Judith Laikin Elkin. The Jews of Latin America. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1998. xv, 339 pp.

Abstract

Until the late 1920s, the subject of Latin American Jewry was not of great interest to Jewish scholars. It only burst forth with the beginning of the persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany, especially in the years when they were forced to seek a refuge in any country willing to give them a life-saving visa. During this period, guides, leaflets, and books about all the Latin American countries were published, providing information about their histories and the presence of Jews. There was also some discussion, naturally, of the expectations for immigrants to remake their lives.