Some 1,000 Jews in Mexico City Participated in Courses, Seminars on Jewish Problems

More than 1,000 members of the Jewish community of Mexico City have participated in the activities of the Center for Jewish Contemporary Studies during its first year, according to a report just received by the American Jewish Committee here. The Center, which celebrated its first anniversary this week, is co-sponsored by AJCommittee’s Mexico City office and the Bet-El Congregation of Mexico City. Sergio Nudelstejer, AJCommittee’s director in Mexico, also serves as director of the Center, which is housed in the Bet-El Congregation’s headquarters building. “It is obvious that we are fulfilling a real need and that there is a deep desire in the Mexican Jewish community to know more about Jewish history and contemporary Jewish thinking around the world,” Nudelstejer stated. The Center has featured a series of monthly lectures on subjects ranging from the role of women in Jewish life to the effect of the Bible on Western culture. It has also offered a six-session course on modern Jewish history. The latter was in the form of a seminar and had a regular attendance of 40 registered students, most of whom were in their twenties and thirties. The group included professors and university students, Nudelstejer reported.

One of the Center’s most recent projects was a seminar for 150 members of the Women’s International Zionist Organization and other Jewish women’s groups in Mexico City. The group discussed the present situation and probable future of the Mexican Jewish community; the nature of discrimination; the possible effects on the Jewish community of social changes now under way in Latin America; and the relationship between the State of Israel and Diaspora Jews. Among the lecturers and seminar leaders at the Center were Dr. Eduardo Luis Feher, professor of law at the National University of Mexico and at Iberoamerican University; psychologist Dr. Miguel Jusidman; Dr. Pedro Gringoire. distinguished Christian journalist and Biblical scholar; Professor Nelson Pilosof, Uruguayan philosopher and a Latin American representative of Hebrew University in Jerusalem; and Professor Guidon Sela, a graduate of Hebrew University with a Ph.D. in history from the National University in Mexico.