By Sarah Glidden, Cartoonist and Author of How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less. With the help of an ROI Micro Grant Sarah flew to Buenos Aires, Argentina to run workshops at the  Viñetas Sueltas Comics Festival.

Last fall I was fortunate to be invited to Buenos Aires, Argentina as part of the Viñetas Sueltas Comics Festival. I was there to run some workshops and to talk about my book, How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less, a graphic memoir which follows my Birthright trip to Israel which was published by Vertigo/DC comics in 2010 and which was later translated into five foreign languages, including Spanish (published by Norma Editorial). 

I have always wanted to visit Buenos Aires. People come back from visits to Argentia talking about the tango, the architecture, and of course, the steak. But Buenos Aires is also home to the 4th largest Jewish population in the world. Many of the ROI participants I met in Jerusalem in 2010 were from there, and when I told them I would be coming to their city, they were eager to tell me all about how Jewish life is integrated into the daily flow of the city.
 

On one of my first nights there, I found out just how true this was. Buenos Aires has a rich comics culture, dating back to a century of newspaper comics and books, and it seemed like I met a large percentage of them at the home of Juan Saenz Valiente, where the welcome party for all the participating  iñetas Sueltas cartoonists was held. People asked about my book, and when I told them it was about Jewish identity, I was surprised to discover that of the group of artists assembled in the living room, almost half of them were Jewish as well (including the host!)

An artist of that group I got to know fairly well over my two months in the country, Brian Janchez, has created several books which talk about the way his Jewish identity plays a part in his life. One of them, Shloishim, is about the death of his father. The other, McKosher, is a humorous autobiographical account of when he worked at McDonalds Kosher. “McDonalds Kosher?” I asked. “There’s a Kosher McDonalds here?” Brian informed me that in fact, there was a Kosher McDonalds in Once, the Jewish commercial district downtown. It is the only Kosher McDonalds outside of Israel.
 

I needed to investigate this neighborhood and this kosher fast food joint for myself, and spent about a week wandering the streets of Once doing sketches and research for a contribution to the London based Jewish Quarterly. The McDonalds Kosher was right where Brian said it was, and it was quite the popular place. 

Having lived for almost a decade in Brooklyn close to the orthodox Jewish community in Williamsburg, I was expecting to find a community like the one back home, a little closed off from the rest of the city. But Once turned out to be the opposite of Williamsburg. Lined with wholesale fabric shops, bookstores, charming cafés, and several synagogues, the streets were crammed with people of all sorts. 

Buenos Aires is a country made up of immigrants, most of them from European countries like Poland, Italy, and Germany. Perhaps this is why it didn’t feel so strange to be visiting as a North American (coming as we do from another country full of immigrants). Like the US, Argentina has a problematic past, which made for many interesting conversations with the other artists I met, as well as the readers who attended my events and workshops. Just as 60 days is not enough time to “understand Israel” (as my title suggests), two months barely scratches the surface of life in Buenos Aires. I guess that means I will have to go back again for another stay.