The Law of Divorce: Nationalizing Transnational Family Breakdown in Interwar Argentina

• In Event: East European Jews Navigating Marriage in Migration to the Americas in the Early Twentieth Century

Abstract

This paper examines the significance of Jewish divorce within the context of Jewish immigrant families from c. 1920 to 1940, with a specific focus on the Jewish-Argentine immigrant community. By examining the intricate legal and social dynamics that shaped transatlantic religious divorces, the paper sheds light on the convoluted nature of marriage and divorce in this global setting. The formation of family statuses among first-generation immigrants struggling with the disintegration of their families during migration exposes the grassroots construction of legal authority within the immigrant experience and challenges traditional notions associated with bureaucratization and the power of the state to control its old and new populations through its legal system. In particular, the paper shows how Jewish women used religious divorce as a strategy to ensure their migration to Argentina and how religious divorce changed after they arrived in Argentina.

In a predominantly Catholic country, Jews seeking divorce found themselves in a legal impasse, as Argentine laws left religious minorities no autonomy in regulating their civil affairs. Divorce negotiations, therefore, involved various non-state actors, necessitating complex interactions with state authorities, communal organizations, and other stakeholders. The communal organization Ezras Noschim (funded primarily by the international organization the Jewish Association for the Protection of Girls and Women) was one organization that introduced an alternative system for the dissolution and formation of marriages outside state law. By juxtaposing Ezras Noschim’s transatlantic divorce case files with the divorce ledgers of Rabbi David Maler of Buenos Aires, the analysis differentiates between lay and religious voices within the Jewish community in Buenos Aires to challenge prevailing narratives about the relationship between Eastern European Jews and their new states in the Americas. An examination of cases involving one immigrant man and his two divorces unravels the complexities and legal ambiguities of ending marriages between Poland and Argentina, alongside the development of alternative solutions where absolute divorce was unattainable. By interweaving Jewish and Latin American historiographies, this paper enriches our understanding of the immigrant experience, state-building, and family dynamics in Argentina — a major destination for Jewish immigrants in the early 20th century.

Author

• Lelia Stadler, Columbia University