Alberto Gerchunoff (January 1, 1883 – March 2, 1950), was an

Argentine Argentines, Argentinians or Argentineans are people from Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural. For most Argentines, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their ...

writer born in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

, in the city of Proskuriv, now

Khmelnytskyi Khmelnytskyi (, ) is a city in western Ukraine. Located on the Southern Bug, it serves as the administrative centre of Khmelnytskyi Oblast as well as Khmelnytskyi Raion within the oblast. With a population of Khmelnytskyi is the second-larges ...

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

Biography

His family emigrated in 1889 to the Argentine Jewish agricultural colony of Moïseville, now Moisés Ville, Santa Fe. His father, Rab Gershon ben Abraham Gerchunoff was murdered by a

gaucho A gaucho () or gaúcho () is a skilled horseman, reputed to be brave and unruly. The figure of the gaucho is a folk symbol of Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, the southern part of Bolivia, and the south of Chilean Patago ...

on February 12, 1891. After a few months the family moved to Rajil, another Jewish settlement near

Villaguay Villaguay is a city in the province of Entre Ríos in the Argentine Mesopotamia. It has about 49,000 inhabitants as of thcensus 2010and is the head town of the department of the same name. The city lies near the geographic center of the provinc ...

, Entre Ríos. The colony was founded by

philanthropist Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives for the public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private good, focusing on material ...

Baron

Maurice de Hirsch Moritz Freiherr von Hirsch auf Gereuth (; ; 9 December 1831 – 21 April 1896), commonly known as Maurice de Hirsch, was a German Jewish financier and philanthropist who set up charitable foundations to promote Jewish education and improve the ...

as a haven for

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

s fleeing the

pogrom A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of Massacre, massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century Anti-Jewis ...

s of Europe. Later, he lived in Argentina's capital,

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo ( ; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator regarded as a key figure in Spanish literature, Spanish-language and international literatur ...

described him thus: ::He was an indisputable writer, but his reputation transcends that of a man of letters. Unintentionally and perhaps unwittingly, he embodied an older type of writer ... who saw the written word as a mere stand-in for the oral, not as a sacred object. Although he worked primarily as a journalist for Argentina's leading newspaper ''

La Nación ''La Nación'' () is an Argentine daily newspaper. As the country's leading conservative newspaper, ''La Nación''s main competitor is the more liberal ''Clarín (Argentine newspaper), Clarín''. It is regarded as a newspaper of record for Argen ...

'', he also wrote many important novels and books on Jewish life in Latin America, including '' The Jewish Gauchos of the Pampas'' (), which was produced into a movie in 1975. For most of his life Gerchunoff espoused assimilationism for the Jews of Argentina, though altered his stance with the rise of Hitler, eventually advocating for the establishment of the state of Israel before the United Nations in 1947. He is said to have collaborated with

Wilhelm Reich Wilhelm Reich ( ; ; 24 March 1897 – 3 November 1957) was an Austrian Doctor of Medicine, doctor of medicine and a psychoanalysis, psychoanalyst, a member of the second generation of analysts after Sigmund Freud. The author of several in ...

on a version of his orgone box designed to preserve the core of Jewish cultural memories, many of which were collected by him as oral histories and published under the title ''Héroes de los Intersticios'' in 1948.

Bibliography

*Los gauchos judíos. La Plata, 1910. nglish translation: The Jewish Gauchos of the Pampas, Nueva York, 1955*Nuestro Señor don Quijote. Buenos Aires, 1913. *El nuevo régimen. Buenos Aires, 1918. *Cuentos de ayer. Buenos Aires, 1919. *El cristianismo precristiano. Buenos Aires, 19 0? *La jofaina maravillosa; agenda cervantina. Buenos Aires, 1922. *La asamblea de la boardilla. Buenos Aires, 1925. *Historias y proezas de amor. Buenos Aires, 1926. *El hombre que habló en la Sorbona. Buenos Aires, 1926. *Pequeñas prosas. Buenos Aires, 1926. *Enrique Heine, el poeta de nuestra intimidad. Buenos Aires, Madrid, 1927 *Las imágenes del país. Azul, 1931. *Los amores de Baruj Spinoza. Buenos Aires, 1932 *El hombre importante, novela. Buenos Aires, Montevideo, 1934. *La clínica del doctor Mefistófeles; moderna milagrería en diez jornadas. Santiago de Chile, 1937. *El problema judío. Buenos Aires, 1945. *Entre Ríos, mi país. Buenos Aires, 1950. *Retorno a Don Quijote. Buenos Aires, 1951. *Argentina, país de advenimiento. Buenos Aires, 1952. *El Pino y La Palmera. Buenos Aires, 1952 *La Lechuza, n.d.

Biography

Bibliography

See also

References

Further reading