The Jewish Latin Center
By Eilis O'NeillThe Jewish Latin Center
By Eilis O'NeillFor years, when young Jewish Latin Americans would arrive in New York City for the first time, they would struggle to find a synagogue that worked for them. The culture of American synagogues are different, not to mention the services are in English, and so these newcomers would inevitably feel a kind of religious isolation. Then a Brazilian rabbi named Mendel Weitman began to notice these large numbers of these lonely Latino Jews stranded, in a sense, in the big city. So six years ago, he and his wife created the Jewish Latin Center, a place where Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking Jews can come to feel more at home and pray in a way that’s familiar to them. Reporter Eilis O’Neill visited the JLC to find out how the rabbi’s plan is working.
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