Sephardi Solidarity and its Global Hierarchies: Cross-Diaspora Networks Between Israel and Argentina, 1948-1951

• In Event: Multilayered Israel-Diaspora Relations: a Sephardi-Mizrahi Lens

Abstract

Elie Eliachar, leader of the Sephardic community in Jerusalem and editor of Sephardi newspaper Hed Ha-Mizrah, visited Argentina in 1948, right before the creation of the State. Eliachar ostensibly came to Buenos Aires seeking financial support for poor Sephardim in Jerusalem, for the Alliance Israelite Universèlle school there, and to aid Sephardim in “Arab countries,” as part of a campaign that included visits to Sephardic communities in Paris, London, and the United States. Most importantly, however, he fought for the reorganization of the Sephardic communities in Argentina (which had always remained separated by countries and regions of origin) into a centralized committee that would be linked to other affluent Sephardic diasporic groups in the West, and with Israel. The visit, and Eliachar’s vision of a newly organized Sephardic structure with Israel at the head, was not as successful as he had hoped. Many Sephardim in Argentina outright rejected his plan, arguing that there was no need to create Sephardic-only organizations when there was a now a State that would address the problems he was campaigning about.
Drawing mostly from Argentine and Palestinian/Israeli newspapers, the presentation reconstructs the various contexts that coalesced around Eliachar’s visit and helps explain the logic behind his project and the opposition it engendered. Eliachar’s plan to reorganize Sephardim in Sephardic-only institutions with Israel at the head was one more in a long line of previous unsuccessful attempts. The scheme stemmed, in part, from his belief that Sephardim had lost the political power they had enjoyed in Ottoman Palestine, and within the Ashkenazi-majority Zionist movement. The plan also relied on an existing model of community leadership, which prioritized elites, that many saw outdated and in need of modernization. As well, in the reasons provided to reject the scheme, self-identified “Sephardim” began deploying language that essentialized “Mizrahim,” the imagined objects in need. The paper argues, as well, for the importance of uncovering the connections that existed between Palestine/Israeli Sephardim and those in the American diaspora, and the ways in which their interactions shaped their options and limitations.

Authors

• Adriana Brodsky, St. Mary's College of Maryland

• Aviad Moreno, Ben Gurion University of the Negev