Defying Traditional Shtadlanut: Jewish Self-Defense in Argentina

On June 8, 1967, in the midst of the Six-Day War, several hundreds of people gathered in front of the Syrian Embassy in Buenos Aires. They began shouting, exclaiming against the “American-Jewish plot, Zionism and its collaborators in Argentina,” and delivered rousing calls such as “Death to the Jews.” The members of the Jewish Self-Defense Organization in Buenos Aires (known by its Hebrew name Irgún, which means organization) did not want to forfeit the field to the supporters of Arab countries and hurried to confront the protesters, several of whom were injured during the confrontation. “The war [in the Middle