The first chair of Jewish language and teaching in all of Latin America will be established at the University of Buenos Aires, Dr. Amram Blum, Chief Rabbi of Argentina, declared here today at a press luncheon sponsored by the World Jewish Congress.
Dr. Blum underlined the fact that the university, which is a stats-supported institution, will finance the chair. Dr. Blum, who has been named the first professor to occupy the chair, has come to this country to study how similar chairs are administered in American educational institutions.
Speaking of the life of the 450,000 member Jewish community in Argentina, Dr. Blum stressed that under the government of President Juan Peron the Jews were guaranteed absolute freedom of faith. He pointed out that since the destruction of European Jewry by the Nazis, the Argentine community was the third most important in the world, coming after the American and Israeli communities.
Dr. Blum estimated that more than one-half of Argentina’s Jews–from 250,000 to 300,000–live in Buenos Aires. All Jews in the city were organized in the Buenos Aires community, he reported, except some 50,000 Sephardic Jews who were organized in a separate community.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.