During the fall semester at Dickinson, as part of our preparation for this trip to Buenos Aires the research team took a class taught by Professor Shalom Staub entitled, “Ethnography of Jewish Experience.” In this class we focused on boundaries between Jews and the communities in which they live. What we only began to scratch the surface on was the topic of boundaries within the Jewish community itself. Here in Argentina the dynamics are fascinating and ever-changing. There are divisions between Orthodox and Reform (or what they call here Conservative), Sephardi and Ashkenazi, rich and poor. Yet the community remains together as Jews.
On the second day of our trip in Buenos Aires we ventured to the Camargo Temple, and orthodox Sephardic establishment. To a trained eye it became obvious almost immediately upon entering that we were not in your average Ashkenazi shul. The El Paso Temple, which we had visited the day before, was a model of European grandeur with gold decorations and very elaborate carvings on columns lining the sanctuary. Camargo had a very different feel. Many of the patterns were more geometric in design except for the stained glass windows depicting the twelve tribes of Israel. The most striking difference came with the Torot. Both shuls had a good number of them (33 at El Paso and 14 at Camargo) but their appearances were completely different. In Paso the Torot were dressed in maroon and gold cloth covers, elaborately embroidered. At Camargo there was a greater variety. A number of the Torah scrolls were dressed in white with silver embroidery and had very elaborate crowns. There were two or three other scrolls that were stored in the more traditional Sephardic silver cases. In a synagogue the Torah is one of the most holy objects. It is more or less the reason to have a synagogue. Jews can gather anywhere to pray but with the synagogue they have an established place to store the community’s holy objects (including the torah scrolls which are especially heavy and hard to transport).
Despite these clear physical differences in places of worship there tends to be a sense that Sefardim and Ashkenazim are all part of the larger Jewish community. While talking to young university students at Macabi (a Jewish retreat facility) the girls commented that it never even occurred to them to ask their friends if they were Sephardi or Ashkenazi. Rabbi Sacca of Camargo Temple phrased it very nicely. He spoke of the more physical customs: food, dress, decorations of the synagogue, as the “clothing” of Judaism. Everyone dresses their Judaism in a way that makes them comfortable with what is underneath, with the essence of it. If we view different strains of Judaism this way there is no way to feel a separation amongst the Jewish community. As human beings we may judge people by the clothes they wear and use them as keys to see what is underneath, but we never question the essence of the human being because of how they choose to cover themselves.
When talking to the students at Hillel one of them made a remark which unfortunately rings just as true. Gaston’s commented that the biggest divisions among Jews come from arguments over who is a Jew. Is it a question of birth? A question of self-identification? And if it’s either of those or something else how does the community regulate it?
Among the people that we talked to in Argentina the definitions varied greatly. At Macabi, which is a secular Jewish establishment (you can order ham and cheese at any of the restaurants and it runs the majority of its activities on Saturday), the general attitude seemed to define Jews as anyone who defines himself as Jewish. There were no questions asked when people rented a bungalow or signed up for sports teams. Moving along the spectrum, Hillel uses the Israeli Law of Return’s standards to define who can participate in their programming. The Law of Return basically states that if any one of your grandparents was Jewish, so are you. There are groups in Argentina (such as Chabad or Menorah (the youth group associated with the Camargo Temple) that go with the more traditional halachic definition of your mother needing to be Jewish.
The Argentinean Jewish community speaks well about the plurality and unity of the community. Everyone we’ve talked to seems to say that the community works well together and that divisions are only really noticed when it comes time to pray. Yet from an outsider’s perspective it is easy to see that this is not true. A person who keeps kosher would not be able to spend time at Macabi because the facilities would not accommodate their dietary restrictions. There are many more orthodox organizations that would not consider people who only have a Jewish father to be Jewish and exclude this group of people from their activities. The people at Hillel stated about the Jewish attitude about Israel, “to a non-Jew we feel we must always represent Israel in a positive light and be supportive, but amongst the Jewish community we can criticize Israel’s actions as much as we like.” This attitude is the same for the Argentina Jewish community and the divisions among it. To outsiders the community wishes to appear unified and loving, as a big Jewish Argentinean family. But when it comes down to the reality, amongst the community there is a lot of bitterness and arguments about how one should express their Judaism and even who should be counted in the Jewish community.
