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This paper addresses the current rise in acceptability and legitimacy of and participation in Chabad-Lubavitch by non-Orthodox Argentine Jews, both in Argentina and abroad. The study draws on ethnographic and qualitative interview data among three groups of Argentine Jews: those who live in the USA, those who have lived abroad but repatriated to Argentina, and frequent travelers between Argentina and other countries. The study places the migrants (permanent, transitory, or return) at the heart of the analysis and examines ways in which information about Chabad is shared among transnational networks. The result is greater attendance at Chabad enters and a rise in acceptability of the Chabad-Lubavitch, leading to an enlarged network of participants within the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, both at the center and at the margin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we use five complementary conceptual perspectives to describe, contextualize and explain the work and accomplishments of Rabbi Marshall Meyer (1930–1993), a dynamic American expatriate and educator, public intellectual and human rights activist in Argentina, from the 1960s to the 1980s. They are as follows: internationalism and transnationalism as a trademark of Judaism; the religious mutation of Latin America; exiles and expatriates as innovators of knowledge and agents of transculturation; the supply side of religion and the religious entrepreneur; and personal characteristics and attributes of leadership. Specifically, we analyze some mechanisms that help to explain his impact in Jewish life first in Latin America, and then in the USA, like mediation, transculturalization; the place of hybridization in the development of a Jewish liberation theology; the creation of new human resources through the establishment of the Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano as a new center for the circulation of new ideas and leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the challenges and problems faced by Jewish communities in Argentina. They are composed of varied groups, with Jews of East Europe being referred to as Rusos and Sephardim from Arab countries as Turcos. As late as 1960, 55% of the total Argentine population was either immigrant or at most fourth generation native-born. Although a Spanish colony until the 1820s, for the past 100 years Argentina's people have largely been descendants of Italian and Spanish immigrants. The shift to its present population composition began after 1852 when the nation opened its doors to immigration. The immigrants faced the problems of a low standard of living and loose moral standard. The arrivals regarded their cultural standards as higher than those of their non-Jewish neighbors. The lack of contact with an ambience and people that could tempt newcomers to abandon its ethnicity encouraged the newcomers to create their own ethnic institutions. Jews thus became a minority and were excluded, or they excluded themselves from participation in many areas of Argentina life, such as judiciary, the diplomatic field and the armed forces. The survival of Judaism, as conceded by all conversant with Argentina Jewry has become a major problem. There is continued growing disinterest in Judaism, anti-Semitism and the extreme apathy of the third and fourth generations.