ABSTRACT

The theory of assimilation advanced by Argentine elites during the period of great immigration thus combined complementary rationales: the application of universalistic rationality as an antidote to prior nationality and ethnicity and the call for conformity to native Argentine language, culture, and nationality. Jewish immigrants, to a greater extent than any other group, had to accept fully the rules of the crisol de razas ideology that governed Argentine national culture, simply because they were Jews living in a Catholic society governed by a constitutionally Catholic state. Given the socially progressive character of the Argentine Socialist Party and the nature of its appeal to the urban working classes in which Jews were a large element, the Socialist position on the Jewish question might have been expected to be more sensitive to the maintenance of Jewish identity than the attitudes expressed in the mainstream press.