Rebeca Mactas

Los judios de Las Acacias Rebeca Mactas

«The Jews of Las Acacias» establishes Rebeca Mactas as a founding author of Jewish-Argentine literature, with a particular focus on documenting the role of women in the agricultural colonization promoted by the Jewish Colonization Association created by businessman, banker and philanthropist Mauricio de Hirsch, among whose initial pioneers was Mordejai Alpersohn, the grandfather of Mactas.

A remarkable element of Mactas's stories is the feminine perspective from which they are narrated, which underscores the obligatory hard work and compulsory secondary roles of women amidst a rigid patriarchal tradition.

These works are not mere tales, as they also include prefatory poems that introduce central themes, such as the ideals of the Haskalah movement, or «Jewish Enlightenment», with its search to revitalize the Jewish spirit through a renewed contact with the land. The characters in Las Acacias share the telluric environment of Alberto Gerchunoff's «The Jewish Gauchos of the Pampas», but the life of these colonists is not portrayed as overly bucolic. While nature is hostile and strange to them, the characters exhibit a reverent, respectful attitude toward it as well as an endearing love.