ANGEL, AARON

ANGEL, AARON (1913–1996), Sephardi rabbi in Argentina. Angel was born in Komotine, Greece. He graduated from the Rabbinical Seminary of Rhodes and studied philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1940 he was named chief rabbi of Alexandria and a member of the bet din (rabbinical court) of Egypt. Following the Sinai War in 1956 the Jews were compelled to emigrate from Egypt. Angel was one of the last to leave. In 1958 he settled in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and from then until his death served as chief rabbi of the Asociación Comunidad Israelita Sefaradí de la Argentina – the Ladino-speaking community. In his 42 years in Buenos Aires he was the spiritual and social leader of the Sephardi community and active in strengthening formal Jewish education. He taught in the Midrasha Haivrit and founded the Maimonides Jewish primary school, serving as its principal until 1989.   In 1988 he received the Jerusalem Award for Jewish education in the Diaspora from the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency for Israel. (Efraim Zadoff (2nd ed.)