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PASSPORT N A I A R G E N T origins. Most of the country’s Syrian Jews settled in Buenos Aires neighbourhoods such as Barracas and Flores – where my grandparents were born before migrating to the United States in the 1960s. Today there remain numerous Syrian synagogues, catering services and community centres. But a few of them saw opportunity and went west. “The turcos began visiting homes and ranches where no one else would go, to sell to people there,” María Cherro de Azar, a historian of Argentina’s Sephardi community, told me in her home a few days before I set off on my journey to the mountains. All along the wall of her small apartment in Buenos Aires ran a massive bookshelf stuffed with old texts in a multitude of languages; her husband Roberto served us sweet Turkish coffee in small glasses cased in gold filigree. Cherro de Azar explained that while Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants to Argentina often established agricultural settlements – initiatives largely backed by European tycoons, such as Baron Maurice de Hirsch, who facilitated the emigration of thousands of Jews out of Russia and other Eastern European countries in the late-19th century – the Arabic-speaking turcos set out independently to sell. The fertile, hilly climate of the northwestern Andes was remarkably similar to that of the Levant and, before my “It feels like one of the remotest roads in the world” great-grandfather arrived there, the region was already a magnet for many Christian immigrants from the hilly regions of Syria and Lebanon, who quickly made money from the products of their vineyards, olive groves and apricot orchards. Other turcos went south to Patagonia, land of wool and minerals, or to the Pampas, where the meat industry was quickly leading to the privatisation of property and livestock. All across Argentina, in the first decades of the 20th century, people increasingly relied on turco peddlers for a supply of modern conveniences, such as cotton clothing, for which they would often pay high premiums. “The turcos brought things that would improve people’s quality of life,” Cherro de Azar told me, “because there was nothing available in the countryside in those days. Nothing. When the turco brought bread or flour, it was like a miracle. Hygiene products, cotton and medicines, too.” Syrian Jewish peddlers on the frontier kept close commercial and social ties to their compatriots in Buenos Aires, creating a thriving microeconomy. The same trains that brought agricultural products to the smog-choked markets of the Jewish Buenos Aires neighbourhoods of Once and Abasto often returned with fabric and other commodities for sale in the interior. My own great-grandfather probably moved to Mendoza at the urging of a relative or close friend who sent him merchandise on one of these trains from Buenos Aires. With his young family settled in the provincial capital, Selim began to sell from town to town. Perhaps he quickly realised he could continue stretching further and further north, where there was less competition. He began filling a horsedrawn cart to the brim with clothes and other goods. He slept in trading outposts and ranch houses and sheds of his clients. The turcos exchanged more than just goods. To the most remote populations, travelling salesmen brought news from the cities – though often quite delayed, like light from a distant star. They also picked I L B E R M A N Z; G A S TO N F E R D O U S I L ; I S M A S A L A M A J O R DA N O F C O U RT E SY 18 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK SPRING 2024
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A R G E N T I N A Clockwise from left: The Cafayate region of the Andes; preparing ‘maamoul,’ Syrian cookies, with a greatgreat-aunt in Buenos Aires; Jordan’s grandfather’s paintings of La Boca, Buenos Aires; near Cafayate; Jordan’s grandfather Moisés in New York; Chilecito, in the Andean foothills; crossing Patagonia. Below left: Selim Salama, Faride Cohen Hop and children in Mendoza. Previous page: by train across Patagonia up knowledge and friendship along the way, said Cherro de Azar. “In their travels, the turcos learned things,” she said, her eyes wide with excitement. “They made friends. They learned how to play cards. They started drinking alcohol to stave off the cold. They sang, they danced tangos, they heard the folk music of the Andes for the first time. They became fluent in Spanish. They learned the indigenous customs and legends of the north, like the Pachamama – the Mother Earth. They became Argentine…” Her words echoing in my mind, I spent several weeks making my way north along that famous road, trading in stories. In a lodge in Mendoza, I met a present-day travelling salesman who sold bombillas – metal sieve straws for drinking mate, a herbal infusion that is Argentina’s national drink and an important family ritual for us in New York. Just east of Ruta 40, in the valley of Campo Quijano, I spent the night with a family of folk singers who sang songs about home and I began to wonder if home wasn’t necessarily a city or town or country, but rather a place where the stories sound familiar. One night, in the mountain town of Chilecito, I found Christian families descended from those Ottoman traders who might have worked alongside Selim, the Jew from Damascus. Together, using fresh ingredients from the foothills of the Andes, we made Syrian comfort food – sfeeha, triangular dough patties stuffed with spiced meat. As we ate, huddled around a cold kitchen table, clouds of steam rose from the food, joining with the vapour from our frozen breaths in a windy swirl above the table, until I couldn’t tell one from another. That night, the sunset painted the sands along Ruta 40 a warm, glowing pink. n “Selim peddled his wares from a horsedrawn cart across more than 1,000 miles” Jordan Salama is the author of Stranger in the Desert, from which this story is adapted, and Every Day the River Changes, a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2021. His writing has appeared in National Geographic, New York Magazine, The New York Times and other publications. SPRING 2024 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK 19

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PASSPORT

N A

I

A R G E N T

origins. Most of the country’s Syrian Jews settled in Buenos Aires neighbourhoods such as Barracas and Flores – where my grandparents were born before migrating to the United States in the 1960s. Today there remain numerous Syrian synagogues, catering services and community centres.

But a few of them saw opportunity and went west. “The turcos began visiting homes and ranches where no one else would go, to sell to people there,” María Cherro de Azar, a historian of Argentina’s Sephardi community, told me in her home a few days before I set off on my journey to the mountains. All along the wall of her small apartment in Buenos Aires ran a massive bookshelf stuffed with old texts in a multitude of languages; her husband Roberto served us sweet Turkish coffee in small glasses cased in gold filigree.

Cherro de Azar explained that while Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants to Argentina often established agricultural settlements – initiatives largely backed by European tycoons, such as Baron Maurice de Hirsch, who facilitated the emigration of thousands of Jews out of Russia and other Eastern European countries in the late-19th century – the Arabic-speaking turcos set out independently to sell.

The fertile, hilly climate of the northwestern Andes was remarkably similar to that of the Levant and, before my

“It feels like one of the remotest roads in the world”

great-grandfather arrived there, the region was already a magnet for many Christian immigrants from the hilly regions of Syria and Lebanon, who quickly made money from the products of their vineyards, olive groves and apricot orchards.

Other turcos went south to Patagonia, land of wool and minerals, or to the Pampas, where the meat industry was quickly leading to the privatisation of property and livestock.

All across Argentina, in the first decades of the 20th century, people increasingly relied on turco peddlers for a supply of modern conveniences, such as cotton clothing, for which they would often pay high premiums. “The turcos brought things that would improve people’s quality of life,” Cherro de Azar told me, “because there was nothing available in the countryside in those days. Nothing. When the turco brought bread or flour, it was like a miracle. Hygiene products, cotton and medicines, too.” Syrian Jewish peddlers on the frontier kept close commercial and social ties to their compatriots in Buenos Aires, creating a thriving microeconomy. The same trains that brought agricultural products to the smog-choked markets of the Jewish Buenos Aires neighbourhoods of Once and Abasto often returned with fabric and other commodities for sale in the interior.

My own great-grandfather probably moved to Mendoza at the urging of a relative or close friend who sent him merchandise on one of these trains from Buenos Aires. With his young family settled in the provincial capital, Selim began to sell from town to town. Perhaps he quickly realised he could continue stretching further and further north, where there was less competition. He began filling a horsedrawn cart to the brim with clothes and other goods. He slept in trading outposts and ranch houses and sheds of his clients.

The turcos exchanged more than just goods. To the most remote populations, travelling salesmen brought news from the cities – though often quite delayed, like light from a distant star. They also picked

I L B E R M A N

Z; G A S TO N

F E R D O U S

I L

; I S M A

S A L A M A

J O R DA N

O F

C O U RT E SY

18 JEWISHRENAISSANCE.ORG.UK SPRING 2024

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