Kids at the Gan Meorot preschool in Cordoba, Argentina, combine education with entertainment in the form of a Jewish history lesson about the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, coupled with painting.

Burgeoning Argentina Preschool Sets Sights on Future

Gisella Friedman’s story mirrors the typical Jewish experience in Cordoba, Argentina. Her family crossed the Atlantic Ocean around the turn of the 20th century to become gauchos, South American grassland folk known for farming and raising cattle on the pampas, the fertile Argentinian lowlands, on colonies established by the largess of Sir Moses Montefiore and Baron Maurice de Hirsch.

By the time she was born, most of the original settlers’ children had moved on, attracted to the education and opportunities of bigger cities like Cordoba and Buenos Aires. And when she came of age, she, too, left the colonies behind to study in Cordoba, a university city of 1.3 million located in the heart of Argentina. In time, she married Moishe Teicher and settled in Cordoba.

Because of her involvement with Rabbi Yossi and Chana Turk, co-directors of Jabad Lubavitch Cordoba since 1989, she says she and her husband deepened their Jewish involvement. Cordoba’s religious community is small (the city’s 8,000 Jews are scattered throughout the sprawling metropolis), yet she says that she and her husband are committed to making the city home in large part due to Gan Meorot, a Chabad-run preschool that has grown exponentially since it was founded with just eight children in 2004.

“My girls, Yara and Tamar, go there, and it is excellent for them,” says the mother of two. “It is like my home. The teachers are so professional and so caring that it attracts people from all over the city. It’s an excellent place for everyone.”

For the coming school year (which begins in March in the Southern Hemisphere), Rabbi Turk says 70 children, ages 2 to 5, will fill six spacious classrooms on the ground floor of the newly-built Chabad center in Barrio Cofico, a quiet residential neighborhood near the city center. The location is optimal, he adds, because it allows parents to drop off their children on their way to work each morning. As the school building nears capacity, plans are in the works for an additional story that will house a spacious indoor play area.

Reaching Milestones and More

Turk attributes much of the school’s success to the dedication and skill of his wife, Chana, who teaches Jewish traditions, prayers, holidays and culture to all classes. “She spends her day hopping from class to class, making sure that each of the little Jewish souls entrusted with us is growing and thriving,” he says. She is joined by directors Silvia Guelbert and Karina Quevedo, both accomplished educators in their own right.

While many are drawn to the top-notch facilities, and calm and loving atmosphere, Friedman says that she and her husband are most attracted by the Jewish education her children are getting.

“My girls know how to say the Shema prayer, the blessings before the foods and everything else Jewish children should learn about,” she explains. “Morah [teacher] Chana teaches them with such love. I feel good knowing that they are being taught by a Yiddishe mamma. I don’t think I could imagine a better teacher for them.”

The rabbi says the school’s impact has been felt by parents, who participate in regular educational courses and family-friendly Shabbatons. “It is quite common for a father to drop his child off at school and then go upstairs to our sanctuary, and join the prayers or just put on tefillin and pray on his own for a few minutes. This would have never happened before,” he notes with satisfaction.

In fact, just a few weeks ago, the 220-seat sanctuary was home to a celebration that demonstrated how much of an impact Gan Meorot had made: the bat mitzvah of a girl who had been part of the pioneering class almost a decade earlier. Speaking to a packed hall, she shared cherished memories of her time there, and credited it for giving her a strong foundation for her growth as a proud and committed Jew.

The school’s accomplishments have not gone unnoticed by the ministry of education (known as Dirección de Institutos Privados de Enseñanza, or D.I.P.E.), which offered to link the school with the city’s most exclusive private school so that Gan Meorot would be authorized to add a kindergarten class as an official affiliate of the other school.

Yet with her oldest child already 4 years old, Friedman says it’s time for the preschool to become a full primary school of its own. She and her husband are members of a local group working on gaining the necessary permits to allow the school to add another grade every year, ensuring that her daughter’s classmates will be able to continue their Jewish studies for many years to come.

“It will be wonderful for Jewish life,” she says hopefully of the proposed day school. “To have authentic Jewish education in Cordoba is like a miracle.”

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