buenos aires jewish tour

Jewish Tour Buenos Aires 2024-2025

The agency specialized in Jewish Tours

We pick you up at your hotel with a modern private car or van 

Jewish Quarter  / AMIA-Jewish Federation /  Central Libertad Sinagogue ( Ashk. Reform. ) /  Israel Embassy Sq. / Jewish Museum /  Shoah Memorial at Buenos Aires Cathedral

[email protected]   

Phone / WhatsApp: +54-9-11-3882-3604

buenos aires jewish tour

Higlights and itinerary.

Buenos Aires has a genuine yiddishkeit that cannot only be expressed by words. From synagogues to Jewish food, we invite you to take part on the Argentinian Jewish experience. We offer private Jewish tours in Buenos Aires. In this tour you will also learn about:  Antisemitism in Argentina  The Arrival of the Holocaust Survivors Jewish first immigration to Argentina Current Situation of the Jewish Community in Argentina

Jewish Tour Inclusions

-Private tour guide -Private car or van with private driver -Pick up and drop off at your hotel or Airbnb -Guided visit to: Once – Jewish ‘quarter’, Paso Synagogue, Libertad Central Synagogue & Jewish Museum (same buidling), Israeli Embassy Square Memorial, Metropolitan Cathedral, Plaza de Mayo

*Covid-19 Safety Protocol

-All our tour guides and drivers are vaccinated

-We desinfect the vehicles before every tour

-If you have any further questions or concerns regarding COVID-19 protocol, please let us know.

Tour Itinerary / Jewish Heritage Buenos Aires

This private Jewish tour is focused on the history of the Argentinian-Jewish community, right from where it started, when the first immigrants arrived in the 19th century up to nowadays. During the tour, you will learn about the history of the first colonies in Argentina, along with the formation of the first Jewish community in Buenos Aires.

From the beginning of past century Jews settled up in Buenos Aires. But most significative Jewish organizations were held in Once, which still has a strong Jewish presence.

Jewish Quarter: We will start with the tour visiting and walking through the Jewish Quarter. Mezuzot are affixed to most of the textile storefronts in “Once”, the Jewish ‘quarter’. Kosher butcher shops, synagogues, yeshivas and Jewish schools are ubiquitous. Along our route, we will come upon the Paso Synagogue and AMIA (the JCC) . We enter to Paso Synagogue.

A vaulted ceiling showcase the second level seating and a third level of arched stained glass windows. But the true focal point is the magnificent multi-storey Aron Kodesh.

Jewish Museum: The collection focuses on Jewish culture and has an exhibit that sheds light on the Jewish Argentine cowboys (gauchos). The museum also holds a very rare collection of Sephardic toras from the Middle East.

AMIA : Argentine Israelite Mutual Association- Jewish Community Center. The AMIA bombing was an attack on the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 18 July 1994, killing 85 people and injuring hundreds.

Next to Plaza Houssay we can appreciate the murals painted by Mariano Antedoménico, Martín Ron, and Mariela Ajras. The first mural depicts the moment after the explosion, the second shows the hospital who received the victims, and the third is a plea for justice.

Shoah Mural at the Metropolitan Cathedral : It is a Mural commemorating the victims of the Shoah installed within the Metropolitan Cathedral. On the fifth anniversary of its inauguration and in coincidence with the Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Plaza de Mayo: The Plaza de Mayo is a city square and main foundational site of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was formed in 1884 after the demolition of the Recova building, unifying the city’s Plaza Mayor and Plaza de Armas, by that time known as Plaza de la Victoria and Plaza 25 de Mayo respectively.

Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo is a movement of Argentine mothers who campaigned for their children who had been desaparecidos (disappeared) during the military dictatorship, pursuing the government for answers between 1977 and 2006.  At the Buenos Aires Jewish Tour you will learn what was the situation of the Jewish community in the last dictatorship.  10% of the desaparecidos were Jewish while Jews where less than 1% of Argentina’s total population.

The Jewish Buenos Aires tour takes approximately 3 hours

1-2 Passengers : u$d 200 (total price)

3-12 Passengers:  u$d 300 (total price)

13-18 Passengers:  u$d 350

Also, if you are looking for a walking tour, please contact us

Exclusions : 

-Jewish Museum and Central Synagogue  fee  (same building) , u$d 10 per person

-AMIA-JCC entrance fee. Visits at the JCC are available upon previous reservation

  Please let us know if you have a special  request or you need a special program

[email protected]

jewish tour buenos aires

WhatsApp us

• Top Destinations
• Mexico City, Mexico
• Tokyo, Japan
• Paris, France
• Rome, Italy
• London, United Kingdom
• All Destinations
• Upcoming Experiences
• Private Walking Tours
• Small-Group Tours
• Tours for Kids
• Museum Tours
• Food, Wine and Market Tours
• Newly Added Tours
• Audio Guides
• Pre-Trip Lectures
• Admin Dashboard
• My Favorites
• Cookies Preferences
• Client Orders
• Monthly Commissions
• My Advisor Profile
• Advisor Toolkit
• Guide Dashboard

Credit Balance

Transactions are based on current exchange rates and performed in USD. There maybe slight variations in the price estimates.

Jewish Buenos Aires History Tour

• AMIA Jewish cultural center
• Synagogue Gran Templo Paso
• Synagogue Templo Libertad

• Jewish Buenos Aires Tour led by a historian or expert local
• Gain a comprehensive introduction to the country's Jewish history

The Foundation - Jewish Buenos Aires Tour

Amia, a key site of jewish buenos aires, religious and artistic heritage, templo libertad.

Reviews can only be left by Context customers after they have completed a tour. For more information about our reviews, please see our FAQ .

You May Also Like

Buenos Aires Architecture Tour

Buenos Aires Food Tour with San Telmo Market

Introduction to Buenos Aires Tour with Plaza de Mayo and San Telmo

Book a tour.

• Our Experts
• Working with Context
• View All Cities
• Sustainable Tourism
• Refer a Friend for $50
• Travel Updates
• Advisor Login
• Expert Portal

Subscribe to our Newsletter

• Privacy Statement & Security
• Cancellation Policy

or with email

• Argentina >
• Buenos Aires >

Buenos Aires Jewish Heritage Private Tour

Why People Love It

Description

Complimentary Options

Meeting Location

Requirements

About the operator, tours you may like, other activities around buenos aires, argentina.

Sightseeing

City/Town Tour

Local Flavor

Food Tasting

Wine Tasting

Generating PDF...

Select Account Type

Sign-up with

Almost there!

Find booking.

How should we contact you?

Thank you! We'll get back to you as soon as possible!

Click here to register and track your question!

If you would like to follow up with us:

+1 (855) 782-3006

Forgot your password?

Enter your email address below and we'll send you a reset link:

Members save 10% or more on over 100,000 hotels worldwide when you’re signed in

Sorry this activity is not available.

• Collections
• LOX at Café Bergson

• Visitor Information & Admission
• Group Tours and Visits
• Health and Safety
• Accessibility
• On View – Courage to Act: Rescue in Denmark
• On View – The Holocaust: What Hate Can Do
• On View – The Garden of Stones by Andy Goldsworthy
• On View – Survivors: Faces of Life After the Holocaust
• On View at The Mystic Seaport – Gerda III
• Past Exhibitions
• Antisemitism Resource
• School Educator Partnership
• Professional Development
• Curriculum Lesson Plans
• “Courage to Act” Curriculum
• Teacher Guides
• Group Tours
• Speakers Bureau
• Internships & Fellowships
• Holocaust History Timeline
• Heritage Testimonies®
• Family History
• Living Museum
• Bloomberg Connects
• Coming of Age During the Holocaust
• Curriculum Guides for Frequently Assigned Books
• The Number on Great-Grandpa’s Arm
• Private Events
• Work With Us
• Make a Donation
• Become a Member
• Corporate Support
• Dedicate a Seat in Edmond J. Safra Hall
• Make a Planned Gift
• Buy Tickets

Virtual Walking Tour: The History of Jewish Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is home to what was once the most important Jewish community in South America. We’ll begin this live, virtual walking tour in Houssay Square, two blocks away from the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA). Here, we’ll talk about how the community arrived in this neighborhood and introduce the tragic attacks on AMIA by showcasing some fantastic murals that pay homage to the victims and the community. Then, we’ll set off to explore the many memorials and synagogues that surround the area. As we walk into the garment district of Buenos Aires we’ll talk about parallels between Buenos Aires and New York City, including the local Jewish deli. Did you know potato knishes are round in Argentina? Co-presented with  Wowzitude .

Event details

Co-presented by.

Trending Topics:

• Say Kaddish Daily
• Healing service Mondays at 12:15 ET

The Jews of Argentina

The largest Jewish community in Latin America has struggled through the economic and political upheavals of the 20th century.

By Raanan Rein

To both supporters and detractors of the far-right, libertarian politician, this was a clear demonstration that Jewish identity had become more publicly visible in Argentina than in any other Latin America country. To some extent, this should not have been a surprise. Argentina’s Jewish community of more than 200,000 is the largest in Latin America and the seventh largest in the world. But Argentina is also a country where antisemitism is persistent and where the Jewish community has struggled mightily through the economic and political upheavals of the 20th century. 

The Argentine Jewish community traces its origin to the great wave of trans-Atlantic migration to the Americas that began in the second half of the 19th century and continued into the late 1920s. Jews constituted only a small minority of these immigrants, but alongside a large number of Italians and Spaniards, hundreds of thousands of Jews from Central and Eastern Europe, the Ottoman Empire and the Mediterranean region found a home in Argentina. Jewish refugees considered Argentina to be more developed and more European than its neighbors and therefore an attractive destination. 

Spanish-speaking Jews from northern Morocco were among the first immigrants to Argentina, but the bulk of Jewish immigration was Ashkenazi. In 1862, a small group of French, German and English Jewish immigrants established the Ashkenazi Congregacion Israelita Argentina (CIRA) and inaugurated the first synagogue, known as the Libertad synagogue, in Buenos Aires. But the first important milestone in Jewish immigration came in 1881, when a group of 820 Russian Jews arrived in Buenos Aires fleeing a wave of antisemitic violence. These pioneers were sent to Jewish agricultural colonies established by the German Jewish philanthropist Baron Maurice de Hirsch to facilitate Jewish resettlement in the Americas. Some of their members founded in 1889 the colony of Moisesville, known as the “Jerusalem of Argentina” due to its rich Jewish life. Moisesville and other Jewish colonies were beautifully depicted by Alberto Gerchunoff in his 1910 novel Los Gauchos Judíos (The Jewish Gauchos of the Pampas), which was later made into a film and gave these early communities an almost mythic status in Argentine culture.

The number of Jews in Argentina grew rapidly in the decades that followed, from 14,700 in 1900 to 191,400 in 1930. The number reached 273,400 at the end of World War II and peaked at 310,000 in the early 1960s. The numbers grew despite Argentina’s unwillingness to open its gates to refugees fleeing fascist persecution in Europe. Nevertheless, some 40,000 Jews did enter Argentina, both legally and illegally, between 1933 and 1945. From the 1960s onwards, the number of Jews in Argentina began to decline amid political instability and multiple economic crises, with many emigrating to Israel, the United States, or to other countries in Latin America and Europe. 

The vast majority of Jewish immigrants settled in Buenos Aires. Most were secular and maintained their ethnic identity through language, traditions brought from their country of origin, or political beliefs. Within a short time, Jews established a large number of institutions to meet their social, economic, educational and cultural needs. This rich institutional mosaic reflected a wide variety of faiths, identities and social practices. Communist institutions existed alongside Zionist ones. Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews had their respective places of worship. All were able to elaborate unique individual and group hybrid identities as both Argentines and as Jews. 

By the mid-20th century, many Jewish-Argentines had risen to prominent positions in social, economic, artistic and political spheres, but they were not universally welcomed. Growing nationalism, authoritarianism and xenophobia, particularly from the 1930s on, regarded Jews as undesirable. The over-representation of Jews in left-wing movements — first in anarchist circles and then in the ranks of the socialists and communists — gave cause for portraying Jews as corrupting elements in Argentine society. 

In 1919, Jews were the targeted during the Buenos Aires pogrom known as the Tragic Week, in which repression of labor unrest was accompanied by a series of violent acts against the rusos — that is, the Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe identified as revolutionaries because of their origins and faith. In the early 1960s, extreme right-wing militants exploited the kidnapping of the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann by Israeli agents to accuse the Jews of dual loyalty and to carry out a series of violent antisemitic attacks. This wave of antisemitism provoked a panic among Jewish Argentines and, for the first time, substantial emigration to Israel. 

Since then, antisemitic propaganda has sometimes been couched as anti-Israel or anti-Zionist discourse. Conspiracy theories about Israeli plans to occupy parts of Patagonia in order to establish a second Jewish state were spread widely and still figure prominently in Argentine social media. 

Government-sponsored antisemitism was evident under the brutal military dictatorship that ruled the country in the 1970s. Though Jews made up only about one percent of the population, they were ten percent of the desaparecidos , the disappeared persons killed or jailed by the military junta to suppress left-wing political groups in which Jews were disproportionately represented. But Jewish community institutions largely continued with their activities as normal during this period. No antisemitic laws were enacted and government relations with Israel were excellent.

The return of democracy in the early 1980s witnessed the adoption of a tolerant policy toward ethnic minorities and a growing awareness of the multicultural nature of Argentine society. Jewish Argentines were prominent in all spheres of life, from footballers Juan Pablo Sorin and Jose Pekerman, to musicians Daniel Barenboim and Martha Argerich, to comedian Tato Borres and film director Daniel Burman. Argentine Jews have also served in senior government positions. Carlos Corach was minister of the interior in the 1990s and Hector Timmerman served as foreign minister from 2010 to 2015. 

Nevertheless, the success of individual Jews did not signal the complete disappearance of antisemitism or even its occasional violent manifestations. The worst incident came in 1994, when a car bomb exploded in front of the AMIA Jewish community center building in the center of Buenos Aires, killing 85 people and wounding hundreds. Although the terrorists responsible for the attack were assumed to be Islamists directed by Iran, it was understood that they could not have committed their crime without local assistance. Consequently, the attack triggered deep questioning among Argentine Jews about their identity and their place in Argentine society. 

Another crisis hit the community with the onset of the worldwide financial crisis of 2008, sparking widespread Jewish poverty. The crisis boosted the influence of the Chabad movement in Argentina, which offered assistance to Jews in need. Notably, the crisis did not provoke any antisemitic reactions. Nor has the economic debacle of the 2020s, when Argentina suffered from high rates of inflation. Argentine society remains deeply polarized, but while antisemitic sentiments are not rare, this is not a major concern for Jewish-Argentines. 

Join Our Newsletter

Empower your Jewish discovery, daily

Discover More

Jewish Culture

Eight Jewish Nobel Laureates You Should Know

These eight lesser-known Jewish Nobel laureates made groundbreaking contributions to science, culture and more.

Eight Famous Jewish Nobel Laureates

From Albert Einstein to Bob Dylan, there are many Jewish Nobel laureates who have become household names.

Beliefs & Practices

When Do Jews Fast?

In addition to Yom Kippur, there are many public and private fasts in Judaism.