schooling process, Argentina's national imagery and society, this study suggests that the characteristics of the Jewish community, both before and upon arrival, affected their acculturation as well. To achieve its purpose, this study uses typical historiography research methods. Through a careful analysis of historical primary and secondary sources, this research underscores the Jewish acculturation pattern to Argentine society. Policy documents, archival materials (e.g., photographs and news [End Page 41] articles) and key cultural productions were sources of data collection. These historical sources have been obtained from Argentina's Library of Congress, Argentina's National Library, the Argentine Ministry of Education and Culture's Library, the Israeli-Argentine Mutual Aid Association's (AMIA) documentation and archives center Mark Turkow, the Institute for Jewish Research (YIWO) located both in Buenos Aires and New York City, and the Jewish Theological Seminary's affiliate in Buenos Aires. In order to fill gaps left by the paucity of documentation of this time period, the author used personal memories archived by AMIA and conducted a few personal interviews arranged by AMIA's Senior Adults program coordinator. Beyond the significance this study has for Latin American historical research, Argentine Jewish studies and international and comparative studies in general, it illuminates the implications of historical research for contemporary education policy in the U.S. and other contexts where international migration continues to be as important as it was during the early twentieth century. Schooling, Acculturation and National Identity Formation From its earliest conception as an institution, formal public mass schooling, managed and financed by the nation-state, developed with citizenship production as one of its chief services to national societies.3 Sociological and historical observations of the origins of mass schooling in nations have noted the assumption held by a wide spectrum of political interests that there is, and should be, a link between universal education and democratic citizenry as a predictable route to social order within a national polity. Creating national citizens was, and still is, a main impetus for mass schooling.4 There have been several persuasive explanations of the process of community-building that some say schools generate and encourage. Historian Benedict Anderson suggests that community building occurs through the creation of a perceived individual membership in "imagined communities."5 This argument implies that by virtue of the shared schooling experience, youth are incorporated into social, economic and political communities beyond even their own social class, school and ethnicity. Others show that national identity is more manufactured than accidental, and that it is manufactured...