Wojciech Fedoruk

Poland - 28-Mar-20 -

Argentina, like some other American countries, in late XIX century attracted a lot of immigrants, mainly from Central and Eastern Europe. Since the interior of the country was almost empty, they had plenty of land to settle and build their towns from scratch. The immigrants usually kept together, so they constructed towns similar to those in their homelands. After more than a century they are all assimilated and their towns look very Argentinian. Only some of the oldest buildings survived to tell the story about the origin of their founders.

One of such towns is Moises Ville, founded by Eastern European Jews, seeking better conditions and escaping pogroms in the Russian Empire. Three synagogues were built there, as well as the Hebrew School, library etc. The town was main center of Jewish culture in Argentina for the first half of XX centrury, but I guess being so remote it could not maintain its statut for too long – more ambitious units escaped for better education, jobs and culture.

This site is awfully located for a WHS fan. Nearest inscribed place is Cordoba, around 4h by car, but if you go from Cordoba to Buenos Aires, or vice versa, going there basically requires full extra day and there is little to see on the way. I was not sure if we should go but since we economized some extra time before, I gave it a try. Little did I know that we chose the worst time to do so – it was Saturday, beginning of 4-day long weekend ending the Carnival. As a result, everything was closed – the small Museum of Jewish Settlement, the synagugues, even the cemetery, although I could at least take a look from behind the wall to see that the tombstones have Latin and Hebrew inscriptions and some of them only Hebrew. The town is totally unprepared for tourists, apart from the museum there are few plaques and no signatures, the cemetery (there are two, the other one is Catholic) is hard to find, there is no place to eat etc.

I have mixed feelings about this proposal. My visit was a total disappointment and since everything was closed I could not appreciate the value of the site. On the other hand, I feel the immigrant flow to the South America and its huge influcence of those countries have not been commemorated yet on the World Heritage List. Given that Argentinian T-list is not overloaded with interesting nominations, they may give Moises Ville a try after significant preservation and improvement.