Alberto Gerchunoff (1884–1950)

This charming little book, which I learned about from the Reading Globally theme read on Argentina, looks at a group of Jewish immigrants from Russia to Argentina in the late 19th century. The individual chapters focus on the members of the farming community and their interactions with each other and with the local gauchos. Sponsored by the Baron de Hirsch, this and other similar communities were looked at as a kind of Promised Land, after the pogroms of Europe. I found the stories subtle, moving, and a look at an unusual and little-known page of Jewish history.… (meer)