News

Book Presentation: “Being Jewish Today”

July 11, 2012
On July 19, 2012, ORT Pocitos hosted the book launch for “Being Jewish Today: 55 Topics for the Believer, the Skeptic, the Atheist, the Agnostic, the Thinker, the Curious, the Interested, the Disinterested, the Modern, and the Postmodern” by Rabbi Eliezer Shemtov, a rabbi with United Lubavitcher Yeshivoth (Brooklyn, New York), who compiled some of his columns published in the Semanario Hebreo. In addition to the author, Prof. Rodolfo Fattoruso, a columnist for the Búsqueda Weekly and Radio Sarandí, and Ana Jerozolimski, Editor-in-Chief of the Semanario Hebreo, spoke at the event. The event was organized by the Department of Jewish Studies.
Prof. Fattoruso has been a literary critic since 1976. He is the director of Artemisa Ediciones. He was a theater and film critic, editorial writer, and managing editor of the newspaper El Día, as well as an editorial writer for the newspapers La Mañana and Últimas Noticias. He served as Director of the National Book Institute, Director of News at Uruguay’s National Television, and Co-director of the Uruguayan Classics Collection of the Ministry of Education and Culture. He taught at the Military Institute of Higher Studies and the Center for Advanced National Studies. He served on the board of the Uruguayan-Argentine Cultural Institute and the Uruguay-Israel Cultural Institute. He published the following books: "France-Uruguay: A History of Their Convergences," "Presidency of the Republic" (1988), "Los Seres Queridos," Fin de Siglo Publishing (1998); and "One Cannot Speak of William Shakespeare: Meditations on Power," Artemisa Editores (2008).

Jerozolimski is a Uruguayan living in Israel. She is a correspondent for La Nación (Argentina), El Tiempo (Colombia), MVS (Mexico), and Onda Cero (Spain), among other media outlets. In Uruguay, she serves as a correspondent for Radio El Espectador and is a columnist for Montevideo.com. She was a correspondent for the BBC’s Latin American Service in London. She recently received the Special Mention for Foreign Press for Journalistic Excellence, awarded by the World Center of “B’nai B’rith.”

Shemtov was sent to Uruguay by the Lubavitcher Rebbe in February 1985 to establish Beit Chabad in the country and direct its educational, cultural, and social activities. He is a lecturer and author of various published articles on contemporary Judaism. He has published the books “Impossible Loves: A Dialogue on the Problem of Mixed Marriages Between Jews and Non-Jews” and “Crossing the Pond: A Uruguayan Rabbi and an Argentine Agnostic Explore Their Judaism.”