Itongadol/AJN.- The Abarbanel Institute of Jewish Studies and Teacher Training has carried on its activities for the last 35 years. During all these years the Seminario has provided Latinamerican Jewry with hundreds of professionals that are now working in Jewish schools, teaching Judaism, and helping to cultivate Jewish identity in thousands of children, young people and adults.
One of the aims of the Seminario is to overcome the geographical obstacles and bring the possibility of professional training and Torah lish’ma to Jewish communities that never had the chance to study Judaism formally because of the distance from great urban centers in Latin America. In this context, we have started a strategic partnership with the Kehila of Tucuman, a small province in the Northwest of Argentina, in which we are helping them to reinforce Jewish Education and Jewish Studies in the region, creating different spaces of learning that function on an ongoing basis.
The first cohort consists of men and women, some of them working as Judaic teachers at the school and some of them, willing to start soon, that are studying at the Abarbanel Institute with an innovative modality that combines distant learning and regular meetings with a Seminario\’s faculty member, in order to formally become Judaic studies teachers.
Besides the formal training that takes place at the School of Tucuman, we have opened two Batei Midrash at the Kehilah, one for young women and one for the general public, that are having great receptivity among people that are happy to hear about new Jewish perspectives and different ways to connect Judaism to their everyday life.
After this successful pilot experience we are creating other partnerships with more congregations and schools in Argentina and Latin America, in order to attend the educational demands of many Jews that are concerned about and committed to Jewish continuity.
The Director of the Abarbanel Institute is Rabbi Silvana Kandel Lamdan.