Argentina’s Jewish community, the largest in Latin America and the sixth largest in the world, shared in the country’s rise to prosperity in the late nineteenth and first part of the twentieth century, giving rise to the image of horse-riding Jewish gauchos on Argentina’s central grasslands.
But the other seminal image of Argentina’s Jews comes from the 1994 terrorist bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center – by Iran and Lebanese Hizbullah – the deadliest attack on Jews worldwide after the Holocaust and before the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023.
Over the past 50 years, the country’s economic decline, together with the rise of antisemitism and terrorism, left Argentina’s Jews in a precarious position and led to a surge of emigration especially to Israel. Will the election of Javier Milei, a libertarian reformer and outspoken supporter of Jews and Israel, reverse the community decline?
Immigrants Pour In
Large-scale Jewish immigration to Argentina began with the arrival in 1889 of immigrants from Russia on the steamship Weser. They were sponsored by the German Jewish railroad financier Baron Maurice de Hirsch, who promoted emigration to new settlements in Argentina for Jews fleeing pogroms in Czarist Russia.
These immigrants founded a series of agricultural settlements and ranches in Argentina’s interior, the most famous of which was “Moisés Ville.” They gave rise to the mystique of “Jewish gauchos,” but ultimately their settlements proved unsustainable as they were small in comparison with the vast ranches which dominated Argentina’s countryside. The Jewish settlers for the most part moved to Buenos Aires.
Argentina became an option for Jews escaping Eastern Europe. They joined a large wave of immigration to Argentina primarily from Spain and Italy, all taking advantage of the country’s burgeoning economy as it became a major world food producer.
Jewish neighborhoods in Buenos Aires became southern hemisphere counterparts to New York’s Lower East Side, with their inhabitants making a living from the needle trades and retail commerce, while hoping that their children could rise into Argentina’s middle class. Synagogues and communal associations were established, a Yiddish language press developed, and Buenos Aires became part of the international Yiddish theater circuit.
Nevertheless, Argentina was plagued in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by political and economic instability, and with it arose antisemitism, often generated by conservative Catholic intellectuals, who asserted that the Jews could not be assimilated into Argentina’s national identity and identified them with radicalism especially after the Russian Revolution of 1917.
A “white slavery” scandal (in which young Jewish women in Eastern Europe were recruited under false pretenses into prostitution in Argentina by a network of Jewish procurers) became an excuse for antisemitic accusations of Jewish immorality, despite the fact that the practice was uncovered by a Jewish woman and suppressed by Jewish organizations. A low point was the “tragic week” in 1919, when a strike at a factory expanded into a general strike which was blamed on anarchist “Russians” (i.e., Jews) and mobs attacked a Jewish neighborhood, in effect a pogrom in the New World.
The Depression marked an end to Argentina’s hitherto welcoming immigration policy, making the country largely unavailable as a refuge from the Holocaust. The military governments of the 1930s and the early 1940s were sympathetic to Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, and only entered World War II on the Allied side in its last months.
Perón a Friend to Jews—and Nazis
General Juan Perón, minister of labor in the military government, emerged as the country’s president in 1946, remaining until removed by a coup d’etat in 1955. He briefly returned as President in 1974, serving for nine months before his death.
Perón’s relationship with Argentina’s Jews was complex. As a military observer in Italy, he admired Mussolini and his ideology was a mix of fascism, syndicalism (giving a privileged political position to organized labor), Catholic social doctrine, and a commitment to using Argentina’s wealth to create a welfare state. He lacked a strong prejudice against Argentina’s Jews and, although hardly a democrat, preferred to co-opt rather than repress minorities. He sponsored the creation of the
“Argentine Israelite Organization,” in effect a Jewish branch of his ruling party which served as a point of entry into his government for Jewish communal interests.
That said, the Jewish community maintained its own entities— the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations or DAIA, (a political representation entity) and the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association or AMIA (a self-help, community support entity, roughly equivalent to the Jewish Federations of North America).
Perón was relatively welcoming to Jewish immigration, allowing 45,000 Jews to enter, and he enjoyed good relations with the State of Israel, voting for its recognition at the United Nations in November 1947.
At the same time he also permitted the entry of former Nazis, including war criminals directly involved in the Holocaust. This was the result of residual sympathy for Germany, official corruption, and a belief that German immigrants could contribute to Argentina’s technological and economic development. Israel’s kidnapping of Adolf Eichmann in 1960 to bring him to trial (which occurred during one of the post-Perón civilian governments) led to some antisemitic outbreaks as it was viewed by ultra-nationalists as an infringement of Argentine sovereignty.
Heading for the Exits
As Argentina’s wartime and immediate post-war boom faded, its economic and political environment deteriorated, leading to decades of military rule that were bad for Argentina and for its Jews in particular.
On the right, the overtly racist and antisemitic Tacuara Nationalist Movement (named for a weapon used by gauchos) engaged in terrorist acts, including the desecration of the principal Jewish cemetery. Leftist terrorist groups also emerged, engaging in kidnappings, bank robberies and assassination. To combat them the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance was created by the sinister José López Rega, a figure close to Perón’s wife Isabel, who served as president after his death.
The presence of some Jews in leftist terrorist groups, on top of existing antisemitism within the military, led to the number of Jewish victims far outstripping their representation in the general population.
This combination of antisemitism, terrorism and economic decay led to significant emigration by Argentina’s Jews, mainly to Israel where the Argentine community may have reached as high as 80,000 at the turn of the 20th century, but also to the United States and Western Europe. (This was paralleled by emigration among Argentines generally, many of whom qualified for Spanish or Italian citizenship.)
The Jewish population of Argentina decreased. It had peaked in the 1960s at between 300,000 to 450,000 but then decreased to between 180,000 and 220,000, with attendant strain on communal institutions. Both local and international agencies have had to deal with the phenomenon of poverty among Jews in Argentina.
Iranian Terror
During the administration of Carlos Menem, president from 1989 to 1999, Argentina saw two terrorist bombing attacks, one in 1992 on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, resulting in 29 deaths, and one in 1994 on the AMIA Jewish community center. The AMIA attack resulted in 85 deaths and over 300 injured, the deadliest terror incident in Argentine history and the single deadliest attack on Jews worldwide between the Holocaust and the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023.
These attacks haunt Argentine Jewish life up to the present day. And while there is ample evidence implicating Lebanese Hizbollah and Iran, successive Argentine governments have failed to thoroughly investigate and prosecute the leads in the case.
Menem’s administration may have sought to detour the investigation onto false trails, involving the Libyan government and corrupt local policemen, in an effort to obscure the role of a Syrian-Argentine businessman with ties to the administration. Menem himself was subsequently accused of obstructing justice and destroying evidence in the case, but was acquitted in 2019.
President Nestor Kirchner, a Peronist in office 2003 to 2007, stressed his commitment to resolving the AMIA case, and in a speech at the United Nations, accused the Iranian government of failing to cooperate in the investigation. During his term, Alberto Nisman, an energetic prosecutor, took over the case, uncovering evidence pointing towards Iran and seeking the extradition of senior Iranian officials.
Nestor Kirchner was succeeded by his wife Cristina Fernández de Kirchner from 2007 to 2015. More leftist and populist than her husband, she sought improved relations with Iran, and her foreign minister, Héctor Timerman, negotiated in 2013 a memorandum of understanding under which a joint Iranian-Argentine “truth commission” would interview in Iran the suspects Nisman had identified.
The AMIA case took a wild twist when Nisman announced his intention to accuse President Fernández de Kirchner of obstructing justice for negotiating the accord with Iran. He was then found dead of a gunshot wound in his Buenos Aires apartment the day before he was to testify before Congress on the subject. The initial investigation of Nisman’s death was marked by mishandling of evidence and involvement of Argentina’s intelligence service. The agreement with Iran was declared unconstitutional by an Argentine court, to the relief of the Jewish community.
The AMIA bombing remains a prominent issue in Argentina. New prosecutors have determined that Nisman’s death was not a suicide. And the Supreme Court has permitted his case against Cristina Fernández de Kirchner for the Iran agreement to go forward. (Now out of office, she has already been found guilty on an unrelated corruption charge and is serving a six-year sentence under house arrest.)
A Hopeful Moment with Milei
Argentine politics took a major turn in 2023 when voters rejected the free spending and high inflation of the Kirchner era and elected Javier Milei. A self-described libertarian economist with a flair for generating publicity, Milei has implemented budget-cutting austerity policies that, despite generating considerable economic pain, continue to enjoy public support.
Milei, of Italian descent and nominally still a Catholic, has shown a deep interest in Judaism, and has studied with Rabbi Axel Wahnish, leader of Argentina’s Moroccan Jewish community. He has suggested that at some point he will formally convert to Judaism.
His embrace of Judaism includes strong support for Israel, which he has visited as President. He has ordered the transfer of Argentina’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to take place in 2026 and appointed Rabbi Wahnish as his ambassador.
And he has been a rare supporter among Latin American leaders of Israel’s actions in Gaza following Hamas’ October 7, 2023 terrorist attack (in which 21 Argentine-Israelis were taken hostage and nine killed). He has invited Prime Minister Netanyahu to visit Argentina. In September 2024, Argentina opposed a resolution at the United Nations calling for the end of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and in September 2025 opposed one calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
In 2025 Milei was honored with the Genesis Prize, an Israeli award (funded by Russo-Israeli businessmen) which celebrates Jewish talent and achievement and commitment to Jewish values. He has promised to use the million dollars which the prize provides to further the “Isaac Accords,” his initiative to promote political, economic, and cultural cooperation between Israel and Latin America.
As the war in Gaza has loomed ever larger internationally, it has also become a political issue inside Argentina. In 2025, the Jewish community’s political arm, DAIA, filed criminal charges against two far left political figures for hate speech. In December 2025, four recently elected members of Congress insisted on adding to their oaths of office references to “Zionist genocide” and Palestine “from the river to the sea.” DAIA has objected to these gestures.
Jews first moved to Argentine because it, like the United States, welcomed people escaping hardship and tyranny. But institutional weakness and economic mismanagement put Argentina on a downward trajectory for decades, affecting the entire country and with it the Jewish community, which continues to shrink through outward migration.
President Milei is committed to dramatic, even harsh reform to turn the country’s economy around. And in a country where antisemitism has been part of its history, he has a unique connection to Judaism and the State of Israel. However, whether this Milei moment can be translated into a sustained revival in the fortunes of Argentina’s Jews still remains very much an open question.
