Vínculos indisolubles: judíos, derecho y la transformación de la familia judía en la Argentina

In this presentation, I explore how migration to Argentina shaped Jewish law at the turn of the twentieth century. Argentina granted religious freedom to rebuild itself as a “Nation of Immigrants.” But this freedom was limited in ways eastern European Jews had not encountered before. Specifically, its family law perpetuated the Catholic ban on divorce and extended it to all citizens. Drawing on untapped rabbinic archives, civil court records, and Yiddish newspapers and radio broadcasts, I examine how rabbis, communal leaders, notaries, and ordinary Jews translated legal knowledge across religious, communal, and state forums to produce workable solutions to marital conflict. I argue that these overlapping legal practices constituted what I call “scaffolded legalities”: a layered normative infrastructure in which religious, communal, notarial, and state instruments acquired authority through their interaction rather than through any single jurisdiction. More broadly, the project shows how family law became a central arena in which migration, religious difference, and citizenship were negotiated in modern Argentina. As the concept of "scaffolded legalities" is still under development, I particularly welcome discussion of its analytical value and its relationship to broader approaches to historical regimes of normativity. Lelia Stadler is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at Columbia University. Her research focuses on modern Jewish migration to Latin America from legal and social perspectives. Her article “Ethical and Legal Bigamy: Transatlantic Jewish Families Caught between Conflicting Legalities, Argentina, 1930–1939,” has recently appeared in Jewish Social Studies (2025).