BENCHETRIT, AARON

BENCHETRIT, AARON (1886–1967), physician and communal leader. Born in Tetuan, Spanish Morocco, Benchetrit spent his childhood in Caracas, Venezuela, and studied in Paris and Caracas. He was the medical director and administrator of the Leproserías de Venezuela (1921–26). In 1927 he moved to Bogotá, Colombia, where he was in charge of all leprosy cases in the country from 1927 to 1935 and directed many scientific researches on leprosy. He published several medical works including Disertaciones de un estudiante de medicina (1917), La epidemia febríl de Caracas (1919), Nuevas disertaciones (1921), and Disertaciones acerca de la lepra (1922). He also wrote on Zionism in Disertaciones acerca del sionismo. Benchetrit was president of the Centro Israelita of Bogotá and was president of the Zionist Federation of Colombia, 1943–44.