Two Homelands and a Two Way Street: Argentine Immigrants to and Returnees from Israel between 1967-1978

• In Event: Negotiating the Limits of the Zionist Collective

Abstract

This paper is part of a research that focuses on transnational Jewish identities and Israel-Diaspora relations. It targets Jewish-Argentines who immigrated to Israel between 1960 and 2005 and subsequently returned to Argentina. At last years’ conference, I elaborated on Argentine returnees during 1966. Then, the main reason for return was the Israeli economic recession. The current paper is a continuation of the previous one and it is based on several archives’ documents and interviews.
The period 1967-1978 is rich in historical events and processes that shaped the Israeli and Argentine society. It allows to study different streams of immigration and return. First, the return to Israel of Argentines that had previously lived there was steady since the Six Day War until the first yeas of the 1970’s, when the Latin American country suffered economic reversals. Conversely, in 1973 the return of Juan Domingo Peron to Argentina, after his forced exile, inaugurated a period of national hopes while the Yom Kippur War generated a deep crisis of long-term consequences for the Israelis. Immigration to Israel decreased and emigration raised in a context of economic recession and national trauma. These two different contexts made Argentina more attractive for many Argentine new immigrants in Israel who decided to return to their Latin American homeland.
Dramatic changes took place again. While Israel continued through a slow process of recovery, Argentina’s hopes fell into a spiral of violence and a genocidal military dictatorship begun in 1976. Emigration of Argentine Jews to Israel raised again and a special absorption committee was established in 1978. However, as it happened in 1966, Zionist and Israeli leaders were disappointed: even under military terror, the quantity of Argentine Jews arriving in Israel was not as large as expected. My research demonstrates that certain percentage of the migrants were prone to repeat the migration cycle. People in vulnerable economic situations that had already lived in Israel used emigration again as a strategy to face their difficulties. In addition, new immigrants were ready to return to Argentina from Israel even during the dark years of dictatorship when other reasons prevailed.

Author

• Adrian Krupnik, Tel Aviv University