Indissoluble Bonds: Jews, Law, and the Limits of the Argentine Immigrant Nation with Leila Stadler moderated by Tamar Herzog

In this talk, Stadler explores how migration to Argentina shaped Jewish law at the turn of the twentieth century. Argentina granted religious freedom to rebuild itself as a “Nation of Immigrants.” But this freedom was limited in ways Eastern European Jews had not encountered before. Specifically, its family law perpetuated the Catholic ban on divorce and extended it to all citizens. This talk draws on newly opened rabbinic archives, civil court files, and Yiddish radio and press to examine how rabbis and lay leaders adapted halakhah to these constraints and how Jewish immigrants developed alternative strategies to dissolve marriages within and beyond the state framework. Ultimately, these practices challenged Catholic legal dominance and redefined Jewish autonomy, writing a new chapter in the social and religious meanings of marriage and divorce within the broader tradition of Jewish–state relations.
Lelia Stadler is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at Columbia University. Her research focuses on modern Jewish migration to Latin America from legal and social perspectives. Her article “Ethical and Legal Bigamy: Transatlantic Jewish Families Caught between Conflicting Legalities, Argentina, 1930–1939,” has recently appeared in Jewish Social Studies (2025).