Yo, Judío (''Me, a Jew'') is a 1934 essay about

antisemitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

by the Argentine writer

Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo ( ; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator regarded as a key figure in Spanish literature, Spanish-language and international literatur ...

In 1934, Argentine

ultra-nationalists Ultranationalism, or extreme nationalism, is an extremist form of nationalism in which a country asserts or maintains hegemony, supremacy, or other forms of control over other nations (usually through violent coercion) to pursue its specific i ...

affiliated with the magazine Crisol, sympathetic to

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

and the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...

, asserted Borges was secretly Jewish, and by implication, not truly Argentine. Borges responded by writing the essay, the title of which is a reference to the old phrase "Yo, Argentino" ("Me, I'm Argentine") that was uttered by potential victims during

pogrom A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of Massacre, massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century Anti-Jewis ...

s against Argentine Jews, to signify one was not Jewish.De Costa, René (2000) ''Humor in Borges (Humor in Life & Letters)''. Wayne State University Press p. 49 In the essay, Borges declares he would be proud to be a Jew, and remarks that any pure Castilian is likely to come from ancient Jewish descent, from a millennium ago. In the essay, Borges details his own efforts, strenuous but ultimately futile, to document possible Jewish ancestors in his own family's genealogy: Charlie Chaplin was not Jewish, despite being named as Jewish in the essay. Sarah Rinder, writing to Mosaic Magazine, suggests that Borges expresses a "liking especially for those Jews who have transcended, or even shed, their Jewish identities." The editor mentioned in the essay, Manuel Gleizer, was a librarian, publisher and editor whose bookshop was a meeting point for authors, including Borges. In 2024, the University of Pennsylvania Libraries Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts purchased the

holograph An autograph or holograph is a manuscript or document written in its author's or composer's hand. The meaning of " autograph" as a document penned entirely by the author of its content (as opposed to a typeset document or one written by a copy ...

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

of Yo, Judío from a bookstore in

Montevideo Montevideo (, ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Uruguay, largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2023 census, the city proper has a population of 1,302,954 (about 37.2% of the country's total population) in an area of . M ...

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

, shelfmark UPenn Misc Mss Box 25 Folde
38
.

References

External links

Borges y el judaísmo
Casa de América
Yo, judío

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

{{Jorge Luis Borges 1934 essays Anti-racism in Argentina Antisemitism in Argentina Conversos Jewish Argentine history Opposition to antisemitism in South America Philosemitism Racial antisemitism Zionism in Argentina Works about antisemitism Works by Jorge Luis Borges

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References

External links