National and Transnational Paths of Latin American Jews: Modernity, Community, Society, and the Stat

The book studies Jewish life in Latin America through a dynamic past-present timeline. It combines the national, regional, and transnational dimensions by analyzing central crossing axes: the national within the diasporic, the transnational dialectically traversing both, and the national and regional dimensions developing in a global and interconnected Jewish world. Delving into the dilemmas and challenges that Modernity posed to Jews, this book emphasizes the practical and ideational responses it evoked. For Latin American Jews, this has involved moving from historical territories to new geographies, bringing with them the transmigration of worldviews and ideologies that were later re-signified.. The roots, displacements, embeddedness, and relocation of Jewish life are explored, shedding light on the richness and dilemmas of Jewish Modernity and Multiple Modernities. Thus, it critically analyzes membership criteria, social practices, and political participation, underscoring how visibility and agency in the public sphere were defined in different periods and contexts through the dyad belonging and Otherness. Its focus on Zionism and Mexico as a case study contributes to the field with original, in-depth research. With Diaspora, globalization, and transnationalism as an analytical framework, the book offers a unique and compelling insight into social and communal change and the multiple interactions of the contemporary Jewish world, sparking the curiosity and engagement of the academic audience and interested public. "This voluminous, far-reaching work merits the greatest attention. This is the most valuable contribution to date to the study of today's world Jewry, with special attention to Latin America - and Mexico explicitly. This work focuses on Jews' participation in the globalization of the epoch...The author's approach proceeds with a dialectical methodology focusing on the contradictory pressures that account for their dynamism...these pages are among the "must-be-read" works about Jewry's present-day and coming future." Eliezer Ben-Rafael, renowned sociologist, Professor Emeritus Tel Avis University, Editor of the Brill series Jewish Identities in a Changing World "Professor Bokser Liwerant's study of the Jewish experience in Latin America bridges with unprecedented depth and breadth across many transnational and global dimensions...This book uniquely integrates the universal issues of equity, humanity, and civil rights with an acute perception of Jewish civilization and peoplehood particularism. As such, it is an exemplary work of great value for social scientists and Jewish scholars." Sergio DellaPergola, leading socio-demographer of the Jewish People, Professor Emeritus, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem "In a world where antisemitism appears again in many countries as a key moral and political issue we need solid sociological analysis and deep historical knowledge of Jews and Judaism...The Latin-American experience is usually less known than the US or the French and European ones...This is why Judit Bokser Liwerant's book is so useful and precious, combining empirical research and her unique maestria in rigorous conceptualization, proposing an in-depth reflexive analysis and theoretical framework." Michel Wieviorka, prominent sociologist, Ecole des Hautes Études en Science Sociales