National and Transnational Paths of Latin American Jews

Judit Bokser Liwerant, Ph.D., is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, and Distinguished Visitin Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, She is the co-editor of Identities in an Era of Globalization and Multiculturalism. Latin America in the Jewish World and Reconsidering Israel-Diaspora Relations. Co-editor of the forthcoming Brill Encyclopedia on Jews in Latin America. Her extensive work, focused on Latin America with a global perspective, crosses political science, sociology, and contemporary Jewry.

Acknowledgements

List of Figures and Tables

Introductory Essay. Latin American Jewry: A Historical Conceptual Pathway
1 When Biography and Scientific Research Meet

2 Challenges to Knowledge


Part 1
Modernity as a Palimpsest
1 Dilemmas of Jews and Judaism in Modernity: Snapshots of an Effervescent Period of Challenges and Responses
1 Introductory Remarks

2 The Avatars of Modernity

3 Encounters and Interactions in History: Trends and Dilemmas

4 Mapping New Meanings. Snapshots of a Cartography

5 A Critical Reality, A New Ideological Corpus: Modernity and Zionism

6 Gazes into the Past, Critical Readings toward the Present

7 A Conceptual Detour, an Unfinished Reflection


2 From Modernity to Multiple Modernities: Latin America in the Americas
1 Multiple Modernities from a Latin American Perspective

2 Walking the Scale: A Conceptual and Historical Journey through Mexico

3 The Changing Reconfiguration of Modernity

4 Afterword as a Clue to This Book


3 Modernity’s Historical and Conceptual Paths: Globalization, Secularization and Collective Identities
1 A Conceptual Detour

2 Social and Political thought: The Debates and Their Sequences

3 Broadening the Axes of the Debate

4 New Challenges between the Individual and the Collective: The Universe of Religion Amidst Secularization Processes

5 Universalism and Particularism Revisited


Part 2
Latin America’s Time and Scales
4 A Dilemmatic Binary: Being National/Being Transnational
1 Introductory Remarks

2 A Conceptual and Historical Journey: Mexico and Latin America. The Foundations of being National and Its Limits

3 Public Sphere, Private Spaces. Transnational Links in Mexico and Latin America

4 Building Democracy. Current Changes and Redefinitions of the Binary. Regional and Global Implications

5 A New Phase of the Transnational Moment


5 The Jews of Latin America: Changing Constellations
1 Latin America’s Changes: Play and Counterplay

2 A World of Identities: A New Global Overview

3 The Vertices of Interaction


6 Diasporas and Transnationalism: New Inquiries on Latin American Jews
1 Conceptual Reflections

2 Context and Theorization

3 An Inquiry into Ethno-National and Transnational Diasporas. The Cases of the Ashkenazi Kehillah of Buenos Aires and Mexico City
 3.1 Argentina

 3.2 Mexico


4 Selected Diasporic Approaches to Latin American Jews: A Discussion

5 Epilogue. Images of Otherness: Transnationalism and Ethno-Religious, Pan-Ethnic and National Diasporas


Part 3
Into the Past: Between Acceptance and Othering
7 The Thirties as Crucial Years: Jewish Immigration and Antisemitism
1 The Onset of the Decade: Immigration Policies and Antisemitic Expressions

2 The Cárdenas Regime: Immigration Policies and Antisemitic Expressions

3 Jewish Refugees: Alterity and Prejudice


8 Otherness in History and Memory: The Jewish Refugees
1 Introductory Remarks

2 From History to Memory. A Brief Conceptual Detour

3 The Construction of Memory and Its Narratives: Mexico as a Haven


9 Collective Identities in the Public Sphere
1 A Gaze into Society and the Public Sphere from the Immigrant’s Reality
 1.1 Trajectories in the Tempo of Convergences and Divergences

 1.2 The Changing Public Sphere



Part 4
Between a New Diaspora and a National Home
10 The Genesis of Zionism in Mexico
1 Zionism on the Move

2 The Origins of Zionism in the Communal Space

3 Ideological Strengths and Organizational Weaknesses: A Paradox?

4 Renewed Ideological Debates


11 New Patterns of Action in the Public Sphere: Convergences and Divergences between National and Transnational Scales
1 Introductory Historical Remarks

2 Society Takes on Jewish National Aspirations

3 The Mexican Government’s Stance on the Palestine Question

4 The Zionist Leadership’s Political Action

5 Mexico’s Abstention—Discourse and Reality


12 The Impact of the Six-Day War on Jewish communal Life
1 The Organizational Axis: The Redefinition of Spaces

2 An Interactional Axis: A Source of Legitimacy


13 Reconfiguration of the Regional and Global Scenarios: Zionism = Racism at a Critical Juncture
1 President Echeverría’s Foreign Policy

2 Communal Practices, Actions, and Reactions

3 Discourse, Symbolic Representation, and Delegitimization

4 Delegitimization and Symbolic Violence


14 The Changing Status of Zionism and Israel in Latin American Jewry
1 Introductory Remarks

2 Grounding Trends

3 Changing Patterns

4 Contextual Parameters

5 Redefining Centers in a Globalized World: The Territorial Referent

6 Israel in Changing Educational Ecology

7 National Funds: Solidarity and Pragmatism

8 Going Global: Faces of an Ethno-Transnational Diaspora

9 Changing Constellations: Continuity and Discontinuity


Part 5
Redefining Diaspora in Times of Transnationalism
15 Latin America Revisited Facing New Realities and Conceptual Challenges
1 A Gaze into the Foundations: Past Globality

2 Final Remarks


16 Into a Globalized World: Latin American Jews in the United States—Between Being and Belonging
1 Latin American Jews on the Move

2 A Conceptual Round

3 The Relocation of Latin American Jewish Life in an American Mobile Environment


17 Latin American Jews in the United States: Cultural Encounters: Similarities and Dissimilarities
1 Integration, Distinctiveness, and Continuity

2 Jewish Multi-level Transnationalism in the Twenty-First Century

3 Closing Remarks


18 Expanding Frontiers and Affirming Belonging: Youth Travel to Israel
1 Introductory Remarks

2 Building Jewish Life/Being Jewish in Latin America

3 The Changing Reality of Latin American Jewish Life: The Mirror of the Educational World

4 Trends and Findings

5 Type of Trips to Israel

6 A Comparative Detour: Taglit Trips

7 Summary and Discussion


Part 6
Which Modernity? Projects, History, Memory and Otherness
19 The Holocaust—Memory, Victims, and Morality: On Zygmunt Bauman and Beyond
1 Which Modernity When History Is Absent

2 Rationality-Morality: A Problematic Binomial

3 The Memory of Horror, Its Representation, the Image

4 Jusidman’s Prussian Blue

5 Concluding Remarks


20 Conceptual and Methodological Clues for Approaching the Connections between Mexico and the Holocaust: Separate or Interconnected Histories?
1 The Holocaust and Latin America: A Brief Overview

2 International/Intergovernmental Connections

3 Between Connections and Disconnections: Mexico and the Refugee Crisis

4 Transnational Interconnections: Actors, Decisions, Implications
 4.1 The Jewish World

 4.2 The Circulation of Ideas: Intellectuals, Activists and the Political Elite in Mexico

 4.3 The Mexican Press


5 Interconnections on the Individual Level: The Refugee-Victim-Survivor

6 Final Reflections


21 Sinopia and Pentimenti: Conceptual Approaches and Changing Paths: Antisemitism in Latin America
1 Sinopia and pentimenti: A Required Clarification

2 Building the tropos: Sinopia and Pentimenti

3 Continuities and Discontinuities and Related Prejudices: Recurrences and Changes

4 Conceptual Debates

5 The National, the Regional, the Global

6 Snapshots of Historical and Sociological Perspectives

7 Changes in Discursive Antisemitism: from the Printed Press to the Social Networks


22 Jews in The Americas. A Continental Gaze
1 The Americas: Identifying the Object

2 Conceptual Approaches: A Promising Albeit Debated Triad

3 Into the Region: Structures, Obstacles, Trends

4 The United States

5 A Different North: Canada

6 Latin America: The Region’s Diversity and Comparative Remarks

7 The Triad Today: Selected Snapshots

8 South to North and Beyond

9 A Global Memory

10 Concluding Remarks


Bibliography

Index

Scholars of Contemporary Jewry, scholars of Latin American Studies, Political and Social scientists, historians, undergraduate and graduate students of diaspora, transnationalism and ethnic studies, academic institutes, libraries.