Reading and identity: the marxist theory of Ber Borochov in the context of latin american jewry (1951- 1979)

The present article examines the role of Dov Ber Borochov’s Marxist thought in the reconstruction of Latin American Jewish identity between the 1950s and 1970s. Borochov (1881-1917) fashioned the most compelling synthesis between Jewish aspirations for national self-determination and the basic premises of historical materialism. The translation of his major works into Spanish and its diffusion among the most politicized sectors of Latin America’s Jewish youth enabled Zionism to participate in the period’s revolutionary discourse. By reading Borochov and his various interpreters, the present author claims that several generations of leftwing Latin American Jews were able to maintain a Jewish identity and express

loyalty to the State of Israel in a manner that dovetailed smoothly with local revolutionary ideological movements.