Red Jews in Buenos Aires: Communism in the Yiddish-Speaking Worlds of Labor, 1917–1930

Abstract

From the early 20th century, the massive immigration of Jewish workers and families from Central and Eastern Europe to Argentina laid the foundations for the consolidation of an ethnic group that, within a few years, became the most significant Jewish community in Latin America. This development occurred in a context of growing urbanization and capitalist modernization. Like other contemporary metropolises, the Yiddish-speaking working-class population in Buenos Aires created its own institutions, networks, and spheres of sociability, developing unique and distinctive traits. However, much like the broader working class, leftist political cultures also played a central role in shaping the organization and struggles of the nascent Jewish proletariat. This article examines the experience of communism and the formation of the Jewish Section (Idishe Sektzie) through political and trade union press, secondary literature, and particularly the Yiddish-language party newspaper Royter Shtern. This source, though scarcely studied by historiography, is indispensable for understanding transnational social experiences fully immersed in the contradictions, tensions, and ruptures of the period, both nationally and globally.