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  • Crossing Borders, Claiming a Nation: A History of Argentine Jewish Women, 1880-1955
  • LaNitra Berger
Sandra McGee Deutsch . Crossing Borders, Claiming a Nation: A History of Argentine Jewish Women, 1880-1955, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2010. Pp. 377. Paper $23.95. ISBN: 9780822346494.

Argentina has the largest Jewish population in South America. Yet, despite extensive documentation of Jewish history in the country, the stories of Jewish women and their contributions to their communities and their adopted nation are not well known. University of Texas, El Paso historian Sandra Deutsch's new book, Crossing Borders, Claiming a Nation: A History of Argentine Jewish Women, 1880-1955, attempts to re-insert Jewish women's contributions into the Argentine historical narrative. Her book not only provides historians with important information about Jewish women in Argentina. She also uses oral histories to give them a voice. The result is an engaging analysis of the obstacles and personal triumphs that Jewish women experienced as they developed identities as Argentine Jews.

Crossing Borders is divided into eight chapters and covers topics ranging from urban and rural life in Argentina, prostitution, sexuality in the Jewish community, union participation among women, and the community's response to fascism and Peronism. Using women's personal stories, Deutsch discusses these overall themes and how the Jewish community navigated the boundaries between community and nationhood.

Migration to Argentina occurred in several phases, with the first groups arriving from the Mediterranean around 1880. Deutsch artfully describes the diversity of Jewish immigrants to Argentina. She paints a mental picture of the multitude of cuisines, music, and languages that illustrated the diasporic character of Jewish Argentina. But she also documents how this diversity often contributed to class and cultural friction. A large number of Sephardic Ottoman Jews, for example, immigrated to Argentina from Izmir, Turkey, but this group wanted to keep their community separate. "Preserving an Izmiri identity outweighed constructing a broader Jewish—or even Sephardi—identity," Deutsch writes (31). By contrast, Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, who considered themselves more educated and affluent than Sephardic immigrants, attempted to socialize with Argentine criollos, adopting aspects of their local cuisine. Overall, Jewish immigrants were spread out geographically amongst Argentina's vast territory, which forced communities to work together to maintain their identity.

Like most women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Jewish women in Argentina struggled to create stable family lives and to develop individual identities within the larger community. They often did so through civic and charitable organizations. Chapters one through three tell the stories of women who established communities in rural and urban areas. Conquering the harsh landscape proved difficult as women attempted to establish homes and Jewish communities in rural areas. All family members had to pitch in to build homes, sow fields, and harvest crops. Initially, conditions were so harsh that, as Deutsch notes, "Some women wanted to return to their homeland, despite [End Page 129] the pogroms there (17)." Women were instrumental in establishing libraries and schools in rural areas that provided girls with important access to education.

Integration was not easier in the cities, but Jewish women persevered by developing mentoring relationships and utilizing social networks in Argentina and their countries of origin. Once they entered the workforce, Jewish women professionalized rapidly. They became teachers, doctors, and entertainers. Ashkenazi women began to work in the cities earlier than Sephardic women, who did not enter the workforce in large numbers until 1955. Many Sephardic women quickly rose to the top of their professions, overcome traditional gender roles in the community. Paulina Alianak, for example, joined the early corps of women educators. Another woman of Izmiri descent, Dr. Regina Sajón, became Argentina's first Sephardic woman dentist. In addition to becoming literary stars and members of Argentina's cultural avant-garde, Eastern European women shaped Argentina's national identity as activists within the Communist Party and local trade unions. "Seeking a socially just, pluralistic, and democratic Argentina and world," adds Deutsch, "these women engaged with the liberal project and transnationalism (148)."

One of the most interesting chapters discusses the role of prostitution in the Jewish community. Deutsch points out an imbalance...

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