Argentinian Jewish village proposed as UNESCO site

The Simon Wiesenthal Center submitted the Argentinean Jewish settlement of Moises Ville for inscription as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Center proposed the city, whose name in Spanish means City of Moses, at the World Heritage Committee meeting of the United Nations’ scientific and cultural arm, which will conclude on July 6 in St. Petersburg.

The Center, a human rights organization and the only Jewish organization accredited to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, presented Moises Ville as a successful example of immigrant absorption.

“Each ethnic and faith community deserves respect for its narrative as a contribution to its host country and to universal heritage” said Shimon Samuels, the Center’s director for international relations, in a statement. “The inscription of Moises Ville would represent acknowledgement of a diasporic best practice as an example for the sites of other ethnic and faith migrant communities around the world.”

Moises Ville was founded in 1899 by Jews fleeing pogroms in the Ukraine. The settlers created an agricultural community, in addition to the Kadima Yiddish theatre, which attracted productions from New York, Warsaw and Buenos Aires. Moises Ville also fostered and cooperative relations with the local Argentinean and Italian settlements. In honor of its 1999 centennial, the Argentinean government declared Moises Ville “a historic village.”