The Jewish immigration movement to Latin America

Jewish immigration to Latin America developed in successive waves from the nineteenth century onward, blending Sephardim from the Ottoman Empire, Ashkenazim from Eastern Europe, and, later, refugees fleeing Nazism. Argentina became the principal center, with agricultural colonization projects supported by the Jewish Colonization Association of Baron de Hirsch, and Buenos Aires as the hub of an intense Yiddish cultural life, marked by the press and the theater. In the twentieth century, the country was home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the world. Other notable communities formed in Brazil, Mexico, and Uruguay. These immigrants contributed to the economic and cultural life of their host countries while maintaining diverse communal institutions.

Sources & resources

• Encyclopaedia Judaica — 2e éd., Keter/Macmillan
• Jewish Virtual Library ↗