Do Cry for Me, Argentina

THOUSANDS OF YEARS ago, as Solomon dedicated the Temple in Jerusalem, he emphasized that the sanctity of the site was not for Israelites alone. There will be Gentiles, he predicted, who will be drawn to Jerusalem as a place of prayer, to direct their beseechings toward the Temple Mount:

Moreover concerning a Gentile, that is not of thy people Israel, but cometh out of a far country for thy name’s sake; For they shall hear of thy great name, and of thy strong hand, and of thy stretched-out arm; when he shall come and pray toward this house; Hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and do according to all that the Gentile calleth to thee for.

This prediction was fulfilled in February 2024. When the newly elected president of Argentina, Javier Milei, alighted from his plane in Tel Aviv, he immediately announced he would be moving Argentina’s embassy to Jerusalem. This was not a surprise; Milei’s affection for Israel, and for Judaism, has long been a part of his public persona. He has undertaken study of Torah, has contemplated conversion, and plans to appoint his personal rabbi as ambassador to Israel. An admirer of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, and a visitor to his grave, Milei has been seen in Jewish settings so often that one Hasidic comedian quipped that upon greeting Israel’s foreign minister at the airport, he had to remove his yarmulke, or “kippa,” in order “to fit in.”