“Israel’s chief rabbi was in Bueno Aires on Wednesday to inaugurate the Latin American Rabbinical Conference.
The founding Torah scroll was signed in Argentina’s capital in the presence of David Lau, who has served as Israel’s Ashkenazi chief rabbi since 2013 along with Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef.
A total of 30 rabbis from different countries in the region participated in the ceremony. The conference includes the chief rabbis of Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Peru, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay and Ecuador.
Rabbi Eliyahu Hamara, the president of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) and a member of the European Conference of Rabbis, initiated and founded the conference.
“The founding of the Latin American Rabbinical Conference on the 10th of Av is so important and significant because it basically means that the Torah in all of Latin America is one Torah, which will be connected to the rabbinical organizations of the world, to the chief rabbinate in Israel,” said Lau.
“This is a conference that will increase the honor of heaven and also give strength to communities in distant places. The rabbis will be part of all the rabbis in the world and thus the Latin American Rabbinical Conference will be able to preserve the status of Judaism better,” he added.
“With a population of approximately a quarter a million, greater Buenos Aires and its adjacent provinces unquestionably have the largest concentration of Jewish in the Western hemisphere outside the United States,” said Irving Louis Horowitz. According to Horowitz, Argentina ranks second only to the United States as a haven for the Diaspora Jew.
Produced in association with Jewish News Syndicate
Edited by Priscilla Jepchumba and Judy J. Rotich
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