Publishers Weekly
★ 11/29/2021
Argentinian journalist Sinay makes his English-language debut with a gripping account of a series of murders in Moisés Ville, Argentina’s first Jewish agricultural colony, founded in 1889 by Jews seeking refuge from pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe. Between 1889 and 1906, 22 Jews of Moisés Ville were killed, their deaths part of a wave of violence carried out by gauchos in a region where law enforcement, or any government presence, was minimal. Among the many crimes, the most horrific was the 1897 massacre of almost the entire Waisman family by thieves who looted the household after the slaughter. Reconstructing the century-plus-old crimes proved a daunting challenge, with many relevant records lost in the 1994 Buenos Aires terror attack on that city’s major Jewish community center. Sinay supplements the scant archival material with interviews with the victims’ descendants and his own family members, creating a disturbing picture of refugees from oppressive regimes further victimized by murderous outlaws as they tried to build new lives. Sinay acknowledges the impossibility of fully separating legends from facts (as he was able to do in the case of one murder, for which details of another homicide had been misattributed), but his diligence has produced as definitive an account as possible of what actually happened during this bloody period. This nuanced search for truth should have broad appeal. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
Praise for The Murders of Moisés Ville:
“Sinay acknowledges the impossibility of fully separating legends from facts. . . but his diligence has produced as definitive an account as possible of what actually happened during this bloody period. This nuanced search for truth should have broad appeal.”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
"I greatly admire Javier Sinay's enlightening and humane account of his sleuthing—the disinterment of a violent episode of buried history—now no longer forgotten. Its implications resonate far beyond the borders of Argentina."
—Paul Theroux, author of The Mosquito Coast and Under the Wave at Waimea
“A fascinating, dark journey of the hardships faced by Jews fleeing Eastern Europe seeking to establish themselves in a foreign country.”
—Yedidya Levin, Ami Magazine
“With the help of a Yiddish translator, Sinay unearthed not only imprecise information in Mijl’s accounts, but also silences on key issues. … Intelligent and well-researched … A worthy, unique entry in Jewish history.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Javier Sinay is a cronista of whom we are all proud.”
—Jon Lee Anderson, author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life and The Fall of Baghdad
"[T]his work of historical reportage helps to keep the victims’ memories alive. The Murders of Moisés Ville sheds light on an undercovered portion of Jewish history."
—Jeff Fleischer, Foreword Reviews
“Javier Sinay...is one of the most recent and interesting links between narrative journalism, American non-fiction, and the rich tradition of Argentinian detective literature.”
—Rodrigo Márquez Tizano, VICE
Kirkus Reviews
2021-12-09
An award-winning Buenos Aires–based journalist investigates murders that took place in the first Jewish agricultural settlement in Argentina.
When Sinay found an article that his great-grandfather had written about a series of Jewish immigrant murders that had taken place at the end of the 19th century in the Santa Fe province, he was instantly intrigued. Mijl Hacohen Sinay had been a Belarus-born teacher and journalist who founded the first Yiddish-language newspaper in Argentina after settling in Buenos Aires in 1898 at the age of 21. Deciding to probe Mijl's story at greater depth, Sinay discovered that most of the documentation about the murders—including the book Mijl had written about them in 1947—was written in Yiddish, a language Sinay could not read. The author’s search took him first to the Buenos Aires Jewish Museum and later, to the tiny town where the murders occurred. Named for the biblical Jewish liberator Moses, Moisés Ville was viewed as a beacon of freedom by Eastern European Jews fleeing the “tyranny of Russia.” But rather than becoming a haven, it became a place where gauchos killed and robbed the new immigrants. With the help of a Yiddish translator, Sinay unearthed not only imprecise information in Mijl’s accounts, but also silences on key issues. The gaucho terrorists he excoriated had also suffered. Before the immigrants arrived, they had been stripped of their nomadic freedoms and unwillingly forced to assimilate into the capitalist economy. In sacrificing journalist rigor, Mijl had ultimately written a book with undercurrents that evoked the horrors of the Holocaust as well as the concomitant fear of Jewish cultural and linguistic loss. Intelligent and well-researched, this book will most likely attract readers interested in Argentinian history and/or the modern Jewish Diaspora.
The audience may be limited, but this is still a worthy, unique entry in Jewish history.
