Happy Women’s History Month! Help JWA continue to lift up Jewish women’s stories, this month and every month, by making a gift today!
Close [x]

Show [+]

Podcast: Rita Arditti on Being Invisible in Argentina

Rita Arditti reflects on growing up in Argentina as a Sephardic Jew.
view details

Rita Arditti, 2005.

As April comes to a close and as we kick off Jewish American Heritage Month in May, we're featuring an oral history clip of Rita Arditti as our podcast of the month. With her lilting Spanish-accented English, Arditti's voice is striking, as her journey is unique - perhaps one that many of us don't immediately associate with Jewish American heritage.

A Sephardic Jew who grew up in Argentina, a country that is 95% Catholic, Arditti knew what it meant to be a "minority within a minority." Born in 1934 to parents who were Turkish immigrants, Rita was aware even as a young child that, "To be a Sephardic Jew in Argentina is to be invisible" within the Jewish and non-Jewish communities alike.

It was, in part, this awareness of invisibility that helped shape Arditti's immigrant experience in America, and later, the development of her political consciousness as a human rights activist. In the 1980's Rita agreed to translate for a Boston tour of the grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Rita was moved by the women's search for grandchildren who had disappeared under Argentina's military dictatorship from 1976-83. During annual visits to Argentina, Rita decided to write a book about their struggle to find children who might be living under assumed identities. With the publication of Searching for Life: The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo and the Disappeared Children of Argentina, the story of the missing became an international one. The first in depth study of the grandmother's work, Searching for Life helped to publicize a quest that was often fraught with danger. In 2001 the grandmothers were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Rita's book was part of the supporting documentation offered for that nomination.

Listen to Arditti tell her story.

1 Comment
The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

Just listened to the podcast and liked it a lot- I'm currently reading to books on Jewish American heritage and was look for some nice audio and video material. Thanks Lisa Blummen

Read the latest from JWA from your inbox.

sign up now

Donate

Help us elevate the voices of Jewish women.

donate now

Get JWA in your inbox

Read the latest from JWA from your inbox.

sign up now

How to cite this page

Namerow, Jordan. "Podcast: Rita Arditti on Being Invisible in Argentina." 28 April 2009. Jewish Women's Archive. (Viewed on March 28, 2024) <http://jwa.org/blog/rita-arditti-podcast>.