The immigration statistics of the modern Argentine Republic, which began to be collected in 1854, did not count the Jews, as such, and there is practically no records of the first settlement of Jews there, which took place in the second half of the nineteenth century. It is related that there was a “minyan” in Buenos Ayres on Yom Kippur, 1861, which was kept up irregularly for ten years, and was composed of English, French and German Jews. During the yellow fever epidemic of 1871 almost all of them, who were agents or representatives of business houses, fled the capital, and the “minyan” in that year was held in a little town where most of them met. This little community organized a “Congregacion Israelita” and built the first synagogue, before Jews from Russia began to go there in considerable numbers. A congregation of Moroccan Jews, “Congregacion Israelita Latina,” was organized in 1891.
The report of the Jewish Colonization Association for 1909, which contains a study of the Jewish population of Argentine, estimates the number of Jews living in Buenos Ayres at 40,000, and that of the interior towns—outside of the colonies—at 15,000 more. If we add to it the number of about 20,000 living in the colonies Moiseville (Santa Fé), Clara, San Antonio, Santa Isabel, Lucienville (Entre Rios), Mauricio, Baron de Hirsch (Buenos Ayres) and Berriasconi (Pampa), in addition to the Jewish immigration for the last three years, which averages about 9,000 or 10,000, it seems certain that there are now in the Republic of Argentine over 100,000 Jews, which means a larger number than in any country of the New World outside of the United States.
About eight-tenths of the Jewish population of Buenos Ayres are from Russia. The earliest settlers among them, who are now also the wealthiest, are former colonists of the I. C. A. (as the Jewish Colonization Association of Paris is designated). The remainder is divided into about 3,000 Turkish, Arabian and Greek Jews; 1,000 Moroccans and Italians; 1,500 French, German, English and Dutch, etc. The first two groups contain many wealthy merchants, but the great majority consists of dealers in second-hand goods and of peddlers. The last group, which is the oldest, consists of merchants of the higher grades. Among the Russians there are also a large number of business people, but a very large number are artisans in various trades. As to their date of arrival, the English, French and German are the oldest, as stated above. Some Moroccan and Italian families have lived there about thirty years, but the majority of that group came in the last decade. The earliest Turkish Jews came there less than fifteen years ago, but the great majority of them came about 1905. The Russians began to come in considerable numbers about the time of the establishment of the first colonies, and they still keep on coming in increasing numbers.
There are in Buenos Ayres about one hundred Jews engaged in the liberal professions, two-thirds of whom are natives of Russia. The communal institutions leave much to be desired, but there has been some improvement lately, and it is reported that a large Jewish hospital will be erected there in the near future. The religious conditions are indicated by the fact that about 7,000 kilograms of “Kosher” meat was sold there daily in 1909, and that on Yom Kippur of that year services were held in not less than twenty-four different places, including the temple. M. Samuel Halphen, a former religious teacher, was lately chosen rabbi of Buenos Ayres, while Dr. Herbert Ashkenazi, who studied at Berlin, and was chosen by the I. C. A. as chief rabbi of the colonies, also resides in that city.
The Jews are now scattered all over Argentine, and some can be found in almost any locality, especially in the provinces of Buenos Ayres, Santa Fé, Entre Rios and Cordoba. The above-mentioned inquiry[60] deals with the Jewish population of twenty-six cities besides the capital, beginning with Rosario, Santa Fé. which has among its 173,000 inhabitants more than 3,000 Jews, 2,500 are Russians, 359 Orientals and Moroccans and about 100 French and Germans. The cemetery was acquired in 1905 and the congregation was organized in 1907. In Santa Fé, which has less than 600 Jews, the Moroccans bought a cemetery as early as 1895. Parona has a small community of less than 300, with a Sociedad Israelita Argentina de Beneficencia, which was founded in 1897. But most of the communal institutions and the communities themselves are less than ten years old, which means that Jews are just beginning to spread over the country. A majority of the Jews in the interior towns of Argentine are former colonists, and most of them are doing tolerably well. Their presence in a free and progressive country, where they can be useful to themselves and to their neighbors, must therefore be credited to the I. C. A. which has thus accomplished some good, even for those whom it could not, for various reasons, turn into successful farmers.
The largest share of attention was, however, paid in the last two decades to that part of the Jewish population of Argentine which has settled in the agricultural colonies established by the I. C. A. As early as 1889 independent attempts had been made by Jewish immigrants from Russia to establish colonies in Argentine, but it was not done on a well-ordered plan, and later these colonies and colonists were absorbed by the Jewish Colonization Association. The oldest and most successful colony, Moiseville, founded by Russian immigrants in 1890, before the establishment of the I. C. A. was re-organized by that association in 1891. Mauricio, in the province of Buenos Ayres, was established about the same time, and the large group of colonies in the province of Entre Rios, which is collectively called Clara (after the Baroness de Hirsch), was founded in 1894. Despite the friction which caused many colonists at considerable expense, to leave the places where they were settled, and despite the prejudice which was aroused against the entire colonization scheme by these seemingly interminable quarrels, the agricultural colonies in Argentine, as a whole, are successful and their future is bright. The colonists are fast paying off their debts to the association which assisted them to settle there, and many of them are even chafing under the limitations which prevent them from paying off more rapidly. The centers of Jewish population, both agricultural and—indirectly—urban, which were thus artificially created by the munificence of Baron de Hirsch, have become healthy and natural, and are now attracting independent immigration. There are now, as stated above, nearly 20,000 souls in the colonies, but more than a fourth are described as non-colonists. There are 44 schools with more than 3,000 pupils in the colonies, and the statistical tables from year to year show a slow and solid progress, which augurs well for the future of the Jews in Argentine.
There were, as far as known, but very few Jews in modern Brazil, even under the humane and scholarly Emperor Dom Pedro II. (1825–91), who was well versed in Hebrew, and maintained friendly relations with several Jewish scholars in Europe. The immense country attracted but few Jews after the Emperor was deposed and a republican form of government instituted in 1889. There were some rumors at that time that General Floriano Peixotto, one of the leaders of the revolution, who was the first Vice-President and the second President (1891–94) of the new republic, was of Jewish origin. But like the statements about the Jewish ancestry of Christopher Columbus and many other notables, they could never be verified, and there is not available sufficient genealogical material in either case to prove or disprove assertions of that nature.
In 1900 a number of Roumanian Jews went to Brazil, but effected no permanent settlement. A list of the leading merchants of the various cities in Brazil, which was published by the Bureau of American Republics about 1901, discloses a large number of names unmistakably Jewish, most of them apparently of German origin (Jewish Encyclopedia, s. v. Brazil). The formation of a Jewish community in Rio de Janeiro, the capital of Brazil, was reported in January, 1905 (in the South American Journal of London), and a report in the Jewish Emigrant of St. Petersburg, the Russian organ of the I. C. A., five years later (1910, No. 20), tells of Jewish merchants in many large cities of Brazil, including Rio Grande, Pelatas, Sao Gabriel, etc., and of Porto Alegra, Rio Grande do Sul, where a community was then about to be organized. The existence of a synagogue in Para, “where they worship on the festivals,” was reported in 1910. (Jewish Chronicle, Oct. 21, 1910.)
The chief interest of the Jewish world in the Jews of Brazil is, however, concentrated on the agricultural colony, Philippson, in the state of Rio Grande, where there are now settled about 400 Russian Jews, mostly from Bessarabia. It was founded by the I. C. A. about six years ago, and is now under the direction of M. Leibowitz, one of its former oldest employees in Argentine. The colony is in a flourishing condition, and it is being constantly enlarged, while new settlements are projected in the same part of the country. Here, too, like in Argentine, the colony attracts some Jewish immigration, and it was also the cause of the establishment of small Jewish settlements in the nearby towns of Pinhal, Santa Maria, Cruz Alta, etc. The number of Jews in Brazil is now estimated at 3,000.