Transnational Urban Experiences in the Global South: The Formation of the Jewish Working Class, Labor Worlds, and Left Political Cultures in Early-Twentieth-Century Buenos Aires (1890-1930)

WALTER L. KOPPMANN

Mainz

Encuentro; Network Meeting of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; 2023

Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung

This project will examine the history of the Jewish working-class migration to Buenos Aires beginning at the end of the nineteenth century. Beyond Eastern Europe, the two main destinations were New York and Buenos Aires. While existing studies have focused on the American Yiddish labor movement, the history of the early Jewish labor migration to Argentina still lacks scholarly research. My main goal is to study the formation of the Jewish working class, its relationship with left political cultures, and the forms of transnational urban experience in the context of capitalist modernization.In 1914, Jews in Buenos Aires were the third largest group of immigrants, behind Italians and Spaniards, and the largest Jewish community in Latin America. Although their national composition varied, yiddishkayt functioned as a common cultural background, connecting social practices and historical memories from different parts of the world. Therefore, it is possible to study the national case within a transnational scope. Moreover, the availability of primary sources that have been almost unexplored provides an original empirical basis, contributing also to the preservation of Jewish historical memory. The main question of this research could be summarized as follows: what was unique or peculiar about the Jewish working-class experience in twentieth-century Buenos Aires?