The Invention of the Jewish Gaucho: Villa Clara and the Construction of Argentine Identity

Acknowledgments

xix Acknowledgments My greatest debt is to all those who shared their histories and opinions with me and to the village of Villa Clara for hosting and honoring me. I particularly thank Mario Alvarez, Juan Pablo Baldoni, the Comisión de Amigos del Museo Histórico Regional de Villa Clara (Berta Constantin de Alvarez, Lito Araceli Constantin, Zulema Danses de Fink, Bibiano Lyardet, María de las Mercedes P. De Kler, Lidia A. de Mendelevich), Marta Muchinik, the Municipalidad de Villa Clara (former mayor Julio César Den Dauw and mayor Raúl Darío Guy), Abraham Schejter, and Ida Isuz de Schulman, among many others. My ninetysix -year-old mother, Sara Furrer de Freidenberg, shared trips and memories and embodies the past I am trying to recuperate and share in this book. I also express my gratitude to the colleagues who have taken the time to read drafts or provide insights on this manuscript: Alicia Bernasconi (Centro de EstudiosMigratoriosLatinoamericanos ,Argentina[CEMLA]),NancyBonvillain (Bard College at Simon’s Rock), Jim Burr (University of Texas Press), David Cantor (Office of NIH History, National Institutes of Health), Ruth Fredman Cernea (independent scholar), Erve Chambers (University of Maryland), Sandra Deutsch (University of Texas at El Paso), Ana María Dupey (Instituto Nacional de Antropología, Argentina [INA]), Ricardo Feierstein (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina [AMIA]), Rosana Guber (Instituto de Desarrollo Económico y Social, Argentina [IDES]), Osvaldo Quiroga (Museo de las Colonias Judías del Centro de Entre Ríos, Argentina), Marsha Rozenblit (University of Maryland), Stephen Sadow (Northeastern University), Catalina Saugy (Instituto Nacional de Antropología, Argentina), Leonardo Senkman (Hebrew University, Israel), Paul Shackel (University of Maryland), Saúl Sosnowski (University of Maryland), Mónica Szurmuk (Instituto Mora, Mexico), Bradley Tatar (Korea Advanced Institute for Science and Technology, South Korea), Naúm Wainer (independent scholar, Argentina), Ana Wainstein (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina), and Linda Winston (independent scholar). Roberta Cosentino (University of Maryland) and Laura Kostlin and Christine Danklmaier (Universidad de Misiones, Argentina) collaborated with fieldwork and María Eugenia Mendizábal (Instituto de Desarrollo Económico y Social, Argentina ) with analysis. Katie Tracey and María Walsh (University of Maryland) graciously volunteered to translate quotations from Spanish into English. María Walsh painstakingly proofread the manuscript, and William Fennie (University of Maryland), Verónica del Valle (Universidad de Buenos Aires), and Horacio Suárez (Editorial Antropofagia) helped make the text more presentable. I acknowledge the University of Maryland for its support of the research that led to this book. Thanks, specifically, to the Department of Jewish Studies, for awarding me a Travel Award (2001), an Equipment Award (2002), and a Samuel Iwry Fellowship (2003); to the Department of Anthropology, for granting me a sabbatical semester in the fall of 2002; and to International Programs, for dispensing Travel Grants to conduct research in the fieldwork area in 2002 and 2004. Sadly, this book was published after the passing of Ruth Fredman Cernea (March 31, 2009), a literary midwife and loving friend who will be sorely missed. xx Acknowledgments The Invention of the Jewish Gaucho THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK ...