Google, AMIA Jewish center puts history of Jews of Argentina online

BUENOS AIRES (JTA) — Google and the AMIA Jewish center have posted online a collection of images and text about the history of the Jews of Argentina, from the first Jewish immigration to the present.

The online collection, called “Jews in Argentina, 1860-2015,” was presented Wednesday at Google headquarters in Buenos Aires, in the redeveloped area of the city’s port, called Puerto Madero.  AMIA Vice President Tommy Saieg, and Ana Wainstein, director of AMIA’s Mark Turkov Centre, as well as Eleonora Rabinovich, Public Policy & Government Affairs Manager of Google to the Southern Cone, made the presentation.

According to the online collection’s figures from 2015 about Jews in Argentina, about 220,000 Jews live in Argentina today, 85 percent in Buenos Aires and 15 percent in the country’s interior in 54 different communities, including synagogues, Jewish schools, and clubs.

The exhibition is online in the “Historic Moments” section of the Google Cultural Institute and is available in English and Spanish.

“Within the context of the policies to promote immigration fostered by Argentina, the first organized presence of Jewish life dates back to the 1860s, when a small group of French, German and English Jewish immigrants created, in 1862, the Congregacion Israelita. Those first Jewish immigrants were followed by others coming from Spanish Morocco, who created their community in 1891,” begins the text of exhibition, which includes photos.

The Google Cultural Institute was launched in 2011 as a “not for profit initiative that partners with cultural organizations to bring the world’s cultural heritage online.”