Politics

Chile is turning against Israel, thanks to a left-wing government, with a left wing president, Gabriel Boric, with a powerful Palestinian-Chilean community.

However, Argentina has just elected a center-right politician, Javier Milei, who is thoroughly fascinated with both Israel and Judaism.

Presidente Milei supports Israel.

So let’s go over some basics.

– There are 46 million Argentines.

– There are roughly 4 million Argentines with a degree of Arab ancestry. However, many of them are attenuated in their Arabness, being only one-half, one-quarter, one-eighth Arab, and so on.

– Most of the Arab-Argentines are Christian. They were descended from Syrians and Lebanese whose ancestors fled Muslim tyranny. These Lebanese and Syrian Arab Christians did not often have an anti-Israel prejudice, per se, as they often view the Mideast through a Christian vs. Muslim lens. Whereas Chile’s Arab tend to be Palestinians, who, even though mostly Christian, are hostile to Israel.

– Contrary to official statistics. the few Muslims who made it to Argentina, tended to convert, marry out, or lapse in their Islamic observance. Hence the official numbers for the Muslims in Argentina are grossly exaggerated.

The Jewish community in Argentina is about 180,000, the seventh largest Jewish community in the world. It tends to be centered in Buenos Aires. There was also an agricultural community in Moisés Ville.

They have had a massive effect on Argentina’s history, culture, and music. A lot of tangos were written by Jews.

So while Chile, and much of Latin America, is turning against Israel, the Argentine government is not. The dynamic is interesting to follow.

The problem is that Chile is a very successful country, a first world country, and a leader in South America, while Argentina, though bigger – and with a much greater potential – has a history of instability and poor government.

But here is an interesting aside of a video, which describes the Villa Crespo neighborhood in Buenos Aires as an Argentine Shtetls (Jewish towns).

Posted on YouTube: September 1, 2022
The video can be auto-translated, using the settings options.

As important as the Jews are in Argentina, they were once more powerful. During the dictatorship, from 1976-83, in Argentina, many Jews fled to Israel. The population dropped from approximately 300,000 to 180,000.

However, that number may not include the children of intermarriage, who might have a Jewish father, but a Christian mother. And if one includes the Christian relatives of these Jews, the numbers would still be around 300,000, or a little under 1% of the country.