Greetings from Buenos Aires

Hi all,

Welcome to Buenos Aires! We arrived on the 17th, but it has been a fast paced 2 days, so it has taken me a while to get to the blog. Generally the weather has been pretty good (warm) except there were thunder showers last night. I don't think I have ever seen such lightning in my life.

On Saturday the 18th, we went to 3 of the city's synagogues, 2 in the morning and one at night. In the morning, went to services in the Once district, first at the Yesod Hadat, a Sephardic Orthodox temple (founded by Jews from Aleppo Syria) with its bimah situated in the center, then at the Gran Templo de Paso (Conservative). Both were fascinating. The Sephardic service featured Arabesque melodies; it was enchanting. Despite obvious differences, what the 2 services have in common is fast tempo and a lot of prayers in Hebrew.

After the service at the Gran, there was a Torah study session in Spanish. We stayed and listened. Of course I didn't understand most of the Spanish, but the discussion was about Joseph and his brothers, so I had some idea what was being discussed. We met a nice woman there who took us to the Libertad, one of the oldest temples in the city. We tried going in, but nobody was there.

At night we dropped by Libertad for a segment of a night service. Another beautiful Temple with some nice Jewish gospel singing of sorts! (like at the Gran, there was an organist and some musicians with microphones, singing away). I even went upstairs in the balcony for a great view. Then on to the Teatro Colon for a masterful operatic performance of Puccini's Manon Lescaut. Bravo! That is one incredible theatre. It has 3 faux balconies with 3 balconies above those.

Well, it certainly is a lively city, but we are dodging the smokers, wild drivers, and noise. It's a little dirtier than we had thought. Today we took a city tour which was fun. I'll write about that later.

Ciao for now!