The Invention of the Jewish Gaucho

<p>By the mid-twentieth century Eastern European Jews had become one of Argentina's largest minorities. Some represented a wave of immigration begun two generations before; many settled in the province of Entre Ríos and founded an agricultural colony. Taking its title from the resulting hybrid of acculturation <i>The Invention of the Jewish Gaucho</i> examines the lives of these settlers who represented a merger between native cowboy identities and homeland memories.</p> <p>The arrival of these immigrants in what would be the village of Villa Clara coincided with the nation's new sense of liberated nationhood. In a meticulous rendition of Villa Clara's social history Judith Freidenberg interweaves ethnographic and historical information to understand the saga of European immigrants drawn by Argentine open-door policies in the nineteenth century and its impact on the current transformation of immigration into multicultural discourses in the twenty-first century. Using Villa Clara as a case study Freidenberg demonstrates the broad power of political processes in the construction of ethnic class and national identities. <i>The Invention of the Jewish Gaucho</i> draws on life histories archives material culture and performances of heritage to enhance our understanding of a singular population-and to transform our approach to social memory itself.</p>