Buenos Aires, Argentina – Rabbi Sergio Bergman, already one of Buenos Aires’ most prominent spiritual leaders, has become one of the Argentine capital’s most highly visible political candidates.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
Bergman was tapped by the city’s incumbent mayor, Mauricio Macri, to lead his PRO party’s list for the municipal legislature. As the top candidate on the center-right party’s slate, the rabbi is virtually assured of securing a spot in the city legislature in the July 10 municipal elections.
Meanwhile, Macri’s main challenger for the mayoralty is Jewish. Daniel Filmus, a former Argentine education minister, will be facing off against Macri for the city’s top job for a second time. Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, picked Filmus to run as the candidate of her center-left Victory Front .
That the president and the mayor both would tap Jews as key political partners in Argentina’s largest city has not escaped notice among members of the country’s Jewish community. Depending upon what definition of Jewish identity is used, estimates of Argentina’s Jewish population range from 180,000 to 280,000. It is Latin America’s largest Jewish community, but it has suffered the sting of anti-Semitism during its history.
Please put rabbi in quotes. He is Reform, clown hat notwithstanding.
A Masorti (Conservative) graduate (Seminary in Argentina) serving in a Progressive (Reform) pulpit.
?מדוע אתם תמיד כל כך לא סובלנים לזולת