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Jews have lived in Argentina for centuries, yet large Jewish populations did not appear in the country until the 19th and 20th centuries. A few Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition and Portuguese Inquisition settled in what is now Argentine territory, but they eventually assimilated into Argentine society.

Many of the Portuguese traders and smugglers in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata were widely considered Sephardic Jews, but no organized community emerged until after Argentina gained independence from Spain. After about 1810, Jews from France and other parts of Western Europe began to settle in Argentina and continued on until the mid-19th century. In the late 19th century and early decades of the 20th century, many Ashkenazi Jews arrived in Argentina from Eastern Europe, fleeing persecution; they were often called "rusos" ("Russians") by the local population. While many of them settled in major cities, many of these immigrants acquired land through the Jewish Colonization Association and established small agricultural colonies ("comunas") in the interior of the country that mimicked the shtetls of Russia and Eastern Europe, especially in the provinces of Santa Fe and Entre Ríos^[1]

Between 1906 and 1912, Jewish immigration increased at a rate of about 13,000 immigrants per year, with most from Eastern Europe but others from Morocco or the Ottoman Empire. By 1920, approximately 150,000 Jews were living in Argentina.^{[citation needed]} Subsequent waves of Jewish immigrants arrived from Germany after Hitler came to power in the 1930s and others emigrated to Argentina from Nazi-occupied Europe during the early and mid-1940s.

Jews in Argentina quickly came to play an important role in Argentine society, but were subject to episodes of antisemitism. In January 1919 in Buenos Aires, pogroms fomented by the police as a response to a general strike targeted the Jews and destroyed significant property. In the strike's aftermath civilian vigilante gangs went after agitators, claiming scores of victims, mostly Russian Jews who were falsely accused of masterminding a Communist conspiracy.^[2].

In the 1930s and 40s Argentina's manufacturing sector grew in numbers but maintaining its earlier composition of a few large companies and many smaller firms. Manufacturing was still a foreigner's occupation: in 1939 half the owners and workers of small manufacturing plants were foreigners, many of them newly arrived Jewish refugees from Central Europe.^[3]

In the early 50s Jewish immigration began to wane, while at the same time the country established ties with the state of Israel.

In the 1950s and 60s, the Tacuara Nationalist Movement, a fascist organization with political ties, began a series of anti-semitic campaigns with street fights and vandalism of synagogues and Jewish cemeteries^[4].

In the 1990s, the Jewish community was the subject of two major terrorist attacks, both of which remain unsolved: the Israeli Embassy was bombed in March 1992, killing 32 people, and in July 1994 the Jewish community center (AMIA) in Buenos Aires was bombed as well, killing 85 people and wounding over 200. During the economic crisis of 1999–2002, approximately 4400 Argentine Jews made aliyah to Israel.^[5]

Today, approximately 185,000-250,000 Jews live in Argentina, down from the widely used (but never properly documented) estimate of 500,000 in vogue during 1960-1990. Most of Argentina's Jews live in Buenos Aires and other large cities. Argentina's Jewish population is the third largest Jewish community in the Americas (after that of the United States and Canada), and the largest in Latin America (see Jewish population).

In Argentina Jews are legally granted the two days of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and the first two and last two days of Passover as legal holidays^[6].

1. ^ Argentina 1516-1987 by David Rock - Chapter V
2. ^ Argentina 1516-1987 by David Rock - Chapter V
3. ^ Argentina 1516-1987 by David Rock - Chapter VI
4. ^ (Spanish) Tacuara salió a la calle, Página/12, May 15, 2005
5. ^ http://www.ujc.org/page.html?ArticleID=32088
6. ^ http://www.edicionnacional.com/edicion/2006/4/24/articulo/25573

• Next Year in Argentina--a documentary about Jews in Argentina
• Jewish gauchos
• History of the Jews in Latin America
• Immigration to Argentina
• Andinia Plan
• Moisés Ville
• Colonia Lapin
• Colegio Tarbut
• Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina
• List of Argentine Jews

• Jewish Agency for Israel: Argentina
• Seminario Rabinico Latinoamericano (In Spanish, English Abstract)