The parallel lives of two immigrant entrepreneurs: Torcuato Di Tella and Ezra Teubal

Abstract

This article sheds new light on the paths of Ezra Teubal, a Jewish immigrant of Aleppine origin who became a prominent figure in Argentina's textile industry, and Torcuato Di Tella, who created the most iconic industrial empire of Argentina in the mid-20th century. It does not seek to compare two companies from radically different sectors. Nor does it aim to compare their individual talent or character. The gap between them encompasses cultural traits, professional backgrounds, political affinities, and, above all, ethnic and religious identities. However, their belonging to the same generation and their status as immigrants and entrepreneurs during the same formative period of industrialization in Argentina reveal several common points. The text focuses on the development of the companies they founded up until Di Tella's untimely death in 1948. Although Di Tella and Teubal were not rejected by the elites of their respective ethnic groups, neither held leadership roles in the leading institutions of their communities. Marginalized or self-marginalized, both were rare birds, the former due to his isolation from the dominant Italian economic groups, the latter due to his idiosyncratic and cultural alienation from 90% of Argentina’s Ashkenazi Jewry. In any case, without having renounced their deep Italian and Jewish identities, their business leadership did not translate into ethnic leadership.