an excellent overview of Entre Rios and the Jewish experience in Argentina. [2001] Entre Rios is a province of Argentina with the following colonies/towns: Avigdor, Clara, Curbelo and Moss, Dora, Leonard Cohen, Lopez y Berro, Louis Oungre, Lucienville, Mauricio, Moises Ville, Montefiore, Paimar-Yatay, San Antonio, and Santa Isabel.
Video [June 2009]
YouTube: Bessarabia to Entre Rios [Mar 2014]
JGS Argentina has no records from the province of Entre Rios, the main place where the Baron Hirsch colonies were located with seven active cemeteries and perhaps another five to ten or more that are no longer active. We have no information about them. Apparently, there were no records or the records are missing. It would be necessary to go there to find anything. Money will be required money; and currently we have none. Source: Paul Armony: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
UPDATE: Recently, the Jewish trail of Entre Rios was opened. Clara, Basavilvaso, Dominguez and Villaguay are "frozen" villages where Jews lived for many years. They came from Eastern Europe to find freedom. Families were separated. Some went to the USA while others went to Argentina with the support of the Jewish Colonization Association, a dream of Baron Hirsch to show the world that Jews could accomplish hard farm labor. At that time, these colonies, some 350 miles from Buenos Aires, were the only such in the world. Many cemeteries with tombstones evidence the hard life of the denizens, who became distinguished personalities in their community. In these villages can be found old hospitals, old synagogues, and houses where Jews formerly lived, as well as old buildings where Jewish theatre was brought from Buenos Aires. Legends abound. All of this is found in a green landscape amid dusty old roads without big luxurious hotels. Dr. Silvio TEVELES, president of the small Jewish community of Villaguay, works to maintain the Jewish history. In Dominguez is a Jewish museum needing support. It has many files and important materials about Jewish immigration to the area. Silvio Teveles and others work hard to keep the Jewish tradition and its origins alive. They work without funding and purely as volunteers. Source: Daniel Teveles, Argentina, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. [11 Jan 2001]
UPDATE: Photos of Repetir cemetery One of the tragic and fascinating stories found here. One family was killed by wild gauchos and buried all together with the same tombstone. Another is the grave of a young handsome man poisoned by a non-Jewish man, who liked the Jewish man's girlfriend. A little chair was built on his tombstone where supposedly his lover cried for the rest of her life. [August 2002] ("The province with all shades of green")
UPDATE: In 1895, 64% of Argentina's Jewish population lived in Entre Rios and its agricultural colonies located in the Argentine's eastern region. The Jewish Colonization Association (JCA) founded by Baron de Hirsch distributed 231,604 hectares to the Jewish immigrants over many colonies and settlements, now mostly abandoned. Entre Rios' 78,781 sq km was largely Jewish. The western part of the province includes the mostly German Avigdor, Villa Alcaraz, Leonardo Cohen, and Louis Oungre colonies. Along the center are Moises Ville in Santa Fe province and Carlos Casares in Buenos Aires province as well as Lucienville (now Basavilbaso) and Clara, Villa Dominguez, San Gregorio, Ingeniero Sajaroff, Carmel, and Villa Clara (also see Villaguay.) In the east are the remains of seven colonies that grew rice near the city of San Salvador. Website: http://www.entrerios.gov.ar/er/localidad/s.htm [December 2003] Link no longer available. [November 2005]
Some of the cemeteries and tombstones on the Old Jewish Trail. Photographs by Daniel Teveles, 2002
