Touring Buenos Aires

My quick orientation to Buenos Aires included a Wednesday afternoon tour of the Plaza Major (historic downtown), an all day bike tour of the city on Thursday, a Saturday morning walking tour of the upper class neighborhoods, and a Sunday morning walking tour of my decidedly not upper class neighborhood - San Telmo.  The highlight, however, turned out to be the all day tour I took on Friday of Jewish Buenos Aires.

The tour seemed a bit mysterious to me.  There was no central meeting point; instead, I was to be picked up at my apartment.  Hmmm.  I confirmed the pickup with the guide, Ernesto Yattah, and he dutifully arrived at 10 in a taxi - a slightly schlumpy man of about sixty in blue slacks and a blue polo shirt.   I got in the taxi with him and we returned to the Plaza Major.  It turned out that there was supposed to be another couple with us but they had canceled.  Needless to say, I was not the least bit disappointed to have a private guide for a day.

Before beginning the tour, Ernesto suggested that we tell each other about ourselves.  I’m not good at elevator talks, but I tried to give my background in a few minutes.  Then he told me his which I found far more interesting.  Ernesto was the youngest of five children in a non-religious Syrian Jewish family that had left Syria, I believe, in the 1930’s.  After one’s bar mitzvah in Buenos Aires, a boy is expected to lay tefillin for a month.  Ernesto did so and was so moved that he continued to pray daily, much to his parents’ disappointment.  They then sent him to the top high school in Buenos Aires, which is very Christian.  He excelled at school, but did not lose his fire for Judaism and decided to become a rabbi.

After high school, Ernesto went to Bar Ilan University in Israel and wanted to stay.  He told his parents he would not leave Israel unless they came to get him.  So they did.  I’m unclear of the transition here, but he ended up in New York where he attended Columbia and JTS (Jewish Theological Seminary), fulfilling his goal of becoming a rabbi.

Good side story:  The high school Ernesto attended in Buenos Aires has an extra year so graduates usually entered college with a year of college credit.  Ernesto lost this benefit when he went to Bar Ilan and then Columbia, but when he arrived at the latter, he heard about AP credit.  So he went to the dean and asked to have his advanced high school classes accepted for college credit.  Besides, he spoke English, Spanish, and Hebrew fluently and was versed in a few other languages.  The dean laughed at him.  AP credit for high school in South America!!! Who are you kidding?  But the dean told him to go to the various department heads and see if he could test out of some classes.  He started with the math department, took a test, and received 9 credits (three classes).  Next the physics department - 9 credits.  In chemistry, only 6 credits (he said he wasn’t as strong in chemistry.)  At the end of the day, after visiting several other departments, Ernesto had 36 credits - an entire year’s worth.

After graduating from Columbia and receiving smicha from JTS, Ernesto took a position in Houston, as the second rabbi at the largest Conservative synagogue in the US.  He stayed there for many years.  Again, I can’t remember the number of years or the transition, but eventually, he decided to return to Buenos Aires but not to a pulpit.  In part, because the lifestyle is so difficult.  But also, he came up with the idea of offering tours of Jewish Buenos Aires.  Look, he said, when I was a pulpit rabbi, no matter how brilliant my sermon was, after ten minutes everyone started looking at their watches and saying, time to wrap up now.  As a tour guide, people want me to talk to them, and I can go into depth to explain things.  I can attest that he lectured to me for over five hours and I never looked at my watch once.

And last detail … Ernesto is a tour guide in the summer, which of course it is now.  During the academic year he is busy with his day job - dean of the rabbinic school in Buenos Aires.  He is also involved in international ecumenical work and showed me his picture with Pope Francis last year.

Did I stumble onto the perfect guide for me?

I can’t do justice to Argentine and Jewish Argentine history in this post.  Buenos Aires was founded twice.  The original settlors in 1536 did not survive, many succumbing (literally) to the local cannibal tribes.  The second settlement in 1580 was successful, and Ernesto attributed much of the commercial success to Portuguese crypto-Jews.  When he first mentioned crypto-Jews I politely informed him that I thought they were more myth than reality.  He asked me why I thought that, and I gave him two cogent reasons.  He, equally politely, accepted those reasons, and then over the course of the next hour explained the specifics of Portuguese crypto-Jews in Argentina.  I’m still skeptical about Spanish crypto-Jews, but I’m sold completely on his theory and explanations.

Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi
The Franciscans aided the crypto-Jews

The anomalous Greek temple facade of the Cathedral of Buenos Aires

Inside is a memorial to the Holocaust

The crypto-Jews, of course, left little documentary evidence and did eventually disappear from history.  The story of modern Argentine Jews is very similar to the US experience that I know well:  German Jews beginning around 1860 and Eastern Europeans starting in the 1880’s.  Living in the Buenos Aires equivalent of the Lower East Side, with the children moving uptown to better neighborhoods.

The recent history of the Jews in Buenos Aires was marred by the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in 1992 and the bombing of the Jewish Community Center (AMIA) in 1994. We visited the latter site and had a fascinating discussion (well, mostly Ernesto talked and I listened) about whodunnit. No one has ever claimed "responsibility" and the two most likely perpetrators are the Syrian government and the Iranian government. Fascinating political background.

It does appear to me that Buenos Aires is the most melting pot place I have ever been.  While the Spanish were the first settlors and established the language, there was open immigration for years that attracted not only Jews but Italians (half the immigrants) British, Scots, and a host of others - primarily European.  There was a genocide of the native population and much racial intermarriage, so everyone looks vaguely European, but not from a specific country.  Unlike in Mexico, I do not stand out here.

Thanks to the huge Italian immigration, Italian names are common here.  Maradona?  Messi?  These are not Spanish names.  Also, the Argentinian accent (in Spanish) sounds a lot like Italian; the Argentinians talk loud and throw their hands around a lot. Somewhat bizarrely, Argentina was part of the British Empire for 46 days after a British invasion in 1806.  They could have joined the English speaking world.  Argentina was an economic powerhouse from 1860 to 1930 and, for a while, it was not clear which Western Hemisphere country would become a world superpower.  Sadly, bad government and horrendous economic policies have turned Argentina into a third world country.  But with a first world population.