Join us for a new education class, led by our very own Natan Szapiro.

In 1910, as part of the celebration of the Centenary of Argentine independence, a major Buenos Aires newspaper published a collection of short stories "Los Gauchos Judios" (The Jewish Gauchos of the Pampas in the English translation) about life in the Jewish agricultural colonies in the Argentinian provinces of Santa Fe and Entre Rios. The writer, Alberto Gerchunoff, had spent his childhood in one of these colonies before moving to Buenos Aires to become a Spanish (rather than Yiddish) writer and journalist. The Jewish colonies had been established in the 1880's as part of a larger effort by Argentina's rulers to populate the interior of the country with farming communities. Gerchunoff's book, in presenting the Jewish farmers as "gauchos," was linking them to a central myth of Argentinian identity and the Jewish community to the narrative of Argentinian nation-building. Even today, when few Jews remain in the old Jewish farming communities, the story of the "Jewish Gaucho" remains central to the community's perception of its history.

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Questions? Contact Leyv Ha-Ir at info@leyvhair.org or 215.629.1995.