ABSTRACT
This discussion is of texts by Jewish Argentine writers that display a common situation: the utilization, by a younger person, of information recovered from the memories of persons approximately two generations older, first-generation immigrants to Argentina, in most cases, from Eastern Europe. The 1988 novel Mestizo, by Ricardo Feierstein, presents another variant on a similar situation. A protagonist living in late twentieth-century Buenos Aires, experiencing a crisis born of dissatisfaction with his life and particularly with his ability to live Jewishly, looks to the personal, family, and community past. A number of other Argentine literary works could well be examined for the same concern with documenting the Jewish Argentine past, and particularly the immigrant experience. The corrosively satirical novels of Mario Szichman offer perhaps one of the most obvious examples. In the 1971 Los judios del Mar Dulce, the hapless protagonist Bernardo/Berele embarks on an ill-fated quest for his family’s history in Argentina.
