Agudath Israel Leader Says Torah Education Gaining in Buenos Aires

Torah education in Buenos Aires is taking a sharp upward swing, according to Rabbi Moshe Sherer, executive president of Agudath Israel of America, in a report he delivered to the organization’s national administrative council upon his return from South America where he participated in the third Latin American Conference of Agudath Israel.

Sherer stated that since his previous visit to Buenos Aires six years ago, a new generation of Torah-loyal Argentine-born youth developed, in large measure due to the full-day yeshiva and kollel (graduate school) established in Buenos Aires six years ago by the local Agudath Israel organization. “They have carved out a mini Boro Park in Buenos Aires,” he said.

Sherer reported that the new swing towards Yeshiva education can also be attributed to the current political climate in Argentina. “Argentins has become the most fertile breeding ground for genuine Torah education in the entire world, because Jewish parents there clearly witness how secular ‘Jewish education’ has not been able to stem the drift of sizable numbers of their students towards extreme leftist groups and out-right assimilation.” Rabbi Sherer stated. “When some Jewish parents see their own children identifying with left-wing terrorists, and the central morgue in Buenos Aires contains the bodies of young Jews slain by the Argentine Army during the daily battles with Communist guerrillas, these brutal facts have opened their eyes to the bankruptcy of secular education,” he asserted. The Orthodox leader charged the World Zionist Organization with “committing a grievous and unpardonable offense” in including among the 85 “shlichim” (emissaries) from Israel currently in Argentina, members of Hashomer Hatzair “who poison the minds of Jewish youngsters.”

AGUDATH ACTIVITIES OUTLINED

Sherer reported that the Agudath Israel of Argentina sponsors a network of Torah institutions which embrace a Bais Yaakov School and Bais Yaakov Teachers Seminary for Girls, an elementary and secondary school for boys, and a post-high school Yeshiva Gedola and Kollel. Among the students are 30 young men who study Torah all day and into the late hours of the night.

Sherer particularly lauded the accomplishment of the Agudath Israel organization in Argentina to reduce the cost of kosher meat by 18 percent and of chickens by 25 percent, thus helping introduce kosher food into peripheral homes which had been discouraged by the high price of kosher meat. In order to create this sharp reduction in prices, Agudath Israel, three months ago, embarked upon a project of establishing its own “shechita” (kosher slaughtering system) in Buenos Aires, which has created a revolution in the kosher meat industry by radically reducing meat prices, Sherer reported.

The national administration of Agudath Israel of America, after hearing Sherer’s report, decided to forward to the 54th National Convention of the movement, which will be held in Atlantic City Nov. 25-28, his recommendation to establish a new division, “Commission for Latin American Jewry,” to formally structure the Pan-American Torah activities of the Agudath Israel movement.