1
Research Proposal
Revised Draft October 4, 2010
Latin American Jews in a Transnational World:
Redefining Experiences and Identities on Four Continents
Judit Bokser Liwerant
1
, Sergio DellaPergola
2
and Leonardo Senkman
3
The Liwerant Center for the Study of Latin America, Spain, Portugal and Their Jewish
Communities, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
1. Background and Outline
Far reaching demographic, civic, socio-economic and cultural transformations have
occurred during the last generations among Latin American Jews under the impact of intensive
processes of globalization, economic crises, public violence, political upheavals but also internal
democratization, cultural change, large-scale incoming and outgoing migration flows, and
emerging transnationalism.
Analyzing contemporary Latin American Jewry – defined here in relation to the whole
area from Mexico to the southern end of the continent, and to migrant communities stemming
from the continent – requires a wide research scope. It calls for assessing a social and geopolitical
spectrum of individual and collective life that has extended its vibrant and meaningful presence
to four continents: Latin America, North America, Western Europe, and the Middle East
represented by Israel. It demands for abundant historical perspective and multifocal insights on
internal characteristics and changes among the group under investigation, and its multiple
interactions with the broader society locally, continentally and globally.
1
Head, Graduate Program in Political and Social Sciences, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico.
2
The Shlomo Argov Chair in Israel-Diaspora Relations, The A. Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry, The
Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
3
Department of Romance Sudies, and The International Center for the Teaching of Jewish Civilization, The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem. 2
Given the widespread geographical scope of this proposal, and its insistent search for
coherent patterns above and beyond a narrowly focused local phenomenology, it is important that
at the outset of our enquiry we clarify a number of key concepts that will recurrently be
mentioned. Prominent among them is the notion of transnationalism.
Recurrent failures of modernization processes followed by economic crises, political
instability, and high levels of public violence and lack of security have increasingly exposed
Latin America and its Jewish communities to migration waves and to multiple experiences of
leaving and joining, constructing homeness and perceiving exile. All of these emerged from the
contrasting realities of shrinking Jewish communities, on the one hand, and revitalized Jewish
life, on the other hand. Jewish communities in Latin America have been exposed occasionally to
moments of duress and deprivation, but also to new processes of democratization, growing
pluralism – political, institutional and cultural – and the ensuing affirmation of civil societies and
civic commonalities. In relation to this changing continental context, but also reflecting other
factors that operated out of the continent, Jewish communities experienced thorough processes of
socio-economic mobility as well as changing dialectic interactions concerning their internal
ideational, cultural, and institutional systems.
In this general context, while noting commonalities that cut across the different societies
of Latin America, one certainly should be aware of the inner differentiation within the continent.
In the general public sphere, neo-liberal citizenship regimes coexist with corporatist political
forms and an increasing use of popular mobilization and plebiscitary democracy. Connecting the
private and public spheres, widespread processes of secularization have competed with the
revival and transformation of old forms of religion, and the emerging of new ones.
Although Latin American Jewry has grown historically out of large-scale immigration and
was able to establish powerful and original patterns of Jewish life and community organization,
during the last decades the net direction of migration flows rather tended to be from Latin
America to other destinations, the main of which the United States, Israel, and to a lesser extent
countries in Western Europe – mainly Spain – and Canada. These migratory trends generated a
social and demographic profile that reflected ongoing global, regional and local undercurrents, as
well as longer-term historical constraints and opportunities.
During the past 30 years, the number of Jews in Latin America dropped from 514,000 in 3
the 1970s to 390,000 in 2010. While during the 1970s, violence and authoritarianism were
determinant of regional and international emigration and political exile, especially in the
Southern Cone, a decade later re-democratization was a pull factor for Jewish exiles and some
others to return to their homelands. But in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the intertwined
complex of economic crises and security problems pushed again Jews into a global international
migration pattern. Since the 1990s, this tendency has grown, though intermittently. The last
phases of accelerated globalization processes have witnessed significant increases in the number
of Latin American migrants and the emerging of new centers of relocation of Latin Americaninspired Jewish communal life.
Jewish migration involving Latin American countries has not been uni-directional. There
have been known instances of return migration, of repeated and circular migration, and of bilocal or multi-local migrants. All of these features have contributed to the diffusion of
transnational networks and identities reflecting essential links with globalization processes and
transnationalism through the specificity and singularity of the Latin American region. In this
general context, the State of Israel, Israeli society, and the Jewish/Zionist ethos have played a
singular role of catalyst. One of the reasons is that political concepts, values, aspirations and
organizational entities imported from previous Jewish experiences in other parts of the world
played a fundamental role in the process of cultural and institutional formation of Jewish
communities of Latin America – perhaps more so than in other regions of Jewish immigration
such as Western Europe or North America. In this sense, the perception of a dialectical
relationship between a perceived ideal "center" in Palestine/Israel and Latin America as one
expression of ideal "periphery" was probably more diffused and acute in the Latin continent than
elsewhere across world Jewry.
On the other hand, the social, cultural and political transformations of the more recent
decades – related to the diffused patterns of international migration – call for a serious critical
reconsideration of this earlier model in the light of a Jewish collective reality that has become
significantly less bi-polar (in the sense Latin America-Israel) and much more multi-centered. The
need follows to examine the multiple identificational and institutional options that have emerged,
including the possible substitution of transnational ideational motives and relational networks for
the previous somewhat radial configuration with one central focal spot and several Jewish
community satellites – primarily in the Latin American continent if not elsewhere. 4
Globalization processes have brought new realities to the Latin American continent. They
carry economic, social, political and cultural changes – as well as interdependence and complex
interactions among them – and also project their contradictory character, as expressed both in
reflexive and unintended paths facing new developments. Globalization processes are not
uniform in the region, as they take place in differentiated modes of time and place, with
territorial, cultural, sub-ethnic sector, and social stratification inequalities. Much of the economic
debate in Latin America has revolved around the effects of globalization and structural reform
upon economic growth, poverty, and inequality. Its impact on Jewish life and migration has often
been removed from the mainstream of analysis, and has yet to be systematically studied and
reconnected to broader discourse.
The transnational dimension of Latin American Jews has a concurrent relevance to the
past and to the present, based in our understanding of bordered and bounded social and
communal (Jewish) units as transnationally constituted spaces interacting with one another.
These emerging patterns must be conceptually distinguished, on the one hand, from a
cosmopolitanism that develops blind of reference to emotional and cultural links to a definite preexisting community; and, on the other hand, from a conventional notion of diasporism that
operates out of a normative center in a given core location and a subordinate relation of
peripheral communities vis-à-vis that center.
New and complex patterns of interaction and network building, and the emerging of social
groups and collective identities, underscore the complex dynamics of encounters and articulations
that transcend national frontiers. This has been a characteristic process shaping historically the
Jewish condition worldwide, and specifically in Latin America. Transnationalism may thus be
seen both as a key condition for approaching the Latin American Jewish ethno-national diasporic
past and its present changing identificational attachments and perspectives. In this sense, it
provides a conceptual tool whose implications are relevant for social morphology as expressed in
the changing character of social/communal formations and their historical trajectory.
In spite of their roots in the past, previously existing transnational interactions have
acquired new visibility and new ones have emerged. Broadly speaking, both old and new
configurations – with their inner differentiation locally and abroad – are interwoven and marked
by still unexplored processes of Jewish-life building in national and transnational contexts. In this 5
respect – it may be hypothesized – transnational entities might be factors of change in and of the
social order. The notion of transnationalism may then apply as a general societal condition when
transnational entities become effective agents of micro- and macro-social change.
For Latin American societies, globalization and transnationalism as well as local factors
such as democratic pluralism and identity politics have enhanced the apparent contradictory
processes of assimilation and ethnicitization of Diasporas (Appadurai, 1990). The region has
witnessed the development and legitimate expression of a new transnational consciousness –
somewhat recovering an earlier stage of “diaspora consciousness” among descendents of earlier
migrants – marked by multiple identifications as well as an awareness of decentralized and
multiple attachments. Diaspora may be seen as a category of social practice, a project, a claim, a
revision of the dialectics of home-identity-movement-return (Shohat, 2006; Clifford, 1997).
Transnational trends have a relevant influence on restructuring life in the region and in the
new satellite centers that have grown out of it. Narratives and parameters of Jewish identities may
take place in a context of identity revival, transformation, negotiation, or even fading away and
loss. Culture is deeply implicated in the dialectic of deterritorialization and reterritorialization
that accompanies globalization. This dialectic may entail “the loss of the natural relation of
culture to geographical and social territories and, at the same time, a certain relative, partial
territorial relocalization of old and new symbolic productions” (García Canclini, 1995).
The interplay between historical ethno-national components of identity and new religious
flows may enhance differential behavior throughout the region and abroad. Vázquez and
Friedman (2008) stressed religion as “one of the main protagonists in this unbinding of culture
from its traditional referents and boundaries and in its reattachment in new space-time
configurations”. Homeland and the elected new places of residence, thus, may widen the scope of
Jewish life and reciprocal influence. The current changes may throw light to the suggested
reading of current Jewish history as a frontier experience, understood as a space of
accommodation and confrontation – the frontier not as a periphery but as a conceptual and
physical space where groups in motion meet, confront, alter, destroy, and build (Gilman, 2003).
Transnationalism – at least as a working hypothesis – is part of a common challenge
emerging in the global Jewish world and reshaping from the inside and from the outside the role
and perception of Jews in a new pluralist cultural scene. Challenges for Jewish culture today 6
involve facing fragmentary heterogeneity where ethnic and social differences are blended into
distinctive and uniform unities – modern but also traditional, national as well as global. These
new patterns may be perceived and described as a tapestry of diversity and poly-cephalous
cultures in hybrid and trans-cultural settings.
Novel spatial interactions have modified their influence on the final shaping of grouprelated institutions, social relations and identities. Thus, different identificational/cultural/
geographical moments of the transnational world can be traced in Latin American Jews in four
continents.
A shared common field of analysis incorporates the ways four major domains of public
life are addressed under the impact of globalization, democratization and relocation of Jewish life
alike:
a. Issues of citizenship and rights, inclusion and exclusion within the broader societal
context.
b. Issues of shifting ideological commitments under the changes brought about by
globalization, market expansion, transformation of socio-economic structure, cultural and
legal change in old and new settings.
c. Issues of construction, resilience, transformation, competition and reconstitution of
identities under the impact of relocation, migration, dual residency, emergence or decline
of nation-state imaginaries, and emergence or decline of new ones.
d. Issues of construction, resilience, transformation, competition and reconstitution of
institutional communal life.
Analysis should focus on individual as well as communitarian characteristics and trends.
It should incorporate several essential comparative dimensions:
a. Between specifically chosen Jewish contexts and relevant non-Jewish contexts – namely
other ethnic or religious minorities – in the same locations in the countries of residence in
Latin America.
b. Between selected Jewish contexts and relevant non-Jewish contexts in the countries of
emigration from Latin America. 7
c. Between selected Jewish contexts related to Jewish emigration from Latin America in a
given country of destination, and a similar context in another country of destination.
d. Between selected Jewish contexts related to Jewish emigration from Latin America in a
given country of destination, and other Jewish contexts in the same country.
In the light of these general remarks, some of the main purposes and modes of operation
of this project are outlined in the following sections.
2. Scope of the Project
What follows in Sections 3 and 4 is an analysis of the main issues and topics that should
receive priority in the framework of a large-scale research project on Latin American Jews
scattered and reunited in four continents. This is followed in Section 5 by some operational
suggestions about the mode of execution of the project.
The Project outlined in this Proposal will be anchored at the The Liwerant Center for the
Study of Latin America, Spain, Portugal and Their Jewish Communities at The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem (in the following: The Center). The Center will fulfill the following
tasks:
a. It will provide a general theoretical framework and conceptual reference to a study of
large international scope and comparative nature.
b. It will provide – through own research of the principal investigators – systematic answers
to selected research questions and hypotheses focusing on the central issues raised in this
proposal.
c. It will provide a central facility for the elaboration, discussion, dissemination and support
of research findings initiated and collected by researchers connected with the Center, such
as the Liwerant Center Fellows.
d. It will provide overall coordination for different segments of the project that will reflect
multiple disciplinary, methodological and technical orientations and will be articulated by
researchers in different locations.
e. It will provide general encouragement, orientation, consultation and facilitation to various
other research initiatives that may be promoted and executed independently from this
proposal by researchers wherever appropriate. 8
f. It will actively search for agreements with other national and international research and
community organizations in order to expand the conceptual and material bases for better
implementing the Project.
Therefore, this Proposal outlines an ambitious research program aimed to promoting
innovative research on Latin American Jewry and their multiple experiences under the aegis of
the Center. The Proposal, however, does not pretend to fulfill an exclusive role at the expense of
other research initiatives conducted by various other investigators and institutions. Research
suggested in the present Proposal can easily proceed at different speeds, with one central
component directly performed by investigators at the Center and other components related in
different, more or less binding ways to the Center.
The current Proposal does strive to suggest and promote a new model of wide-scope
collaboration, discussion, circulation of ideas, comparison of findings, and cumulative analytic
build-up within agreed epistemic boundaries across an independent and multi-disciplinary
research community located in different continents – not unlike the very target of investigation.
3. The Transnational Moment in Latin American Jewish Communities
At the local level, in different cities across the Latin American continent, research is
needed to explore the changing experiences of Latin America's Jewish communities and their
involvement in the public and cultural arenas within their respective national societies.
The abovementioned domains have been crucial foci of concern, debate and policymaking in civil society, the local public scene, and the international sphere. However, Jewish
communities have paid less attention to understand how these developments affected, supported,
reframed or undermined core ideas of citizenship, ethnicity patterns, national membership,
traditional and reformed religious beliefs, and collective identities. The earlier ways in which
Judaism/Zionism has been analyzed in Latin America may need to be reassessed, extended, and
updated.
Attention should be paid to the impact of the following leading examples of change across
Latin American Jewish communities:
a. Birth, evolution and reconstitution of ideas, values and identities among Jewish 9
intellectuals and communal lay and religious leaders under the impact of local and global
transformations, and institutional consequences for Jewish life.
b. Evolving patterns of ethnic citizenship, of ethnic-civic conceptions on nationhood, and of
migration in the context of emerging global processes, and their impact on the status and
role of cultural-ethnic and religious minority groups in Latin America.
c. Changing boundaries of Latin American Jewish Diaspora identities, predicaments and
negotiations under the impact of global processes; understanding the personal meaning
and validity of Jewishness among the children and further descendants of intermarried
multiple-ethnicity and multiple-religion families.
d. Changing contents of Latin American Jewish Diaspora identities; mapping the familiarity,
relevance, mutual position, intensity and valence of different concepts, keywords and
alternative frames of reference in the definition of one's attachment to a Jewish context.
e. The changing nature of interactions between the Jewish collective and the national
majority, at the individual and institutional levels, and the changing patterns of inclusion
vs. exclusion of Jews in the general context.
f. The changing nature of interactions between Jewish minorities and other national or
religious minorities in Latin American countries.
g. Patterns of convergence vs. mutual exclusion generated by earlier processes of migration
and persisting sub-ethnic identities within the Jewish domain, and the mechanisms for
enrollment of adepts and ensuring institutional continuity in the sub-ethnic Jewish cultural
context.
h. Challenges to the ethnic foundations of collective identity among the divided and
competing religious/national and liberal/universalistic camps of Latin American Jews in
the context of the role of national identity and legality in the emerging Latin American
democratized civil society.
i. Transnational Jewish and Zionist political behaviors and associational interactions in a
Latin America exposed to globalization, possibly in comparison with parallel processes
among Muslim minorities (Gilman, 2003).
j. Impact of the mediatic and cyberspace revolution on Jewish identities and community 10
patterns. The transformation and possibly disaggregation of the Jewish public from
newspaper and pamphlet reading into TV and Internet consumption.
k. The nature of interstitial spaces for ethnic/religious communities in Latin America and the
new trans-local public spheres: their role in determining the influence of normative
Jewish institutions and their traditional gregarism vis-à-vis new Information Technologies
(audio-tapes, CD-ROM, the Internet and Cyber-spaces) beyond the reach of the
synagogues-educational-social service institutions.
l. The religious transformation of the different Jewish camps in Latin America and their
mutual impact in the global context. Fundamentalist global religions in Latin America and
the new Jewish Orthodox religion revival, as epitomized by the cases of Habad and Shas,
and liberal global religions, as epitomized by the cases of the Conservative and Reform
Movements.
m. Re-imagining normative Judaism going to the canonical texts through Jewish rabbinical
leaders, scholars and intellectuals who read them from a new Latin America perspective,
and developing a comparative reflection with the North American or the Israeli case.
n. Assessing the existence and nature of multiculturalism in post-modern Latin America;
analyzing the many faces of cultural and religious diversity, and Jewish perceptions,
collective accommodation, and communal action in the national/local and
transnational/global public spheres.
o. Multicultural motives in the literary creation of Jews and the function of Jews as a litmus
test for cultural difference and multiculturalism among consciously non-Jewish writers
and intellectuals.
p. Interplay of local and global networks: the tension between a globalized Judaism and a set
of Jewish communities in Latin America based on Nation-State primacy and monocephalous cultures; consequences for Israel-Latin America-Diaspora relations.
4. The Transnational Moment of Latin American Jews Abroad
The process of relocation in its different forms, roughly estimated at about 200,000
individuals globally (including Latin American migrants/olim to Israel), involves several 11
significant implications both from a Jewish perspective and in a broader comparative context.
Research of these new developments aims to address among other things:
a. Mapping the new relocation of Latin American Jews moving inside Latin America, such
as – in the past – from Argentina to Mexico or from Uruguay to Venezuela, and in more
recent years from an array of countries to Panama.
b. Mapping the new relocation of Latin American Jews moving outside Latin America to
selected regions in the United States (Florida, California, the East Coast) and Canada; to
Europe (especially Spain); to Israel; and to some extent to other locations such as
Australia.
c. Reconstructing the main transnational networks following the relocation of Latin
American Jews abroad, including the intensity of persisting relations with the countries of
origin.
d. Understanding the new dynamic of Latin American Jewish identity – whether more
oriented by norms and institutional links rooted in the old-country or by norms and
organizational patterns typical of the new-country – in different continents.
a) Migration "crises" in Latin America
From an analytical perspective, in the first place one should study the nature and
outcomes of the cycle of migration "crises" that historically took place in nearly all Latin
American countries and affected Jews over the time.
Migration crises, as an analytical concept for studying emigration, dispersal and
regrouping of migrant communities (Van Hear, 1998) were shaped worldwide by macro-level
forces of political and economical nature: the taking of power by revolutionary regimes (as in the
case of Cuba), the disintegration of multi-national empires such as the former USSR, the rise of
dictatorial and authoritarian regimes (as recently in Venezuela), deep economical crises (as more
than once in the case of the collapse of the monetary and bank system in Argentina), as well as
economic globalization and the incorporation of peripheral societies into global market economy,
as specified below. Migration crises provoked both outward and inward relocation movements. In
each circumstance choice of destination was grounded on push or pull factors reflecting structural 12
transformations as well as individual/familiar options for better personal security, economic and
life-chance needs.
In Latin America the main migration crisis took place during two phases that affected
Jews. The first phase started with the Cuban revolution in 1959, continued during the 1970s
under Allende’s socialist experience, it reversal with the authoritarian regimes of Pinochet, as
well as with the military dictatorships in Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. The second stage of
migration crisis was provoked by the combined effects of both neo-liberal economic policies and
globalization since the mid 1980 and 1990 which affected twice Argentina, and in near synchrony
also Uruguay. More recently, since the year 2000, Jews of Venezuela emigrated shocked by the
revolutionary populist regime of Chavez. These developments must be understood also in the
light of the particular socioeconomic stratification of Latin American Jews: a fairly high level of
education, a strong presence in trade and commerce, a highly visible presence in manufacturing,
and a significant presence in the free professions. These features could generate variable and
group-specific exposures to advantages or liabilities inherent in changing national economic
policies.
It is necessary to provide a necessary historic background in order to better understand
changing migration crises and the dynamics of relocation, re-emigration, and return of Latin
American Jews since the early 1970s. This may in turn enable better analyzing new patterns of
Latin American migration in the framework of the global-system logic of Jewish Diaspora
migration (DellaPergola, 2009).
Migration crises in Latin America were of different nature and scope. One type
encompassed forced migration and exile of persons under high risk, such as politically involved
activists and intellectuals. Another type was characterized by voluntary household decisions to
emigrate, taking into consideration safety, security, and economic reasons. Still others added to
the previous determinants a more significant consideration of ideational drivers, such as
proximity to particular loci for enhancing Jewish identity, the availability of Jewish educational
frameworks, the future of a next generation, and more. Thus, research is needed to explore
besides the collective push-pull drivers of migration, the more individual dimensions of forced
and free-choice migration.
It is assumed that no one single-driver explanation can probably provide a definitive 13
explanation of such complex decisions as moving away and migrating. It is the reconstitution of
the package of several motives that probably is more helpful in interpreting migration behaviors.
Yet, it is meaningful to try to disentangle the different components in the whole package and try
to attribute each component their relative weight in the final process of decision-making.
b) Transnational migratory networks
Analytically, together with assessing the implications of migration crises in each country
of origin, attention should be devoted also to the new emerging migration system that
encompasses a network of people living in different countries linked by migration flows.
Migrants from one Latin American country who have reached several other countries may
naturally form a network that links the places of relocation places and their origin countries.
In such a situation it is important to explore whether a unified mental and relational space
– a sort of sub-Diaspora – emerges, or rather, physical dispersal causes severing the ties between
the migrants across countries of origin and destination. It obviously is a highly dynamic and
evolutionary process, and it should be observed over prolonged time.
In order to study the transnational features of migrant communities, it is also important to
explore if Latin American Jews have established an enduring presence through high rates of
retention in their new countries, or have been involved in repeated crossings of borders and
circular migrations, with a tendency to return to the continent of origin.
Along with these alternative options – verifiable and shared in all migration flows –
transnational networks of migrants from different countries are among the mechanisms that may
translate macro-societal drivers into the micro-societal level through migration decisions of
individuals and families.
Some important related questions for inquiry include the following:
a. What tells us that a group or community of Latin American Jews that emigrated is transnational?
b. How is this related to the length of stay abroad?
c. What is the legal status of the migrants abroad concerning nationality, citizenship rights, 14
issues of inclusion and exclusion, etc.?
d. How do their demographic profiles, socio-economic status and occupations, change over
time?
e. How complex and persistent are the social/professional/commercial links and/or
transactions with the place of origin?
f. How do Jewish institutional frameworks understand, relate, react to migrant systems
change?
g. Besides the underlying drivers and determinants of the migration decision, what are the
intervening factors that enabled, facilitated, constrained or accelerated migration?
h. Why serious political turmoil, violence, and economic changes do not necessarily
manifest themselves as migration crises for all Latin American Jews, but rather tend to
operate selectively within and across the Jewish population?
The latter question prompts consideration on how migration streams change, shedding
light into its moments of migration transition. Sharp Jewish population decrease since the mid
1980s in Central-American countries such El Salvador and Guatemala are evident cases of
relatively significant outflows: but why more than half of Guatemala population,
notwithstanding, decided to stay in their homeland and not to emigrate? Why neighboring Costa
Rica Jews increased its population by two thirds since 1967 up to date? What role played Panama
(whose Jewish population more than doubled since 1967) as a relocation country for small groups
of Jews fleeing from other Central American countries such as El Salvador and Honduras?
Rather than a conjuncture case study, the emigration crisis of Jews from Venezuela
deserves a deeper historical analysis incorporating both the increase of its population during
thirty years, starting with the 1960s, and explaining why the majority of the Jewish community
still remains in the country. But the Venezuela experience may also be a test case for raising
questions related to two other important aspects of transnationalism. For example, given the well
established connections of businessman Venezuelan Jews in Florida and other U.S. cities:
a. Do the current economic changes in Venezuela create the conditions for a transitory
migration that may apply to other countries, too?
b. Is the migration crisis in Venezuela a case study for better understanding of both the 15
unmaking of an ethno-national Diaspora under stress, and the expansion of a transnational
community in a new frontier area, such as Caribbean Florida or the American Southwest?
And above all, how do we explain that the country that has hosted the largest Jewish
population in Latin America and has experienced some of the sharpest political and economic
crises of the last half of a century, still hosts the largest Jewish population in the continent – more
than half its size of fifty years ago (by "core Jewish population" definitional criteria)?
c) Diaspora making and Diaspora un-making of Latin American Jewish migrants
The fact that a transnational community spreads across borders does not necessarily
transform it into a new Diaspora of Latin American Jewish migrants. A crucial focus of concerns
for investigation is related to more elaborated concepts of Diaspora, migration crisis and
transnationalism.
One important issue is linked to the dynamic of Diaspora making and Diaspora unmaking provoked by migration crises, de-socialization from the country and community of origin,
and re-socialization in the country and community of destination. Several scenarios are possible
in this respect:
a. De-diasporization with respect to belonging to an ethno-national Jewish Diaspora in the
country of origin, and the subsequent processes of a different re-grouping as migrant
communities in new places of destination.
b. Re-diasporization of migrant communities moving from one country to another and
maintaining a thick package of old-country cultural norms and personal relations.
c. In the instance of migration to Israel/aliyah, de-diasporization of Latin American Jews by
the simple fact of having moved to the putative core country, and re-diasporization upon
return to their countries of origin, or to a third country – where applicable.
d. In Israel, de-diasporization by developing a full sense of participation in the Israeli
mainstream, or continuing to nurture a form of Diasporic identity – somewhat
disconnected from the putative core country – while residing in the state of Israel.
Several examplary of case studies pertaining to reconfigurations of Diaspora making and16
Diaspora un-making may include:
a. Transnationalism of Latin American Jews living in Miami. Is this a case of rediasporization of Jewish migrants and temporary residents, or a relocation of Latinos to
Florida and their transformation into another Hispanic community in the U.S.? Research
may address the case of Cuban Jews in Florida, as well as other Jewish migrants in the
same area coming from Argentina, Venezuela and Colombia. Some comparisons should
be drawn between Jews and Cuban out-migration waiting long-term return to the home
country, and the short-term experience of Venezuelan Jews fleeing the Chavez regime.
Some important features of transnational Diaspora in the making in Miami should be
explored in comparative perspective: the exile nature of non-Jewish and Jewish Cubans in
the U.S.; the temporary and trans-located Jews from Venezuela and Colombia and their
links to their ethno-national communities in their countries of origin; the mutual
relationships among Latin American Jewish immigrants and American Jews; new patterns
of organization for Jewish communal life in Florida; the place of Hispanic culture in the
reconstruction of a new transnational identity of Latin American Jews in the U.S..
b. Transantionalism of Latin American Jews in California/of Mexican Jews in San Diego. In
a similar vein, research may address the case of Mexican Jews in San Diego/Latin
American Jews in Los Angeles versus Jewish and other migrants in the same area coming
from Argentina, Venezuela and Colombia. Comparisons should be drawn between Jews
and Latin American/Mexican out-migration and with other Jewish migratory flows to the
area/region. Some important features of a transnational Diaspora in the making in San
Diego/Southern California should be explored in comparative perspective: the exile
nature of non-Jewish and Jewish migrants in the U.S.; the temporary and trans-located
Jews and their links to their ethno-national communities in their countries of origin; the
mutual relationships among Latin American Jewish immigrants and American Jews; new
patterns of organization for Jewish communal life: translocation; relocation; second home
abroad.
c. This leads to the need to reconsider the transformation of the concept of Hispanic/Latino
categorization: the place of Hispanic culture in the reconstruction of a new transnational
identity of Latin American Jews in the U.S.. The question to be tackled, first in its 17
broadest sense, and then in the specific context of the United States, is: What makes
someone Hispanic, Latino, Spanish, Latin American?
4
Legal and cultural, external and
internal parameters should be developed in order to appropriately discern any signs of
Jewish specificity within the broader analytic frame of reference.
d. Transnationalism in the U.S. Northeast. A comparative approach is suggested for the East
– Boston, New York, Washington, Chicago – where one my hypothesize that immigration
patterns tend to be more individually and professionally oriented than the more collective
patterns in the Southeastern and Southwestern States. Age composition and household
composition – if selectively younger and nuclear – may provide an interesting door of
entry and a mapping route to associational trends. In a new residential context explained
primarily by personal professional motives and skills rather than by proximity to the Latin
American continent, virtual networking can play an enhanced role in maintaining ties to
the parent community – or to other communities for that matter.
e. Diaspora formation (Diaspora in the making?) of Jews coming from different places – to
Panama. Since 1970, Panama is the only country in Latin America that increased
significantly its Jewish population, now estimated at around 8,000, indeed starting from a
modest initial nucleus. Keeping in mind the modest overall size of the phenomenon, is
this pure temporary expedient, related to peculiar and perhaps transient niche conditions –
or a case study of transnational re-diasporization in Central America?
f. The emergence of a transnational migration for Venezuela Jews. This may be a case with
4
In 1970, to provide a common language by which to “promote uniformity and comparability for data on race and
ethnicity” for various population groups, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) created a broad definition of
“Hispanic”. See: Office of Management and Budget, “Revisions to the Standards for the Classification of Federal
Data on Race and Ethnicity”, Washington, DC, The White House, Web. 28 June 2010. The OMB defines Hispanic
as “a person of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin,
regardless of race” http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fedreg_1997standards/ “Race, Ethnicity, and Language Data:
Standardization for Health Care Quality Improvement.” Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
Home. Web. 28 June 2010. http://www.ahrq.gov/research/iomracereport/reldata1tab1-1.htm. In 1997, a revision was
made to the definition to equalize Hispanic with “Latino.” Office of Management and Budget, “Revisions to the
Standards for the Classification of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity.” Washington, DC, The White House, Web.
28 June 2010 http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fedreg_1997standards/. “US Census Bureau Search Results:
Hispanic.” US Census Bureau Search Results:. Web. 28 June 2010,
<http://search.census.gov/search?q=hispanic&entqr=0&ud=1&output=xml_no_dtd&oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF-
8&client=default_frontend&proxystylesheet=default_frontend&site=census>. The U.S. Census, on the other hand,
has a broader definition of what constitutes Hispanic. Although, based on the OMB definition, the Census allows for
self-identification, so in essence anyone who considers him/herself to be Hispanic or Latino is indeed defined as
Hispanic or Latino, which therefore can also include persons of Portuguese and/or Brazilian descent. 18
expressions of multi-localism: a high number of transients living in two homes between a
proto-Diaspora in the U.S. and their national home-country.
g. Re-grouping of Argentine migrant Jews in Spain. Migration – whose actual numerical size
has never been ascertained – arrived in two waves, during the 1970s-1980s, and in the
2000s. Is this a Trans-Atlantic case of Argentine migrant Jews in the process of rediasporization in a putative Hispano ethno-national "Madre Patria" – essentially defined
on the basis of mother-tongue affinity and skills? Or is Spain a sort of linguistic defaultoption locus of exile away of the real "Madre Patria" – Argentina? Is the Jewish
communitarian connective reconstructed in Spain on the basis of the pre-existing patterns
in the country of origin, or dissolved within the pre-existing parochial framework of
Spain's Jewry, or lost altogether? One should examine competing outlooks in the
emerging new collective identities vis-à-vis both other non Jewish Argentineans and
Latinos in Spain, and towards three putative "Madres Patrias": Argentina, Israel, and
Spain.
h. Migration to Israel/Aliyah of Latin American Jews since the 1970s. Studying the various
processes of immigration and absorption in the Israeli context, requires attention to be
paid to homogeneity vs. heterogeneity of migrants defined primarily by countries of
origin. Is a process of imposed cultural-identificational convergence occurring, whereas
anyone with a Spanish accent is perceived as, hence becomes an "Argentino" – regardless
of being a Mexican, Uruguayan or Peruvian?. Is geographical and social mobility
following immigration leading to greater concentration or greater dispersion of Latinos on
the Israeli territory, and which of the two patterns may be better conducive to successful
integration in Israeli society? In addition, in recent years, an innovative and different
stream of immigrants is constituted by former non-Jews joining Judaism on grounds of
their perceived pre-Inquisition Jewish roots, or other ideational motives. In these cases,
migration to Israel overlaps with another type of emotional/spiritual migration: joining the
normative mainstream of Jewish and Israeli society. One also needs to focus on the longer
term, permanent, or final retention of immigrants in Israel. Therefore special attention is
needed to return and relocation in alternative Ibero-American countries, in the U.S., and
in Spain. In addition, one needs to assess a specific type of Israeli emigrants (yordim),
Israeli middle-man entrepreneurs, and their incorporation into tiny Jewish communities in 19
Andean countries (Peru, Ecuador), in larger South American communities such as
Venezuela and Colombia, and in Central American Republics (such as Panama,
Honduras, Guatemala, and Costa Rica).
d) Transnational Diaspora and outward movement of Latin American Jews
From a Diaspora-transnational approach, research needs to clarify a disaggregated
definition of migrants, not only strictly permanent emigrants, but diverse types and kinds of
newcomers who are proactive actors as a result of “outward movement” of Latin American Jews.
One category encompasses “voluntary”/”involuntary” newcomers, such as students, tourists or
business visitors, professional transients, exiles, labor migrants, temporary residents and the like.
In addition, what Van Hear (1998) called “inward movement” should be considered, including
voluntary resettlement of persons in a third country as a strategy chosen by households to
disperse members of a core family worldwide – for example, members of a family dispersed in
Israel, Spain, and Miami. Finally, those returning to the places of origin should be studied.
Research needs to clarify how migrants can contribute to the making or unmaking of
transnational links and consciousness of living in a Diaspora. Some research questions related to
actually observed developments are:
a. What was the social and economic composition of outward movement of Latin American
Jews who left their countries? How socioeconomically selective were the migrants vis-à-
vis the profile of the total Jewish population in the country of origin? Who went and who
remained, and why?
b. What were the gaps and differences between places of origin and destination in terms of
socioeconomic development, cultural opportunities, political regimes, standards of living,
civil security, ethnicity composition, etc.?
c. How did the migrant's decision develop in choosing a country destination, within or
outside Latin American countries? Was the household and the broader family involved in
such decision making?
d. Were those considering emigration familiar with the legal migration regime (laws,
regulations, restrictions, incentives, etc.) of the destination country? 20
e. Which migration networks, local, international and transnational organizations, Jewish or
non-Jewish, assisted the candidates for outward movement?
f. For those choosing an alternative destination, was the Israeli option taken into
consideration, and then discarded, and if so, why?
g. What kind of migrant networks, entrepreneur agencies, family relations intervened at the
various stages of the migration process?
h. What sort of relationships (kinship, friendship, professional and educational contacts, etc.)
helped to link former, current, and potential migrants with the country of destination?
i. What degree of commitment developed, and through which channels, toward the new
country of residence (naturalization, citizenship, labor permits, etc.)? Which links (strong
or weak) developed with the local Jewish community? Or were independent communities
of and for migrants created anew?
j. Did the Jewish local and host-state organizations and any agencies assist the newcomers
during their adaptation and absorption process?
e) Globalization in the making of a new Latin American Jewish Diaspora
Globalization and economic liberalization have led to increasing gaps within Jewish
communities, reflecting a strong economic polarization among the entire population. But
globalization is twofold. On the one hand, it generated a crisis of the middle class,
impoverishment and unemployment of professionals, decline of manufacturers who had enjoyed
the protection of autarchic industrial policies, deterioration of the economic standing of various
sectors of the Latin American communities, and actual poverty among the lower classes. On the
other hand, segments of higher middle classes succeeded to incorporate themselves into the most
dynamic venues of transnational links in commerce, high tech, services, sciences, academic
institutions, and finance. Conventional outward movement and new patterns of migration are
both a consequence and manifestation of globalization. One in part inherently related growing
phenomenon is multi-localism, i.e. the experience of persons who spent part of their time in
different places maintaining old or developing new meaningful economic, academic, social and
family networks in each place (Pupko, 2009). 21
Thus, transnational communities and the emergence of new migration patterns are among
the manifold manifestations of globalization. Research is needed of the divisions and cleavages in
transnational communities – old and new – of Latin American Jews in terms of class, ethnicity,
culture, religion trends, and ideological outlooks.
Some main issues of the social and cultural dimensions of globalization related to
migration to be addressed are:
a. The emergence of a world cosmopolitan middle class or elite which shares tastes and
values, by maintaining widely spread transnational connections.
b. The twofold outlook of these new elites. On the one hand, they are globally dispersed but
they are part and parcel of old ethnic/national Diaspora groups. They are cosmopolitan in
contrast to what they sometimes perceive as narrow-minded, provincial, old-fashioned
Jewish leaders. On the other hand, many of these elites hold parochial, traditional
outlooks, and combine transnational networks and links with a conventional worldview
(Harris, 1995). Research needs to assess the nature of this dichotomy among Latin
American Jews that moved outward and inward.
c. Diversity of outlooks within particular transnational as well as ethno-national Diaspora of
Latin American Jews: comparative analysis between those who do not move –
hypothesized to be more parochial – and those frequently moving (outward, inward,
returning, crossing frontiers) – deemed to be more global oriented.
d. Reconstitution and transformation of ideas, values and identities among Jewish
intellectuals and communal leaders under the impact of relocation, and the consequences
for the institutions they lead.
e. Encounter with new milieus and the transformation of a Jewish public increasingly
involved with technologies provided by a sprawling "Information Society": electronic
networks, social networks on line, cyberspace links, and forum chats among Jews,
communication between and inside Jewish communities for information, education,
cultural enrichment and anti-defamation purpose. A case in point is the on-line Jewish
Social Networks in Europe developed by the American Joint Distribution Committee
(JDC, 2010) – characteristically lead by a cadre of young and effective executives mostly
born and trained in Latin America. 22
f. From a Jewish educational perspective, transnational networks completely changed
learning habits, allowing Jewish reading and learning to audiences of disaggregated
peoples. More research is needed to explore those interstitial spaces and the new translocal cultural spheres in new contexts, and their role in strengthening or wakening the preexisting normative Jewish institutions. In particular, the effects of the new trends on the
veteran Jewish educational system on the resilience of old-standing concepts like the
"Va'ad Hahinuch" needs to be assessed.
g. How did the experience of migration, exile and transnational identity affect the ways in
which Jewish intellectuals have redefined their personal, civil, ethic, ethnic, and religious
identities and their attitudes towards discourses that in the past had the "nation" as a
central subject?
h. How were Latin American Jewish migrants ideologically affected by their longer or
shorter periods of stay in their new countries? How could community leaders – that often
had predicated an Israel-centered vision of the world – re-conceptualize the rediasporization process of their Jewish communities in terms of new notions of
transnational or ethno-Diasporas?
i. How were these transient migrants culturally affected by transnational agencies and
organizations of the Jewish Diaspora to re-think their bonds with Klal Israel? Ultimately,
in new scenario of the come-back of transnational religions in Latin America, how did the
spreading of the Orthodox Jewish movement such Shas and Habbad emerge to invigorate
a transnational religious consciousness of Diaspora, at the expenses of a Zionist ethnonational attachment centered on Israel?
j. Conversely, to what extent could the pre-migration ethno-national and trans-state notions
of Diaspora and identity affect two parallel but contradictory processes: on the one hand,
identification and attachment as citizens to the new host country, and on the other hand,
the new post-modern climax of strong hybridist and de-territorialized Diaspora with its
outlook of global pluralism vs. the territorial/local nationalism.
k. The new cities as an intersection of the local, the national and the transnational. The city
with its size, density, and heterogeneity can offer a space for differences but also for
refuge: common spaces for a few intimates, communal spaces for those sharing a certain 23
agenda, patterns of urban gregarism, socio-economic interests and divides.
Given such a broad and diverse analytic perspective, the tools apt to investigate it are
necessarily disciplinarily and technically manifold, and must involve sociology, literature,
education and demography, organization theory and economics, cultural studies and psychology,
and more. Several thematic cross-spatial axes can be outlined drawing from a broad array of
possible case studies and topics that will be developed by different investigators in their own
independent but broadly interrelated research projects.
f) Summary of migration impacts on Latin American Jewish communities
Summarizing the main processes outlined here, migration had a very substantive
quantitative and qualitative impact on the original communities in Latin American countries, and
not a lesser impact on the reconstitution of a Latin American Jewish presence on three other
continents. It is not only a matter of changing numbers, but also of the selective cultural,
ideational, socioeconomic and demographic impact of those who left and of those who arrived.
Hence the direct and indirect impact of emigration on the Jewish life of the existing Jewish
communities needs to be systematically assessed.
Following James Clifford (1997) we need to approach the role of mobility in the
construction of culture and cultural identity, which consists not only of rootedness but just as
much in exchanges of cultural practices. Cultural identity emerges within a dynamic of “roots”
and “routes”, an interchange between embeddedness and mobility. Thus, practices of
displacement should be seen as “constitutive of cultural meanings rather than their simple transfer
or extension” (Clifford, 1997:3)
Research further needs to address, in comparative perspective, the ideational, institutional
and interactive impact of emerging transnationalism on Jewish communities:
a. The changing modes and strategies of community participation/affiliation among Jewish
migrants who on the one hand retain strong cultural traits related to the communities of
origin, and on the other hand tend to integrate into the communal fabric in new countries
of residence. In this respect, one needs to appreciate the different influences that general
society exerts on the respective patterns of Jewish life and culture in each country. 24
b. Analysis of the respective advantages and disadvantages of different models of
immigrant’s integration and the experience of new frontiers, trends and intensity of
interactions: enclave, the network, or dispersion.
c. Intergenerational transmission of identities from the migrants themselves to their
descendants born or socialized in the new countries. Beyond the issue of preservation/loss
of identity, the possible alternative or competition between a Jewish identity and a Latin
identity among the younger generation represents an important aspect of wider
applicability beyond the Jewish experience.
d. The fact that communities of Jews from Latin America have been established in different
countries allows for a comparison of the respective experiences, hence for insights on the
different role that different environments have played in the relation between relocation
and Jewish identity. One relevant example can be provided by the weight that religion
versus secular ethnicity play as the underlying leading identificational factor in different
geographical contexts. This entails redefining the dynamics of collective identity among
the divided religious/national and liberal/universalistic camps of Latin American Jews.
e. The role of multiculturalism as a tool in migration studies. This involves incorporating the
many faces of cultural and religious diversity, Jewish perceptions, collective
accommodation, and communal action to understand and explain the role of migrant
communities in the new national/local and transnational/global public spheres.
f. The influence of social class and other social categories in these identificational and
communal transformations needs to be assessed carefully. The hierarchic or
complementary role of Jewish and other social identities can play a significant role in
orienting the options and choices of migrants and their families in their transition from a
previous to a new environment.
g. Especially with regard to the United States, that as noted hosts one of the most important
groups of Jewish migrants from Latin America, the question of the role that these
communities might conceivably play in the general context of the inter-group relations
between Latinos and the U.S. general society must be assessed. The growing importance
of the Latino presence, quantitatively and politically, in the U.S. renders these questions
of high relevance both for the Jewish collective and for America at large. 25
h. The Latin American Jewish presence can constitute a significant factor in the internal
dynamics of the Jewish organizational system – namely in the training and supply of
religious and civil functionaries – and in the overall complex of Jewish-non-Jewish intergroup relations.
i. Latin American Jewry developed in countries and cities that – while hosting high levels of
competence and sophistication – can nonetheless be rated as comparatively peripheral and
dependent in an overall view of the global system. Relocation to the United States and
other Western countries, and to some extent Israel, meant moving closer to the more
central locations of socioeconomic and cultural productivity and influence. This can result
in trade-offs between vastly improved personal opportunities, and a diminished rating and
image of the migrants in the eyes of the receiving majority.
j. Relocation from Latin American societies – with their still developing civic culture
related to the rule of law – mostly occurred to more participatory and public oriented
societies in the new countries. This implies a redefinition both of personal models of
citizenship, and of visibility of the collective of Jewish migrants.
k. The role of Israel in individual and collective Jewish perceptions is one central item to be
analyzed in comparative perspective. Two competing patterns in this respect are the
peculiar salience of Israel in the perceptions and identity of Latin American Jews, versus
the leading concern in the United States vis-à-vis Israel – but to some extent also vis-à-vis
Latin America – as a central target for philanthropy.
5. Methodological and Operational Aspects
The proposed project should be seen as a macro-analytic frame that may substantively
enrich and orient different aspects to be studied at a more detailed (and individual) level, from a
variety of disciplinary approaches. It may be conceived as sequential or simultaneous, over a preestablished frame of time.
The project will involve complementary disciplinary and technical approaches, and will
require quantitative and qualitative inputs. It will strive to organically incorporate local and
thematic aspects within an extended global comparative frame of reference. 26
Different approaches for study the transnational moment abroad and relocation of Latin
American Jews in specific places will be encouraged. The project will be enriched with the sociohistorical approach of migration studies, cultural and literary studies, socio-demographic,
political, anthropological, religious, institutional, media and Internet technology, and
international relations approaches.
The following methodological and operational methodology is suggested. In the first
place, a sample of major locations for investigation should be selected to create a comparative
basis for observation and interpretation. Among the higher priorities the following are signaled:
a. In Latin America the largest areas of Jewish residence are, in descending order: the
Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area (AMBA), Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro,
Montevideo, Santiago de Chile, Caracas, Cordoba, Panama City, Porto Alegre. Roughly
95 percent of the total Jewish population in Latin America live in these ten locations.
Good quantitative data exist for Jews in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and data of lesser
quality because of lack of updating exist for Venezuela, Chile, and Panama. Intensive use
and where feasible re-processing of available data should be implemented of the available
sources.
b. In addition, local Jewish population samples should be drawn in as many as possible of
these localities for a more qualitative, in-depth exploration of the impact of migration on
local Jewish community patterns. Such samples may initially exploit the available Jewish
institutional membership sources, but it is recommend to expand them by incorporating
non-members through a snow-ball technique. A reasonable sample for quantitative
processing should include at least several hundred cases and optimally over one thousand
cases in a given geographical framework. A reasonable sample for qualitative work can
include just a few tens of cases. Focus groups, aimed at illustrating a given situation or
stimulating thje formulation of new working hypotheses, can me contained to quite small
numbers, but of course they do not provide representative data.
c. Descriptive overviews should be performed of the existing knowledge about the
characteristics of Jews who have migrated from Latin America to other countries. This
may be mainly based on secondary analysis of existing sources such as international
migration statistics available for Israel and some other destination countries, mainly the 27
United States.
d. Population censuses and social surveys conducted by the Central Bureau of Statistics, the
last in 2008, provide a rich array of data on the Latin American born and their families in
Israel. In addition a comprehensive survey of Latin American Olim was conducted in
Israel during the last decade (Roniger and Babis, 2008).
e. Major Jewish population surveys like the NJPS 2001 are available for the United States,
from which the characteristics of Latin American Jewish migrants can be reconstructed at
the countrywide level.
f. For comparative purposes with the whole Argentine migrants to US, it may be useful to
check the American Community Survey, 2006. At the least this survey shows the total
stock of migrants from each of Latin American countries, while specific data on
citizenship, age, etc. are also needed. Good overall data are provided by the Observatorio
demografico CEPAL/CELADE (2006).
g. For comparative purposes, in the United States it is recommended to start research on
relocation of Latin American Jews in three different migratory areas affected by transnationalism and globalization: (a) Southern Florida, including the Greater Miami area; (b)
Southern California, including the San Diego area and the Los Angeles area; (c) The
North-East, broadly defined by the triangle Boston-Chicago-Washington DC..
h. In the U.S., different locations in the Southeastern and Southwestern states may
correspond to very distinct Jewish configurations, not only by countries of origin, but also
by socioeconomic status and ideational orientation. These nuances, too, must be assessed
on the background of ethnic and cultural differences among the broader communities of
Latinos/Hispanos.
i. Besides the aggregate data that exist for Jewish migrants to the main countries of
destination, some additional investigative effort should be devoted to migrants with
specific characteristics. A descriptive survey may be attempted of the physician and paramedical professionals as well as engineers that left their country after the U.S.
Immigration Act of 1965 greatly expanded the opportunity of migration from Latin
America. This may include not only the flow of the general Latin American “brain drain”
of academic, artists and intellectuals, but also the “nuevos pobres” among Argentine and 28
other Latin American Jews moving to the U.S.. The contextualized problem has been
researched, specially some aspect on the Argentine flight following the economic crisis in
2001 (Wilman-Navarro, Davidziuk, 2006; Novick, 2007).
j. For Spain, where no official data on Jews exist, and where the local Jewish community is
quite reluctant to be involved in high-profile research (Cytto, 2007), some help may come
from using a Distinctive Jewish Name technique in consulting Censuses and Municipal
Registers of Inhabitants and Foreign Residents (Ministerio del Interior, Estadistica de
residentes extranjeros; Ministerio de Justicia, Estadisticas de Nacionalizaciones;
Ayuntamiento Madrid, Anuario de la convivencia intercultural. Also, see Padron
Municipal de Habitantes de España 2000-2007). The data base provided by the 2001
Census is available without restrictions. However, it looks more likely that a relevant
sample of informants might be obtained through a snow-ball technique, starting with the
two main residential concentrations in Madrid and Barcelona.
k. For comparative purposes, the case of Latin America immigration to Spain since 2000 is
worth attention. The rhythm of growth of the stock of immigrants in Spain has surpasses
that in the U.S., although this is not the case in terms of the total immigrants because of
the accumulation of earlier times. This may be related to advantages in naturalization
policies followed by some European countries vis-à-vis immigrants of the same national
ancestry, versus more restrictive citizenship policies in the U.S.. Spain may now host
more people from Argentina and Uruguay that the U.S.. People from Venezuela and
especially from Bolivia and Paraguay grew more rapidly in Spain. The characteristics of
migrants to Spain and to the U.S. outline the emerging of a new migration system
involving Argentina and other South American countries toward Spain. (Maguid and
Martinez, 2009; Perez Carames, 2004).
l. The main question of interest in Spain stems from the need to overcome the basic lack of
information that has long prevailed and the quite mythical speculations that have followed
about the role of Jewish immigrants from Latin America – which significantly anticipated
over time the main inflow of general migrants and obviously primarily reflected the
geographical distribution of Jewish populations and their specific needs rather than the
general mutual connections between the Latino and Hispanic regions. An additional 29
interesting issue concerns the diversity of migration superimposed on a priori plurinational diversity of Hispanos. Castilla-Cataluña identities may interact with different
brands of Jewish identity to create a very peculiar array of Hispanic-Jewish identities
stemming from a conflictive federal pluri-national state hosting different regional,
linguistic, cultural and autonomy demands.
Some further complementary observations follow, concerning the contents orientation of
the research to be accomplished through field-work:
a. Traditional migratory studies were theoretically influenced by prevailing notions of
citizenship and identity, while the new contexts of diversity where migrants settled
demand new analytical categories. In fact, the newcomers are facing new senses of
belonging, beyond the notion of citizenship: belonging to a priori, all-embracing
collective identities, a new sense of “us”. Thus, methodologically, researchers must be
aware of this feeling of multiple belongings and identities when they elaborate structured
questionnaires for interviewing migrants (Mari, 2007).
b. Field work based on oral history for reconstruction of migration chains, social networks
and adaptation processes does not substitute but importantly complements representative
samples collected through existing lists, snow-ball, and other techniques. Interviewing
would mostly involve close questionnaires, but would also have space for open
elaboration.
c. In countries of destination such as Spain – where the assumption prevails of relatively
scarce affiliation of Latin American Jews with the existing local Jewish organizations –
and more in general with regard to the unaffiliated wherever they are, their identification
will require finding reliable informants in such general organizations as professional,
economical, cultural, sports, and academic institutions. The specific experiences of the
Sociedad Hebraica Madrid, as well as of the Asociacion de Psicologos España, deserve
scrutiny.
d. Relatively small scale pilot studies in some of the locations may precede more systematic
field work.
e. In-depth analyses of leaders, representatives of the different communities, and other
relevant informants, may require a broader reliance on open questionnaires. 30
f. Analyses of intellectuals and cultural identity role models can be complemented through
examining cultural and literary production, as well as through scrutiny of local periodicals
and newspapers.
g. Attention to the policy-planning implications of the findings at the personal and
institutional level is suggested as part of the broader interviewing.
6. Expected Products and Next Stages
The Project strives at stimulating a large amount of diverse theoretical and empirical
research distributed over a number of years. Frequent interaction between the participants in the
Project will be one of the essential features of the work. It is expected that consultations will take
place periodically in the form of research seminars and conferences. Internal research reports and
occasional papers will be circulated following progress with the Project. It is hoped that as the
result of these encounters, selected materials will be published in book format, including broad
syntheses and more specific monographic essays. The Liwerant Center intends to take an active
role in promoting and circulating such publications.
Timetables and executive budgets will be determined after a more comprehensive
discussion and evaluation of the final structure of the project.
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