SCHLESINGER, GUILLERMO

SCHLESINGER, GUILLERMO (1903–1971), rabbi of the Congregación Israelita de la República Argentina. Born in St. Gallen, Switzerland, son and grandson of rabbis, he graduated from the Theological Seminary of Breslau (then Germany), in 1934 and received a Ph.D. in public economy from the University of Zurich in 1936. He immigrated to Argentina in 1937 and assumed the rabbinical chair of the Congregación Israelita in Buenos Aires. In 1939–1956 he was also the director of the Cursos Religiosos Israelitas (Jewish Religious Courses) of this congregation, which sustained a wide network of Jewish complementary schools, especially in the provinces and some in Buenos Aires. For many decades Rabbi Schlesinger was considered a semi-official chief rabbi of the community, especially among non-Jewish society, but not within Jewish society. In 1956 he participated in the establishment of the Latin American Fraternity of Synagogues. In 1961 Rabbi Schlesinger received an honorary doctorate from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. (Efraim Zadoff (2nd ed.)