JEWISH STUDIES / LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES

THE JEWS OF LATIN AMERICA

The Jews of Latin America expands the boundaries of Jewish history by making visible the little-known communities of South and Central America. In doing so, the book challenges the notion that Latin American societies are entirely Catholic and Hispanic. Through the life histories of Jews who emigrated to Latin America in the late 19th and 20th centuries, the author shows this nonconforming minority adjusting to the politics, economy, and social stratification of countries that have not embraced cultural pluralism as an ideal, but have become increasingly pluralistic in reality.

In this substantially revised edition of her study on contemporary Latin American Jewry, Judith Laikin Elkin not only defines the Latin American diaspora as a distinct branch of world Jewry, but integrates them into the field of modern Jewish history. Introducing the immigrant experience against the background of earlier Spanish and Portuguese colonial rule, the author describes how Jews fashioned their own culture in Catholic societies, and how the attitudes of those societies proscribed Jewish life within the greater culture.

Adding significant new data, photographs, and analyses of recent events, Elkin provides a nuanced account of Latin American Jewish communities, including the stresses placed upon them by astonishingly blatant displays of hostility. She examines major events including the recent bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, the Argentine military repression, the so-called economic miracle that propelled Brazilian Jews into the elite class, and Israeli intervention in Central America.

"The first comprehensive review of its subject, this book provides far more information concerning Latin American Jewish life than ever available between two covers .... [Elkin] faces squarely the many prejudices involved, including those of the Jewish groups toward one another as well as other people toward the Jews, and deals most competently with the matter of diminution of religious influences."
—Choice

"Despite the importance of this migration, no satisfactory scholarly study of Latin American Jews existed until Judith Laikin Elkin published this book .... In brief, she has made a major contribution to Latin American immigration and social history."
—American Historical Review

" ... an indispensable reference guide to any student of Latin American Jewry seeking a broad introduction to a burgeoning field still in its incubation stages (and largely created by the author) .... Elkin's innovative essays composed for this revised edition and the conceptual insights sprinkled throughout render The Jews in Latin America much more than a utilitarian reference guide."
—Journal of Jewish Studies

Judith Laikin Elkin is the founding president of the Latin American Jewish Studies Association and a leading scholar in the field who has written widely on the subject. A former United States Foreign Service Officer, Elkin lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she edits the Journal Latin American Jewish Studies.