Los gauchos judìos. Geografie identitarie degli ebrei d'Argentina.

This paper focuses on a self-representative myth of Argentine Jews. The starting point is the apparent contradiction between the urban nature of the local jewry and the rural image of the «Jewish gaucho», wich hides the historical subject of the ashkenazi settler during the Jewish colonization of the pampa. The reasons of this image’s fortune lie in the role played by the myth of the gaucho in the nation-building process. Besides, other factors have to be taken into account: the consonance with the Zionist idea of the return to the land, the attempt at protecting from antisemitism that pervades the Argentine nationalism, the bilingualism of an icon that allows to reconcile the «real Jew» with the «real Argentine». These identity issues are analized and compared with the historical phenomenon of the Jewish colonization. Finally, the paper tries to consider the spin-off of the Jewish gaucho’s myth on the ancient colonies scattered on the pampa.