In Taking Root, Latin American women of Jewish Descent, from Mexico to Uruguay, recall their coming of age with Sabbath candles and Hebrew prayers, Ladino songs and merengue music, Queen Esther and the Virgin of Guadalupe. Rich and poor, Sephardi and Ashkenazi, Jewish immigrant families searched for new homes and identities in predominantly Catholic societies. These essays examine the religious. economic, social and political choices these families have made and continue to make as they forge Jewish identitites in the New World.
Marjorie Agosín has gathered narratives and testimonies that reveal the inmense diversity of Latin American Jewish experience. These stories, based on first and second-generation immigrant experience, describe differing points of view and levels of involvement in Jewish tradition. They document the sadness of exile and loss but also a fierce determination to preserve Jewish heritage. Drawing on the untold stories of Brazil, Argentina, El Salvador, Chile, Perú, Cuba, México, Colombia and other countries. Taking Root present us with a contemporary and vivid account of Jewish experience in Latin America.
