Nancy Wigston, Special to The CJN, Friday, August 2, 2013

Half a million Jews once lived in Argentina – less than half that remain today – and those interested in the still-vibrant Jewish Buenos Aires must meet Salito Gutt for one of his wonderful tours.

I had been smitten with Salito’s tour on my first trip, and last winter we met again, at a charming café steps from the Poetry Building. We caught up on family news and discussed politics, especially Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s scheme to hold a “truth commission” into the 1994 AMIA bombing, in – of all places– Tehran.

Like untreated wounds, the terrorist bombings in Buenos Aires (1992, Israeli Embassy, 29 killed; 1994, AMIA Community Centre, 85 killed, hundreds injured), still fester. Argentine prosecutors concluded the second attack was financed by Iran and carried out by Hezbollah.

Gesturing to the elegant streets outside our café, Salito says, “This is fantasy.” He has a point. Yet, steps away, a large bronze plaque in the sidewalk bears the name of filmmaker Raymundo Gleyzer, who “disappeared” in 1976, during the country’s long “dirty war.” Its final words are “Memory and Justice.” Few seem to forget this country’s rocky history; instead, past becomes woven into present.

When my husband meets Salito, they immediately hit it off, which is hardly a surprise. No man could be prouder of Jewish Buenos Aires history, or better able to communicate it. New stops have been added to the tour, including a Sephardi temple, and we end our morning in the Oncé district (“Like the Lower East Side” says Salito, who has lived in New York) at a gigantic mall with a mezuzah at its entrance and a kosher McDonald’s inside.

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