Challenges of living a Jewish life in Argentina

Cordoba, Argentina — You may not think you’re lucky to be able to buy pretzels in the market. But, after spending the entire month of January as a volunteer in the Beit Chabad of Cordoba, Argentina, I learned the value of a simple kosher pretzel.

The city of Cordoba is not like Buenos Aires. The latter is the third-largest Jewish community in the world. The former can barely find a minyan. Buenos Aires is home to many Jewish stores, restaurants, markets and shuls. Cordoba has but one kosher mini-mart.

Living as a Jew in the United States, it is easy sometimes to take certain things for granted. Being able to walk into any market anywhere, whether in a town or just on the highway, and find food marked kosher is quite commonplace. But in Argentina, there are no hekshers (certifications of kashrut) on food. Anywhere outside Buenos Aires, it is necessary for a Jew to know which foods previously have been declared kosher in order to buy anything. Without this knowledge, the only things edible are fruits and vegetables.

In Cordoba, I primarily worked to help with the Chabad family’s children: getting them dressed and helping them with netilat yadiyim (washing hands) in the morning, assisting with their davening and practicing the aleph-bet. The work was very rewarding and fun, too, but the most significant lesson I learned concerned the Argentine Jewish community itself. The differences between their community and ours go beyond the ease of keeping kosher.

In the States, it is possible to find many shuls of various denominations in nearly every major city. Although Argentina is home to one of the world’s largest Jewish populations, it cannot boast the same. In Cordoba, there is but one Orthodox shul, Beit Chabad, which was barely attended.

During the week, even on days of kriat hatorah, there was rarely a minyan. On Shabbat, the shul was surprisingly filled with Israeli backpackers, most of whom had just finished their service in the army and were spending the year traveling South America.

Every week, the rav (rabbi) would visit the various hostels in Cordoba to find these Israelis. He would invite them to his hostel in the Beit Chabad and to spend Shabbat in his shul and home. Many of them came and filled the Shabbat table, creating a fascinating blend of Spanish, Hebrew, English and Yiddish. It was the one time every week when the Jewish aspect of Cordoba that I came to know was infused with life.

Religious schools are in equally short supply. The Chabad family ran a small gan daily for local children, but that was only for children not yet old enough for grade school. Those families n possibly only one other n that required Jewish education for their older children had no option but to home-school.

As a result of this educational situation, the rav’s oldest children had left home to attend yeshivot for high school in the United States and Canada. The middle children learned through an online yeshiva program for about three hours every day, and two of youngest children were my responsibility, at least for the month. I tutored these two 6-year-old girls in reading Hebrew and studying the parsha hashavuah.

It was very powerful to contemplate the differences between Jewish life abroad and in the United States while I was in Argentina, but I only realized how significant these differences were when I returned home. Jews in the States have worked hard to make living Jewishly not so challenging. I feel lucky to benefit.

Robyn Weiss is a student at Oberlin College and features editor of The Oberlin Review.