‘No One More Tenacious’: The Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Activism, and Argentina's Political Prisoners

This article examines efforts to secure the release of one Jewish family – the Deutsches – during Argentina's period of state terrorism by focusing on the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Through the Deutsch case, the article sheds light on the experiences of Jews in Argentina under the repression and international efforts to mobilize against the antisemitism of the regime. Drawing on newly available ADL files, along with documents from other Jewish and human rights organizations’ archives, a vast array of newspapers, and State Department documents, the article reveals the role and function of the ADL during the Argentine dictatorship, depicting how a Jewish group worked within a matrix of US-based human rights actors concerned about Argentine violations and navigated its relationship with Argentine Jewish groups. In addition, the article redirects the historiographical focus of Jewish internationalism during this period away from Europe and toward the Global South. Lastly, the article contributes toward understanding how Jewish activism began to articulate Jewish human rights issues in authoritarian contexts in a post-Holocaust era, despite certain tensions that emerged between the US and Argentine-based groups on what that legacy should be.