The first established Jewish presence on the territory that corresponds to today’s Argentina was clandestine. In a colonial society structured upon the concept of race, New Christians and crypto-Jews enjoyed the many privileges of the whites, on the condition that their real identity remained secret. In Argentina as elsewhere in Latin America, the success of the wars of independence and the subsequent establishment of parliamentary republics put an end to pre-Enlightenment institutions such as slavery and the Blood Purity Statutes. The local Jewish community experienced moments of violence and fear, and its press expressed concern about the possibility of suffering a pogrom. The accession of General Juan Domingo Perón to power through the democratic elections of 1946 weakened the power of the local nationalists. During the military régime of 1976-1983, the notion of a war against an internal enemy conceptualized during the 1930s by national-Catholicism was translated into practice.
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© 2024 selection and editorial matter, Mark Weitzman, Robert J. Williams, and James Wald; individual chapters, the contributors.