Crítica
- There Are 500,000 Pesos for the Jewish National Home
- Two Policemen Commit a Serious Assault in Avellaneda
- Soon the Zoo's Inhabitants Will Have to Endure One Diet Day a Week
Crítica's page of 3 November 1926 set community news beside crime reporting and a lighter zoo story. Under a headline announcing 500,000 pesos for the Jewish National Home, the paper reported the 8th session of the Zionist Congress, where delegates debated the reports of the federation's general secretary and department heads. A second item denounced a fresh assault by provincial policemen in Avellaneda, this time on two minors, coming soon after Dock Sud policemen had shot and kicked two workers. In the zoo piece, Dr. Holmberg argued that U.S. protection had made bison plentiful enough to cost only 900 dollars a pair, though the zoo had no room for them yet.
Translation
There Are 500,000 Pesos for the Jewish National Home
At about 10 in the morning, with almost all the delegates present, the 8th session of the Zionist Congress opened, presided over by Mr. S. J. Hurovich. In the course of the session, the debate continued on the reports presented by the general secretary and by the directors of the various departments that make up the Federation. First to be taken up was the report presented by the general secretary, whose discussion had begun yesterday.
Two Policemen Commit a Serious Assault in Avellaneda
With the just indignation aroused among the people by the brutal attack of the Dock Sud (Avellaneda) policemen on two workers, whom they wounded with gunshots and tried to finish off with kicks, still fresh, we are informed of a new and no less brutal assault committed by provincial policemen within the jurisdiction of Avellaneda. This time it was two minors on whom the policemen vented their cruelty.
Soon the Zoo's Inhabitants Will Have to Endure One Diet Day a Week
? — It seems to me that this is being exaggerated. The protective measures adopted more than thirty years ago by the United States government have given excellent results. The species has been defended, and its multiplication fostered, to such an extent that the United States supplies pairs of bison to whoever requests them with a guarantee that they will look after their development. We have not yet requested any pair, because there is no space available for one at the Zoo. We will surely do so at the first opportunity. A good proof of what I am telling you — added Dr. Holmberg — is the relatively cheap price of a pair of bison. They are currently quoted at 900 dollars.
Context
The 'Jewish National Home' and the Zionist fund-raising network
The headline's phrase 'Jewish National Home' goes back to the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which the British government said it viewed with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. In 1920 the Zionist movement answered with Keren Hayesod, a fund created to provide the resources needed to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Keren Hayesod set up fund-raising organizations around the world, and in 1926, the year of this Buenos Aires congress, it moved its headquarters from London to Jerusalem. A national federation whose delegates spent a session going through the reports of a general secretary and departmental directors fits this pattern of local bodies collecting money for the movement's central institutions. The 500,000-peso figure, however, is the paper's own headline claim; the excerpt does not say which fund the money was meant for or how it was raised.
How large Argentina's Jewish community had become
The congress spoke for a community built largely by recent immigration. In 1889 a group of 824 Russian Jews arrived on the S.S. Weser and took up life on the land as gauchos, the start of the agricultural colonies that drew further settlers. Over time many Jewish immigrants settled in cities, especially Buenos Aires, and by 1920 more than 150,000 Jews were living in Argentina. That urban, largely Eastern European population is the background to a Buenos Aires gathering large enough to hold numbered sessions with almost all its delegates present, and to a popular evening paper treating its proceedings as news.
Crítica's campaigns against police brutality
Crítica was Natalio Botana's paper, and it set the tone of Buenos Aires journalism in the 1920s and 1930s with sensationalism and loud, inventive crime coverage. By the mid-1920s it reached legendary print runs of 800,000 copies a day. Its firm positions included denouncing police corruption and torture. The Avellaneda item shows that line at work: it opens by invoking the people's 'just indignation' over the earlier Dock Sud shooting and presents the attack on two minors as a second case in a series, blaming policemen of the province rather than the capital's force. The vocabulary of brutality and outrage is the paper's own framing of events it says it was informed of.
Dr. Holmberg and the Buenos Aires Zoo
The Buenos Aires Zoo had been shaped by a short line of directors. Eduardo Ladislao Holmberg was appointed its first director in 1888 and held the post for 15 years; Clemente Onelli then ran the zoo from 1904 to 1924. In 1924 Adolfo Holmberg, nephew of the first director, took over and headed the zoo until 1944. The 'Dr. Holmberg' interviewed in November 1926 was therefore most likely Adolfo, two years into his directorship, explaining both the planned weekly diet day for the animals and why the zoo had not yet asked for bison. His statement that there was no room for a pair is his own account of the zoo's situation.
How far U.S. bison protection had come by 1926
Holmberg's optimism rested on a real recovery. An 1889 survey published by William Hornaday, later the first director of the Bronx Zoo, showed that approximately 1,000 bison remained in North America. The American Bison Society was founded in 1905 by the New York Zoological Society; in 1907 it shipped 15 bison from the Bronx Zoo to the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma, and in 1908, after its petitioning, Congress passed a bill for a permanent National Bison Range in Montana. By 1935 the society judged the public herds secure and disbanded. The organized effort documented in these sources began with a private society in 1905 and federal legislation in 1908, roughly two decades before the interview; they do not show which earlier government measures Holmberg meant by 'more than thirty years'. The offer of pairs to foreign applicants and the 900-dollar price come from Holmberg's own words.
Original
Hay 500.000 Pesos para el Hogar Nacional Judio
Más o menos a las 10 de la mañana y con asistencia de casi todos los delegados, se inició la 8. a sesión del Congreso Sionista, siendo presidida por el señor S. J. Hurovich. Continuó, en el transcurso de ella, el [?] ebate de los informes presentados por el secretario general y los directores de los diversos departamentos que integran la Federación. En primer término se trató el informe presentado por el secretario general, cuya discusión se inició ayer.
Un Grave Atentado Cometieron dos Vigilantes en Avellaneda
Latente aun la justa indignación provocada en el pueblo por el brutal atropello de los vigilantes de dock sur (Avellaneda) contra dos obreros a quienes hirieron a balazos y quisieron ultimar a puntapiés, se nos informa de un nuevo y no menos brutal atentado cometido por vigilantes de la provincia y en jurisdicción de Avellaneda. Esta vez han sido dos menores con quienes se ensañaron los vigiantes.
UnDía de Dieta Semanal Sufrirán dentro de poco los Habitantes del Zoológico
? - Me parece qu [?] se exagera. Las medidas de protección adoptadas hace más de treinta años por el gobierno estado [?] nidense han dado excelentes resultados. La especie ha sido defendida, amparándose su multiplicación hasta el extremo de que Estados Unidos, facilita parejas de bisontes a [?] uienes las soliciten con garantía de que cuidarán su desarrollo. Nosotros no hemos solicitado aún ninguna pareja debido a que no hay lugar disponible p [?] ra ella en el Zoológico. Lo haremos seguramente en la primera oportunidad. Una buena prueba de cuanto les digo - agregó el doctor Holmberg - es el precio relativamente barato de la pareja de bisontes. Se las cotiza actualmente en 900 dólares.
Source: Source: Internet Archive / Biblioteca Nacional de la República Argentina