Those Bookish Jews: Welcoming the 1936 Pen to Buenos Aires

MÓNICA SZURMUK; FERNANDO DEGIOVANNI

Düsseldorf

Congreso; Modern Language Association International Symposium; 2016

Modern Language Association of America

In his account of the meeting of the 1936 Pen Clubs in Buenos Aires, Manuel Gálvez, founder of Argentinean affiliate, reflects on the ?bookishness? of Jews. Gálvez is tickled that the representative from Palestine has read him in Yiddish translation, yet he regrets that most attending writers were ?Jewish and minor? and that the standing-room only meetings of the Congress were mainly attended by Jews. These comments represent an eschewed yet bizarrely accurate take on the Congress, and also on the diversity available in Buenos Aires culture in 1936. Jewish organizations went all out to welcome the participants and showcase both the inclusion of Jews in mainstream culture as academics, editors and writers, and the wealth of cultural experiences defined as ?Jewish? and which included dozens self-proclaimed Jewish periodical publications in seven different languages. The consistent and often seamless crossovers between Jewish culture and mainstream culture define Jewish-Argentinean lettered culture at the time. The most important non-Jewish Spanish-language writers published in Jewish publications either in Spanish or in Yiddish translation, mainstream newspapers covered Yiddish theater, and reviewed books in Yiddish. In this paper I treat the 1936 as a pivotal moment in these crossovers. I claim that like the 1925 visit by Albert Einstein, and the 1927 celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the publication of Heine?s Buch der Lieder, the congress provided an occasion for the Jews of Buenos Aires to display themselves at the heart of European culture, while at the same time highlighting its limitations, and revealing its dark.