TLDR: To sum this all up, the reason Jews settled in Argentina was because of the Jewish Colonization Association that set up a Jewish colony in the country. It was a way for Jews, initially, to flee from Russia. As WWII was ramping up, the JCA continued to help Jews flee from Europe, and Argentina was one of the places they went. But it became increasingly difficult for that to happen as the war waged on, and shortly after the war ended, it became clear that the Jewish colony in Argentina wouldn’t last much longer because of the antisemitism that was occurring, and because of government policies.
Jews settling in Argentina goes back to the Jewish expulsion from Spain. Since many were traders, they would work with the Portuguese, and Argentina was one of the destinations. But most of these Jews would assimilate into the general populace, so by the time of the Jewish Gauchos, there wasn’t a definite Jewish community there. A great overview of all of this can be found on the Jewish Virtual Library. The history on the site is pretty mainstream, but there is somewhat of a bias as they promote the resettlement of Israel by Jews. So they do lean towards that on some items, but the overall history is quite secure.
Now I mention the above simply because the Jewish presence in Argentina is quite old. But it wasn’t until 1891 that the settling in Argentina really had a foundation.
On September 11, 1891, the Jewish Colonization Association was formed by Baron Maurice de Hirsch. This guy is simply fascinating. Just a bit of an overview on Hirsch. He started out as a banker, and made a fortune with the banking house of Bischoffsheim and Goldenschmidt out of their Brussels office. He then used this fortune to purchase and operate railway concessions in Austria, Turkey, and the Balkans. He then went on to make additional money through speculations on sugar and copper. He would become one of the wealthiest men of the 19th century.
He was also married to a woman named Clara Bischoffsheim, who was the daughter of one of the bank’s owners. A good book on Hirsch is Turkenhirsch: A Study of Baron Maurice De Hirsch. As I said, he is a fascinating character. A book that focuses more on his philanthropy is Moses of the New World: The Work of Baron de Hirsch by Samuel J Lee.
As mentioned, in 1891, Hirsch established the Jewish Colonization Association. Before that, Hirsch was already working with Jews being persecuted in Russia. In 1882, there was a movement to give funds for the repatriation of Jewish refugees in Russia. He gave 10,000 pounds. But he felt the funds raised were not enough. So he offered the Russian Government 2 million pounds as an endowment for an education system to be established in the Jewish Pale of Settlement in Russia. Russia accepted, but didn’t want any foreigners involved.
So instead, Hirsch wanted to use that money to help make emigration possible for those Jews being persecuted, and have them settle in agricultural communities. With that goal, he created the Jewish Colonization Association and, in 1892, raised the organization’s capital to 7 million pounds; in 1899, when his wife died, it rose to 11 million pounds. At the time, this fund was probably the largest charitable trust in the world.
Basically, how this organization operated, or how they created new colonies, was that they would buy up large swaths of land. The colony in Argentina really started to form in 1889. Dr. W Lowenthal had visited Argentina, and when he returned to Europe, he suggested to Hirsch that it would be a great place for a colony. On August 20, 1890, a conference was held, and a commission was established to visit the area. Six months later, a good report was submitted, and plans to purchase the land and set up the colony were set in motion.
It was supposed to take a year to set up the colony, but in May of 1891, Russian persecution forced masses of Jews to leave the country. So Hirsch decided to send a small selection of Jews over to Argentina to begin the settlement. For the next year or so, the colony was in turmoil. There were too many people to settle, and the staff had no idea what they were doing, so turnover was common.
As the new settlers got on their feet though, additional ones were sent. During this time, Hirsch passed away and left another 6 million pounds to the organization he had founded, which helped expand the areas where colonies could be established. For a full overview and history of the association, a great place to start is An Outstretched Arm: A History of the Jewish Colonization Association.
Going into the Second World War, things began to take a downturn for the Jewish Colonization Association. As the Germans continued to advance, the JCA had to keep moving. While their official address was in London, communication couldn’t really happen because France was under Nazi Occupation and, according to British regulations, was an enemy country. So communication and the transfer of money were prohibited. Many JCA administrators went to the Americas, making things more difficult.
This only complicated the issues that were already on the rise for the last few decades. Immigration rules were beginning to tighten in Argentina. Starting in 1930, those rules became more stringent, and fares to South America generally went up. So in 1930, a major push was made to have Jews leave before the year was up. That year alone, around 7800 Jews (largely from Poland) made the move to Argentina.
But what they found wasn’t all that good. Crops had been bad, and prices were low. Unemployment was rising, and the government would ultimately ask the JCA to stop helping immigrants.
The economy continued to falter. In 1932, for the first time since the colony was set up, more Jews had left the country than entered. And it wasn’t just Jews leaving the country. That trend was for everyone. The JCA’s funds, in general, were hit hard as well by the Great Depression.
In the middle of this, Hitler took power in 1933, and the impact on the JCA was massive. By the 1920s, Poland was a major place where Jews were immigrating from. It was clear they had no place in the country. But with Hitler, it became clear that in Germany, and any German-occupied land, Jews weren’t welcome. And it was a life-and-death situation. It was clear that a Jewish exodus would occur, especially as the decade progressed.
So desperate was the JCA that they started looking anywhere they could. A big payoff was Spain, so it all comes full circle. The country still had a lot of antisemitism, but the persecution was less. But in 1936, that all went downhill with the outbreak of Franco’s revolt, which forced Jews to flee from there as well.
There were still immigrants to Argentina, though, but the number was declining quite quickly. The big place was Palestine, where tens of thousands of Jews were moving to.
The JCA continued sending Jews all over, including Argentina during the 30s, but it was becoming more and more difficult. In 1936, which was a high year, 7,700 Jews were admitted to Argentina and Brazil (combined). But new restrictions were again being placed on those countries regarding immigration.
Moving into the 1940s, the JCA became scattered, but they continued to do their best, though it was with many difficulties. At the same time, Argentina became even more unstable. In 1943, Juan Peron seized power, and in 1946, he was elected President. Peron decided to lower the price that the government paid for crops, even though they still sold them elsewhere at the standard value. This meant farmers, many of whom were Jews, simply couldn’t make it. The first to leave the farms were the Jewish women, and young men then had no real option to find a suitable mate. So they also left the farms and moved to the urban areas where the women had moved.
More and more farms became empty, and the largely rural colonies began to collapse. In 1950, the JCA moved to start selling some of the land to Jewish colonists, and the goal was to keep it in Jewish hands. By that time, it was clear that there was no longer such a high demand to immigrate because of the Holocaust. It became clear that the revival of a Jewish colony in Argentina just wasn’t going to happen. Coupled with the rise of antisemitism in the area, and the upheavals in the government, Argentina was not an attractive place for Jews. In 1958, the mission there was basically done.