Rein, Raanan 1960-

PERSONAL:

Born June 17, 1960, in Tel Aviv, Israel; married; children: two. Education: University of Tel Aviv, B.A. (with distinction), 1986, M.A., 1988, Ph.D. (with distinction), 1991.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of History, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 69978, Israel; fax: 972-3-640660. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Israel Defense Forces, foreign news editor for radio station, 1979-82; Al Hamishmar (newspaper), writer of commentaries on foreign affairs, 1982-84; Hadashot (Hebrew newspaper), Tel Aviv, Israel, foreign news editor, 1984-87; Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Israel, Wolf Foundation fellow, 1992-94, lecturer, 1992-96, senior lecturer, 1996-98, associate professor, 1998-2001, professor of history, 2001—, director of Institute of Latin American History and Culture, 2000-04, director of S. Daniel Abraham Center for International and Regional Studies, 2004—, member of board of directors of the university, 2004-05, vice rector of the university, 2005—. University of Maryland at College Park, research fellow in history and at Latin American Studies Center, 1999-2000; Emory University, dean's research professor, 2004. Member of editorial board, Mediterranean Historical Review, 2000—, Araucaria, 2004, and Zmanim, 2004; member of international board, Historia del Presente, 2003—, Latitud Sur, 2006—, and Temas de Historia Argentina y Americana, 2006—.

MEMBER:

Academia Nacional de la Historia (Argentina).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Raoul Wallenberg Foundation awards, 1988, 1992; grant from Maurice Pulver Foundation, 1988; Yad Hanadiv Humanities fellow, Rothschild Foundation, 1994-95, 1995-96; research award, Latin American Jewish Studies Association, 2002.

WRITINGS:

The Franco-Perón Alliance: Relations between Spain and Argentina, 1946-1955, translated by Martha Grenzeback, University of Pittsburgh Press (Pittsburgh, PA), 1993.

In the Shadow of the Holocaust and the Inquisition: Israel's Relations with Francoist Spain (in Hebrew), School of History, Tel Aviv University (Tel Aviv, Israel), 1995, revised edition published in English, Frank Cass Publishers (Portland, OR), 1997.

(Editor, with Tzvi Medin) Society and Identity in Argentina: The European Context (in Hebrew), School of History, Tel Aviv University (Tel Aviv, Israel), 1997.

Populism and Charisma: Perón's Argentina (in Hebrew), Modan Publishers (Tel Aviv, Israel), 1998.

Peronismo, populismo y política: Argentina, 1943-1955, Universidad de Belgrano (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 1998.

(Editor) Spain and the Mediterranean since 1898, Frank Cass Publishers (Portland, OR), 1999.

(Editor, with Tzvi Medin) Mexico since the Revolution (in Hebrew), School of History, Tel Aviv University (Tel Aviv, Israel), 1999.

(Editor) They Shall Not Pass: The Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 (in Hebrew), Zmora-Bitan, (Tel Aviv, Israel), 2000.

Argentina, Israel, y los Judiíos: Encuentros y desencuentros, mitos y realidades, Ediciones Lumiere (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 2001, 2nd edition, 2007.

Argentina, Israel, and the Jews: Perón, the Eichmann Capture, and After, translated by Martha Grenzeback, University Press of Maryland (Bethesda, MD), 2003.

(Editor, with Carlos H. Waisman) Spanish and Latin American Transitions to Democracy, Sussex Academic Press (Portland, OR), 2005.

(Editor, with Carlos H. Waisman and Ander Gurrutxaga Abad) Transiciones de la dictadura a la democracia: Los casos de España y América Latina, Editorial de la Universidad del País Vasco (Bilbao, Spain), 2005.

(Editor, with Rosalie Sitman) El primer Peronismo: Los años de la discordia, Ediciones Lumiere (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 2005.

(Editor, with Tamar Groves) Outside the Bullring: Spain in the 20th Century (in Hebrew), Ramot (Tel Aviv, Israel), 2005.

Juan Atilio Bramuglia: La sombra del Lider y la segunda linea del liderazgo peronista, Ediciones Lumiere (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 2006, translation by Martha Grenzeback published as Under the Shadow of Perón: Juan Atilio Bramuglia and the Second Line of Argentina's Populist Movement, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 2007.

Contributor to books, including La politica argentina, 1930-1955, edited by C. Malamud, Instituto Universitario Ortega y Gasset, 1992. Coeditor of the Hebrew-language book series, "Ibero-America," Institute of Latin American History and Culture, Tel Aviv University, 1995—; editor of the book series "Nuevas miradas a la Argentina del siglo XX," Ediciones Lumiere, 2003—. Contributor of articles and reviews in English, Spanish, and Hebrew to periodicals, including Hispania, Zmanim, Cuadernos Americanos, International Problems, Society, and Politics, State, Government, and International Relations, Journal of Latin American Studies, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, Diplomacy and Statecraft, and Patterns of Prejudice. Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe, associate editor, 1992-97, editor, 1997—; coeditor of special issue, Zmanim, 1995; guest editor, Mediterranean Historical Review, 1998, History and Memory, 2000, and Jewish History, 2004.

SIDELIGHTS:

In his 1993 book, The Franco-Perón Alliance: Relations between Spain and Argentina, 1946-1955, Raanan Rein examines the political relationship between General Juan Perón of Argentina and Generalissimo Francisco Franco of Spain, leaders of the only two fascist states in existence following World War II. When the Allies imposed an economic and political embargo on Franco following their victory in World War II, Perón helped the Spanish regime to survive by selling the country large amounts of wheat. Rein presents a thorough study of both regimes as well as of their alliance, which deteriorated in the early 1950s, after Franco became an official ally of the United States. After a long, tumultuous, and complex rule, Perón was eventually deposed in 1955 and then was allowed to settle in Spain. In a review in the Times Literary Supplement, Mark Falcoff commented: "Based on exhaustive work in Spanish, Argentine, American and British diplomatic archives, it is a significant contribution to the history of both Spain and Argentina, and also to our knowledge of Cold War politics."

In Argentina, Israel, and the Jews: Perón, the Eichmann Capture, and After, Rein turns his attention to Perón's relationship with Israel and the Jews of Argentina, who he reportedly saw, in part, as potential intermediaries in an attempt to improve U.S.-Argentine relations after his political alignment with fascist Spain. Rein's interpretation of complex issues begins with Argentina's initial failure to support United Nations recognition of the official government of Israel after World War II; Rein points out that, after the fact, Argentina became one of the first nations to recognize and support the newly established State of Israel. He then counters some popular theories that Argentina became a magnet for hordes of Nazi war criminals seeking safe haven after the war, despite the documented truth that some notorious ones did settle there. Rein argues that Perón actually encouraged Jewish settlement to the extent that Argentina eventually became home to the largest Jewish community in Latin America, and that the leader fought against a rising anti-Semitic faction in his country. His mixed success in this endeavor evaporated after Perón's departure. A key turning point came after Israeli operatives compromised Argentine sovereignty by kidnapping war criminal Adolf Eichmann in 1960 and spiriting him out of the country for trial and execution in Israel. Anti-Semitic attitudes and resulting violence increased dramatically at this point and wiped out earlier attempts at assimilation for several years to come. While Rein's voice seems to represent a call for balance in the historical record, it is not an apology for the Argentine position. According to Shofar contributor Ariel de la Fuente, Argentina, Israel, and the Jews "both fills an important gap in Argentine and Israeli diplomatic history and revises the established (but largely un- founded and inaccurate) images of the relationship between these actors." Mario Sznajder wrote in the Journal of Latin American Studies: "Raanan Rein has written an excellent book in a difficult interdisciplinary terrain and this text is a must for those who are seriously interested both in the history of Argentina and in contemporary Jewry."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Israel Studies, spring, 2005, Idit Gil, review of Argentina, Israel, and the Jews: Perón, the Eichmann Capture, and After, p. 216.

Journal of Latin American Studies, August, 2004, Mario Sznajder, review of Argentina, Israel, and the Jews, p. 608.

Shofar, fall, 2006, Ariel de la Fuente, review of Argentina, Israel, and the Jews, p. 175.

Times Literary Supplement, February 25, 1994, Mark Falcoff, review of The Franco-Perón Alliance: Relations between Spain and Argentina, 1946-1955.