Losers and Keepers in Argentina

Book excerpt: Rifke Schulman, a Russian Jew, came to Argentina in 1889 at the age of eighteen and helped set up the small agricultural colony called Moises Ville. Rifke's journal and the accompanying short stories introduce Bela Pelatnik, a victim of the white slave trade; Henoch Rosenvitch, the love of Rifke's life; Leah Uberman on her way to attend Moises Ville's centennial celebration; and many others. The book spans the last hundred years and examines the experience of Jewish immigrants in both North and South America, some of whom were nourished by their roots, others who severed their ties to an old way of life. In looking at the choices they all made, the ways they found love or shut themselves off from it, Nina Barragan offers a moving and multidimensional portrait of early twentieth-century Argentina and its contemporary descendants.