Jewish and Catholic Influences in the Work of Mourning for the “Desaparecidos” in Argentina
Argentina, as a country of immigration, is influenced by a variety of religious and cultural traditions. The Catholic Church in particular exerts a strong influence, and simultaneously the country also is home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the world. Elements from both these religions are to be found in Argentina’s everyday culture(s).
These traditions differ in a number of ways, including their concepts of death, as well as burial rituals, forms of mourning, and practices of remembrance. In dealing with the painful and difficult challenges presented by the history of the desaparecidos, various individuals and organizations have developed different strategies and discourses to deal with this still-unhealed wound. My thesis is that traces of both religious systems are to be found in these strategies: Should the grieving process be concluded as quickly as possible, or instead be open-ended; is it important to reconstruct individual biographies, or is it better to remember the desaparecidos as a group; are we to search for their mortal remains and bury them individually, or not do so; should the missing people be represented through pictures and their story portrayed as a martyrdom? These questions and debates continue to occupy Argentina’s post-dictatorship society to the present day.
My research is an attempt to follow the traces of the various traditions and stories in these debates and practices, not only with regard to their religious content, but also in their increasingly frequent incorporation of the Shoah as a horizon of interpretation for the dead who have no graves. For Argentina’s culture, these different traditions give rise to both tension and conflict, as well as to inventive types of commemorative cultures, and to answers for a common future that seeks to honor the memory of the dead in various ways.