Argentine Jews go to Spain

madrid (jta) | Argentine Jewish immigration is boosting the numbers of Spain’s Jewish community.

Federico Zukierman, vice president of the Hebraica Jewish community center in Madrid, said some 10,000 Argentine Jews arrived in Spain in 2004, the Europa Press news agency reported.

“In 2004 there have arrived more Jews to Spain than in the last 10 years,” Zukierman said. According to Zukierman, most of the immigrants are between 20 and 30 years old.

Chocolate leads the way

brussels (jta) | A Torah portion and a love of Belgian chocolate inspired a bat mitzvah present from a girl in suburban Chicago.

Karly Brint and her family, members of the Am Shalom synagogue in Glencoe, Ill., donated the Torah to the International Jewish Center in Brussels in honor of Karly’s bat mitzvah, scheduled for Feb. 26.

The Brints donated the Torah through the World Union for Progressive Judaism’s Torah Gifting program, which gives Torah scrolls to international congregations.

“My Torah portion describes the Israelites carrying the Torah through the desert, so I thought it would be a good idea to ‘carry’ a Torah to a foreign country,” Karly said.

When it came to choosing which synagogue to help, she selected the International Jewish Center in Brussels because of her love for chocolate.

Publisher donates $1 million to support Jewish center

munich (ap) | German publisher Hubert Burda is donating $1 million to an ambitious Jewish center project in Munich, hailed as an important link between Jews and non-Jewish Germans.

The gift will help support a complex to include a new synagogue, a Jewish museum and a culture center in the city’s Jakobsplatz square; it is expected to be dedicated Nov. 9, 2006.

Samba with Nazi inspiration?

rio de janeiro (jta) | Rio de Janeiro’s Jews are protesting against a samba school that might feature people dressed as Nazi soldiers in the upcoming Carnival parade.

The Beija Flor School reportedly will feature centurions marching with arms raised and crossed fists closed as shields as a reference to the aggressiveness of German soldiers in World War II. Osias Wurman, president of the Rio Jewish Federation, said he would investigate.