Jewish Identity in Contemporary Argentine Literature: Memory, Diaspora, and Cultural Continuity

• In Event: Crossing Continents: Jewish Experiences and Identities in Latin America and Oceania

Abstract

This presentation analyzes the literary contributions of Argentine Jewish authors from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, focusing on how their works represent, question, and reconstruct Jewish identity within the Argentine sociopolitical context. Highlighting authors such as Manuela Fingueret, Ricardo Feierstein, Ana María Shua, Marcelo Birmajer, and Tamara Tenenbaum, the study explores how Jewishness is expressed amid Argentina’s multicultural landscape and turbulent history.
Feierstein’s Mestizo blends autobiography, fiction, and philosophical reflection to explore Jewish memory and cultural identity, confronting both Holocaust legacies and the lived experience of Jewish life in Argentina. Shua’s The Book of Memories intertwines family and tradition with historical trauma, emphasizing the everyday endurance of Jewish identity. Fingueret’s Daughter of Silence brings attention to Jewish women’s voices and examines the intergenerational impact of both the Holocaust and Argentina’s Dirty War, revealing complex intersections of gender, trauma, and tradition.
Contemporary writers continue these explorations in new ways. Birmajer’s Three Musketeers uses humor and reflection to examine Jewish life’s balance between assimilation and cultural continuity, while also engaging with Argentine Jews' connection to Israel. Tenenbaum’s The End of Love and her essays investigate inherited Jewish identity through the lenses of secularism, feminism, and generational change.
Overall, the presentation illustrates how these authors navigate the tensions between memory and modernity, visibility and marginalization, contributing to a richer, more inclusive narrative of Jewish life in Argentine literature. Their work affirms the evolving, dynamic nature of Jewish identity in the diaspora.

Author

• Daniela Goldfine, University of Wisconsin, River Falls