Between familiarity and strangeness: Russian Jews in Josep Sabah’s letters from the coast of Entre Ríos

Abstract

This article analyzes the correspondence exchanged between Josep Sabah, a teacher originally from the Ottoman Empire, and the leaders of the Alliance Israélite Universelle and the Jewish Colonization Association, institutions that had sent him to Argentina to found a network of Jewish schools in several towns in the province of Entre Ríos, from 1894 to 1922. In the first place, we focus on the contradictory ways through which this cultured Jew, educated in French and Sephardic schools, represents the new settlers sent from Russia to Argentina by the Jewish Colonization Association. Second, we focus on the self-rendering of this teacher in his letters, and on the tensions between the expectations of his employers, the demands of the settlers and the gradual disenchantment with the conditions of life in his adopted country.