I arrived in Buenos Aires on a balmy spring morn­ing, greet­ed by sheets of white-gold sun­light. The air was burst­ing with the scent of vibrant jacaran­da blooms. I’d trav­eled there for a con­fer­ence, with the aim of con­nect­ing with Buenos Aires-based Jew­ish writ­ers and orga­ni­za­tions, and learn­ing more about the Jew­ish lit­er­ary land­scape in Latin Amer­i­ca as a whole. But this expe­ri­ence already felt more like an adven­ture than it did mere research; the shift from a drea­ry New York Novem­ber to the warmth and bright­ness of the streets of Buenos Aires filled me with a sense of ease, sooth­ing the anx­i­ety that had been build­ing up over the ten hour-long flight. The city felt instant­ly familiar. 

I was greet­ed by Javier, a kind Jew­ish cab dri­ver who drove me into the city to meet up with my friends — also writ­ers — who were to be my hosts for the week. Javier and I spoke in a hes­i­tant mix of Span­ish and Eng­lish, mut­ter­ing apolo­gies to each oth­er. But I still man­aged to chat with him about his family’s his­to­ry. While they were orig­i­nal­ly from Europe, his fam­i­ly had lived in Buenos Aires for gen­er­a­tions, he said proud­ly over the chat­ter of the radio. I thought of my own fam­i­ly, who have resided in New York and Wis­con­sin for at least a cen­tu­ry after immi­grat­ing from Poland, Latvia, Ukraine, and Bessara­bia. Maybe my fam­i­ly and Javier’s fam­i­ly knew each oth­er, once, but chose dif­fer­ent paths out of Europe. I leaned back in my seat, watch­ing the city roll by, and con­sid­ered the jour­neys we all take to find what will even­tu­al­ly become home. 

Javier’s was only the first Jew­ish sto­ry I heard dur­ing my week in Argenti­na. I spent my time con­nect­ing with mem­bers of Buenos Aires’ Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty — the sixth largest in the world — while explor­ing the cre­ative past and present of the city. A mag­nif­i­cent the­ater-turned-book­store, lit­er­ary exhibits and dis­plays, and a pri­vate tour of Fun­dación IWO, Argentina’s equiv­a­lent to the archives at YIVO, filled my days. Jew­ish life is effort­less­ly inte­grat­ed into the bustling Buenos Aires cul­tur­al scene: syn­a­gogues, muse­ums, and oth­er his­toric insti­tu­tions can be found across the city. Between meet­ings and find­ing my way around, I start­ed to get a feel for the his­to­ry and cul­ture that per­me­at­ed each dwelling on each street. The Jew­ish lit­er­ary com­mu­ni­ty of Buenos Aires, I learned, is close-knit, pas­sion­ate, and gen­er­ous; every­one I met sug­gest­ed oth­er intro­duc­tions they could make for me, places I should vis­it to sup­ple­ment my find­ings, authors I should read if I want­ed to engage fur­ther with Jew­ish Argen­tine lit­er­a­ture. I felt com­fort­able even in the dis­com­fort of speak­ing a very slow-paced and bro­ken Span­ish — even in try­ing to fol­low rapid con­ver­sa­tions and catch onto jokes — because every­body made sure that I felt welcome.

I also had the incred­i­ble oppor­tu­ni­ty to vis­it the US embassy with a cohort of near­ly fifty Argen­tine writ­ers to cel­e­brate and dis­cuss the boom of Latin Amer­i­can lit­er­a­ture in the Unit­ed States. I walked into the embassy with my Jew­ish Book Coun­cil tote bag rest­ing on my shoul­der, heavy with books, fly­ers, and ​“Ask me what I’m read­ing” pins, and lis­tened to the live­ly con­ver­sa­tion between authors, pub­lish­ers, edu­ca­tors, and lit­er­ary influ­encers. Emerg­ing and sea­soned writ­ers all gath­ered togeth­er and talked like old friends. It was clear from my con­ver­sa­tions that many of them want­ed more inter­na­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion; indeed, all the writ­ers I met dur­ing my trip expressed the hope that their sto­ries would reach a wider audi­ence through the even­tu­al trans­la­tion of their books into Eng­lish, as the major­i­ty of the world’s Jews do not live in Span­ish-speak­ing coun­tries. I thought about lan­guage as an access point to con­nec­tion, which feels more impor­tant than ever in a moment where uni­ty often feels out of reach. Sto­ries are our bridge to find­ing each oth­er; to dis­cov­er­ing com­mu­ni­ty in places we might not expect, our shared iden­ti­ty tran­scend­ing bor­ders, lan­guage bar­ri­ers, and experiences. 

Six days was not near­ly enough to take in the breadth of Jew­ish Argen­tine sto­ries that are out there, chron­i­cling a dynam­ic and diverse — but often less­er-known — branch of the Jew­ish dias­po­ra. Argen­tine Jews come from all over the world, encom­pass­ing Mizrahi, Sephardic, and Ashke­nazi sto­ries, and beyond. The writ­ers and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers I met helped instill in me the desire to learn more about the his­to­ry of Jews in Argenti­na and the expe­ri­ence of those there today.

For me, I always begin with books. The home of the Jew­ish peo­ple is the belong­ing that we find in each oth­ers’ sto­ries. Here are some rec­om­men­da­tions for books (both in Eng­lish and Span­ish!) writ­ten by Jew­ish Argen­tine authors. 

The Mur­ders of Moisés Ville: The Rise and Fall of the Jerusalem of South Amer­i­ca (Los crimenes de Moi­ses Ville ) by Javier Sinay 

Después de las 09:53 by Javier Sinay

Salt (La Sal ) by Adri­ana Riva 

Ruth by Adri­ana Riva 

Cues­ta aba­jo by Jua­na Libedin­sky (Eng­lish trans­la­tion forth­com­ing Fall 2025!)

Barul­lo by Vale­ria Groisman 

Anti­semitismo: Definir para Com­bat­ir by Ariel Gelblung

Con­fes­sion (Con­fe­sión) by Martín Kohan

The End of Love: Sex and Desire in the 21st Cen­tu­ry (El fin de amor: quer­er y coger en el siglo XXI ) by Tama­ra Tenenbaum 

Jew­ish Lit­er­ary Resources in Argentina

Fun­dación IWO: Yid­dish lan­guage his­to­ry, lit­er­a­ture, and resources in Argentina.

Cen­tro Simon Wiesen­thal: The Latin Amer­i­can office of the Simon Wiesen­thal Cen­ter, a glob­al human rights activist orga­ni­za­tion that edu­cates about anti­semitism, the Holo­caust, and Jew­ish life. 

Limud BA: The Buenos Aires branch of Lim­mud, a glob­al orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to pro­mot­ing Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty through resources and events. 

CIDIC­SEF: The Sephardic cul­tur­al insti­tu­tion in Buenos Aires.