Abstract
This study aims to explore tzedakah, charitable work intended to create a just society, as a multivocal symbol in the post-diaspora Jewish community in Buenos Aires during the 20th century. Symbols display multivocality if they have more than a single purpose and achieve a variety of goals within a society. I apply a theoretical framework consisting of ideas presented by Victor Turner and Clifford Geertz to analyze information gathered from primary sources and historical studies. I review materials pertaining to Jewish philanthropy, Argentine Jewish culture, and the work of La Sociedad de Damas Israelitas de Beneficencia, a charitable organization founded by Argentine Jewish women. My analysis of La Sociedad’s work reveal that the organization performed tzedakah in hopes of achieving the following goals: ensuring better lives for abandoned Jewish girls; raising a generation of Argentine Jews that were involved in their religious culture but also accepted by their non-Jewish Argentine neighbors; and improving the dominate society’s perceptions of the Argentine Jewish community. This study explains the motivations of a charitable organization created by members of an ethnic minority.
Advisor
Frese, Pamela
Department
Sociology and Anthropology
Recommended Citation
Frank, Emma Callie, "To Do Good: an Analysis of Tzedakah as a Multivocal Symbol as it was Performed by La Sociedad de Damas Israelitas de Beneficencia" (2014). Senior Independent Study Theses. Paper 5959.
https://openworks.wooster.edu/independentstudy/5959
Disciplines
Jewish Studies | Latin American History | Women's History
Publication Date
2014
Degree Granted
Bachelor of Arts
Document Type
Senior Independent Study Thesis
© Copyright 2014 Emma Callie Frank