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

Jewish Argentines have received more attention in the historiography than almost all other ethnic communities in this South American republic. Most histories of the Jewish experience in Argentina tend to start with the agricultural colonies founded in the late nineteenth century by philanthropist Baron Maurice de Hirsch as a possible refuge for Eastern European Jews fleeing pogroms and discrimination. These immigrants, who needed to adapt rapidly to a new and not always friendly environment, were later presented as Jewish Gauchos in Alberto Gerchunoff’s classic work. Published in 1910, this romanticized past constituted the basis of a myth of origin for Jewish Argentines and further legitimized their claims to citizenship and their demand to be considered an integral part of the Argentine nation. Judith Freidenberg’s new book does not provide a radically new understanding of this social experiment that entailed transforming European Jews with no agricultural experience into Argentine farmers, but it does offer a more nuanced and contextualized picture of Jewish experiences in rural Argentina. Although this agricultural experiment lasted scarcely more than a generation, the new Jewish gauchos have been considered a hybrid symbol of acculturation and of the shaping of modern Argentina.

Weaving together historical and testimonial sources, Freidenberg attempts to connect global, regional and local processes and memories. She began her research with a tour that she and her mother took to Villa Clara in the northeastern province of Entre Ríos, where her parents had grown up in the early decades of the twentieth century. She then spent several months immersing herself in the daily life of this village that numbered 3,200 inhabitants in 2005, conducting ethnographic interviews and collecting archival records. The result is a partial social history of Villa Clara as a memory site, highlighting the process of producing heritage through memorializing activities and the invention of traditions.

Villa Clara was officially founded in 1902, with the opening of a railroad station, and attracted many of the new Jewish gauchos of the area, especially from Colonia Clara, which was founded in 1892 and named in honor of Baron Hirsch’s wife, Clara Bischoffsheim. Bad harvests, difficult farming conditions and methods, land tenure practices, and the inexperience of the colonies’ administrators in agriculture, all conspired against the colonization program. Several decades later the village declined, especially following the 1994 closing of the railroad passenger service that connected it with Buenos Aires. Formerly a producer of goods and services, in later years it became mostly a producer of heritage. In the early days of the village, its population was predominantly Jewish, estimated at 300 families, but by 2008 there were only 57 Jewish households left in the village. Of those, 22 were mixed, with one non-Jewish spouse.

The book raises many important issues, although some of them are not well addressed. Still, Freidenberg challenges the “official” history of the village, particularly as its ethnic diversity increased. There are conflicting foundational myths regarding the origins of Villa Clara. Many descendants of Jewish farmers claim that the site of the future village was a wasteland before the arrival of their parents or grandparents. On the other hand, one of Freidenberg’s informants disputed the “Jewish version” of the village’s history, emphasizing the existence of a small caserío criollo before the Jews arrived in large numbers (p. 83).

Freidenberg’s work constitutes a departure from the more traditional historiography, which is of an isolationist character. Jewish farmers are depicted here as forming part of the province and interacting with other European immigrants, criollos and indigenous gauchos. Furthermore, unlike several other authors, Freidenberg stresses the fact that Jewish immigrants in Entre Ríos, as elsewhere, where not a homogeneous ethnic group. They were quite diverse in terms of national origin, social class, occupational background, and degree of religious observance.

This book should...