Judith Laikin Elkin, Founding President of LAJSA
The entire LAJSA community was greatly saddened to hear of the death in January 2024 of Judith Laikin Elkin, the Founding President who created the association and served as president from its establishment in 1982 until 1995. We would like to extend our condolences to her family, especially her daughter Alissa Ruth Leonard and her four grandchildren Sarah, Talia, and Abigail Leonard and Sam Zisk. Judith was a pioneer in the field of Latin American Jewish Studies, especially in the English-speaking world.
Born in 1928, Judith was the daughter of immigrants who arrived from Russia and Lithuania at the turn of the 20th century and settled in Detroit. Her parents were ardent Zionists and her first language was Yiddish. Judith earned her undergraduate degree in English from the University of Michigan (1948) before pursuing her master’s degree in international relations, which she would complete in 1950 at Columbia University.
In 1952 Judith began her career as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer. She was the only woman in her class of twenty-four. Her experiences in the diplomatic corps would later provide the material for her first memoir, Krishna Smiled: Assignment in Southeast Asia (1972). In 1954, she received an invitation from Moshe Sharett, then Prime Minister of Israel, to join the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As a Zionist and an American, she had to make the crucial decision of whether her future homeland would be America or Israel. She declined Sharett’s offer.
Judith decided to end her diplomatic career to start a family; at the time, female Foreign Service officers were required to be single. Her marriage to Sol Elkin lasted forty-seven years until his death. Before beginning doctoral studies, Judith was a free-lance journalist who wrote for two Detroit newspapers: the Free Press and the Reporter. After seeing her two daughters through their early childhood years, she decided to pursue a Ph.D. and began to explore the history of Jews in Latin America as a dissertation topic.
Charles Gibson, the future President of the American Historical Association, advised her “not to haul bricks, but to build an edifice” and to view her future PhD thesis “not as a mere dissertation, but as a book.” Her Ph.D. in History from the University of Michigan was awarded in 1976. The book that emerged from her dissertation, entitled Jews of the Latin American Republics in its first edition, appeared in 1980. This volume was subsequently revised, with the most recent expanded and updated edition appearing in 2014 under the title The Jews of Latin America. In the words of Jonathan Sarna: “It remains the most influential English-language synthesis of the field.”
Judith taught for many years at Albion College in Albion, Michigan and at various points in her career offered classes at Wayne State University, Ohio State University, and the University of Michigan. Yet by any reckoning, the most significant legacy of her postdoctoral career is her creation and nurturing of LAJSA. Longtime LAJSA members remember Judith’s laborious work compiling a directory of researchers and community leaders interested in Latin American Jewish topics. She then began mailing to these far-flung colleagues, for free, a print newsletter she published using a copier on her dining room table. Judith’s mailing list and bulletin would eventually provide the basis for LAJSA.
During the early 1980s Judith kept hearing reports that students of Latin American Jewry were consistently being rejected when they sought to present their research at the congress of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA). After unsuccessfully seeking to persuade LASA to create a space for Jewish Studies, she resolved to establish the Latin American Jewish Studies Association as an autonomous association. It became an official organization in 1982. Judith’s association with our friends and colleagues in AMILAT, Israeli researchers of Latin American Jewish topics, started during her early visits to Israel. It resulted in the first joint international conference in the framework of the World Congress of Jewish Studies in 1985 and continued throughout her life.
After concluding her term as President, Judith continued to be closely involved in LAJSA. She edited the newsletter for several more years and was a significant presence at LAJSA conferences well into her eighties. Judith devoted an enormous amount of time to maintaining personal contact with colleagues pursuing research on Latin American Jewish topics. Even when they were well into mid-career and expected to fend for themselves in academia, she offered them encouragement and helpful suggestions.
Late in life, Judith composed a second memoir, Walking Made My Path (2011). In its final chapter, she tells of the growth of LAJSA from its prehistory in her mailing list of colleagues up through the 2011 LAJSA International Conference held at Arizona State University. Readers of this essay will come to appreciate how intimately the story of LAJSA was intertwined with the unfolding of Judith’s life since completing her Ph.D. A revised version of the history of LAJSA is featured on our website.
The week after Judith turned eighty-five, she participated in the 2013 International Research Conference of LAJSA, held at the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. This would be the last time that we all saw Judith in person. In her last decade, she continued to follow the association closely and remained in contact with longtime members. At the time of her death, she held a permanent post on the LAJSA Board of Directors.
We owe LAJSA’s existence to Judith. She organized researchers in this field of studies when there were few people pursuing it. She was a strong leader, setting guidelines as LAJSA developed its path forward. She was a historian who made history. We shall remember Judith affectionately as we continue to benefit from belonging to the association that she brought into being.
– Naomi Lindstrom and Nora Glickman, on behalf of the LAJSA Board
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Many colleagues have conveyed to LAJSA their reminiscences of and tributes to Judith. They appear below.
AMILAT
We would like to convey our condolences to the family of Judith Laikin Elkin and to the whole LAJSA community on behalf of AMILAT. We appreciate Judith’s important contribution to the incorporation of Latin American Jewish studies to the academic world, especially in the United States. The veterans among us remember her persistent struggle to create a network of scholars through the LAJSA bulletin that she edited with great personal effort, gradually making LAJSA as it is today. The friendship between Judith and AMILAT started during her early visits to Israel, that resulted in the first joint international conference in the framework of the World Congress of Jewish Studies in 1985, and continued throughout her life. We remember Judith with affection and appreciation.
Los compañeros de AMILAT expresamos nuestras condolencias a la familia de nuestra amiga Judith Laikin Elkin y a toda la comunidad de LAJSA. Siempre hemos valorado la importante contribución de Judith a la incorporación de los estudios sobre el judaísmo latinoamericano al mundo académico en general y especialmente al de los Estados Unidos. Los más veteranos entre nosotros recordamos su lucha constante en los comienzos para crear una red de investigadores por medio del boletín de LAJSA que editaba con gran esfuerzo personal y llevó a construir gradualmente lo que LAJSA es en el presente.
La amistad entre Judith y AMILAT comenzó durante sus primeras visitas a Israel, que condujeron a la realización del primer congreso conjunto en el marco del Congreso Mundial de Estudios Judaicos en 1985, cooperación que continuó durante toda su vida. Siempre la recordaremos con cariño y aprecio.
Sergio DellaPergola
I am sincerely saddened by the news of the departure of Dr. Judith Laikin Elkin.
Judith was for sure one of the main pioneers in the growing field of Latin American Jewish Studies, and shaped it in many ways conceptually as well as institutionally through LAJSA. I had many opportunities during the last 40 years to meet, exchange views, appreciate her large horizons and wide knowledge. She was a sort of Cristobal Colon, exploring new vistas and encouraging others to take part in the enterprise. Perhaps symbolically, one of our first conversations occurred at Columbus, Ohio.
She will be widely remembered and appreciated for what she did and she built.
Yehi Zichra Baruch,
Sergio
Jonathan Sarna
Saddened to learn of the passing of my friend Prof. Judith Laikin Elkin. I first met her at the American Jewish Archives in the 1970s and watched in admiration as she nurtured the field of Latin American Jewish Studies, which was her passion. Her book
THE JEWS OF LATIN AMERICA remains the most influential English-language synthesis of the field. Prof. Elkin nurtured scholarship in Latin American Jewish Studies and as founding head of LAJSA was among the field’s best-known academics. In her eighties, she published another memoir, WALKING MADE MY PATH (2011).
Alicia Borinsky
May her memory be for an eternal blessing!
Ariel Dulitzky
I am so sorry to hear about her passing.
Stephen A. Sadow
Judith’s death hit me hard. I first met her at a pre-LAJSA planning meeting, in 1982, with Jacob Rader Marcus and, if I remember correctly, Edna Aizenberg. That meeting led me to be a founding member of LAJSA. Later in 1982. Judith asked me to write an article for the issue of American Jewish Archives, that she guest edited. It became my first publication on Latin American Jewish literature. She introduced me to Jacobo Kovadloff, who became an important figure in my life. Later on, whenever she was in Boston to visit her daughter, she would call me, out of the blue, and we would chat for an hour. I will miss her persistence and her quick wit.
Alicia Borinsky
May her memory be a blessing!
Judith Riquelme Ríos
Lamento profundamente recibir la triste noticia sobre el fallecimiento de la Dra. Judith Laikin Elkin.
Yael Halevi-Wise
Wow, almost a whole century of a productive life full of kindness and courage that set so much of the foundation for Latin American Jewish studies.
Sonia Bloomfield
Que triste, ela sempre terá um lugar no meu coração. Baruch Dayan HaEmet.
Sandra McGee Deutsch
I am so sorry to hear that Judith Laikin Elkin, our founding president, has passed away. She was a pioneer in Latin American
Jewish Studies and a mentor for many of us. She also was a pioneering woman scholar, in Latin American history as well as Latin American Jewish Studies. I admired and learned much from her, and I will miss her very much.
Sandra
María Gabriela Mizraje
Impacto, recuerdos y tristeza con esta última noticia que nos compartiste. Bendita sea la memoria de Judith Laikin Elkin. Demos gracias por su larga vida y por todo lo que nos dejó.
Merrie Blocker
I am the creator of the blog thebaronhirschcommunity.org which relates the history of Baron Hirsch’s projects and the stories of the descendants of the people he aided. This blog would not exist if it were not for Judith Elkin.
In 1984 or 85 while serving as the director of the US Cultural Center in Buenos Aires I met Judith who took me to the Baron-sponsored colony of Moisesville and introduced me to the history of this fascinating philanthropist. I then went on to translate a novel by one of the immigrants to a Hirsch colony in Brazil and am spending the rest of my life researching and writing about the hundreds of projects the Baron’s wealth made possible.
Thank you, Judith.
Alicia Gojman de Backal
Mi más sentido pésame por la partida de Judith Laikin Elkin.
Una persona increíble. Z”L
Saúl Sosnowski
Si LAJSA existe se lo debemos a Judith. Ella impuso la presencia de este campo de estudios cuando éramos pocos quienes lo estaban definiendo. Con la fuerza y la voluntad de caudilla que la caracterizaba, fue marcando pautas, integrando a reacios a asumir un papel directivos y negociando con aquellos que proponían rumbos ajenos a la voluntad de la mayoría.
Judith era historiadora e hizo historia. Todo homenaje que le rindamos será poco. Creó memoria y fundó esta institución que nos congrega. Z”L.
Saúl
Anita E. Weinstein
Con mucha tristeza envío mis condolencias, aunque tardías, a los familiares de Judith. Tuve el honor de compartir con ella reflexiones, encuentros y conversaciones personales. Una mujer brillante q abrió el camino y posicionó a los estudios sobre los judios en America Latina en toda su extensión. Siempre será reconocida por ello. ZL.
Jeffrey Lesser
It is rare that a single book creates an entire field of scholarship. Yet Judith Laikin Elkin’s Jews of the Latin American Republics (The University of North Carolina Press, 1980) did just that. Without a doubt, Judith Elkin transformed Jewish-Latin American Studies into an accepted “field” of inquiry in disciplines like history, literature, and cultural studies.
I first met Judith via the postal service when I was during my graduate studies. The late, great Anani Dzidienyo, my first mentor in Brazilian Studies, was pushing me to think about comparative ethnic relations and had heard about the first LAJSA conference. When I wrote Judith, she generously sent me copies of all the papers (this was back in the days when “sending copies” meant paying for Xerox and postage). I still remember that package showing up in my mailbox and the black binder with those papers still sits next to my desk. That package was more than one of content. Judith was taking an important step in breaking down generational hierarchies and her generosity, even with a punk like me, is an approach still too rarely found among academics. Judith was doing more than being nice to me, she was teaching me that supporting early career scholars would keep a field alive.
Many of the lessons that I now teach to my own students emerge from being one of Judith Elkin’s academic progeny. It is an honor for me to have this opportunity to publicly say Muito Obrigado.
Angelina Muñiz-Huberman
Mis sentidas condolencias por el fallecimiento de Judith Laikin Elkin, una gran persona fundamental para LAJSA. La recuerdo con afecto.
