‘Proud to be most Zionist president in the world,’ Milei says at Yeshiva event

Javier Milei, the Argentine president, said in a talk at Yeshiva University in Manhattan on Monday that he is “proud to be the most Zionist president in the world.”

Milei, who has visited Israel several times since becoming president and who has been photographed frequently at Jewish sites, including the grave site of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in New York City, spoke in Spanish, with simultaneous translation via headsets, at the event.

The talk was the last installment of the school’s “great conversation” series, and it included a conversation between Milei and Ari Berman, a rabbi and president of Yeshiva University.

Berman told JNS that it was “very natural” for Milei to visit Yeshiva, one of the top universities in New York City, to deliver a “high-level talk on economic policy and how it’s shaping nations in general and Argentina specifically.”

At the wide-ranging Yeshiva talk, Milei referred variously to the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Elvis, Salvador Dalí, Machiavelli and a Chinese proverb.

“It was a very important experience for our students to see how ideas rooted in the biblical tradition and the Western tradition are brought to life in leadership in running a country,” Berman said. “This is what we try to do at Yeshiva University. We try to root out students in Torah with deep academic thinking as a cultural repository for Western civilization.”

Yeshiva also encourages students to “find themselves in the tradition and bring it out to the world in a way that is a benefit to society.”

In Milei, Yeshiva students can “find someone who is an example of serious thought in a leadership position,” Berman told JNS. The Argentine president is a “model for them in this respect.”

Berman asked Milei during the event about the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. The Argentine president said that his hope is that “we will win” against the Iranian enemy.

“It’s incredible that the world was saved by just an inch, and that’s the bullet that just missed Trump,” he said of an assassination attempt on the U.S. president.

He said at Yeshiva that the alliance between Socialists and Islamists has become stronger since Oct. 7.

“Socialism found out that the basis for the free enterprise capitalist system is anchored on Judeo-Christian values,” he said. “They found out if you attack Judaism, if you attack Israel, then you break the basis for the capitalist system and Western civilization.”

What they don’t realize, he said, is that “you will never be able to defeat the Jewish people.”

Berman asked Milei what advice he has for the students in the audience. The Argentine president quoted the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson.

“As the Rebbe used to say, it wasn’t just about guidance to get from this point to paradise but rather about bringing paradise to earth,” he said.

“When you work with passion, and you do so with faith and respect for values, the values of the Jewish tradition, that will not only lead you to success, but you will also be making a great contribution to the world,” he added.

His visit to the university was part of a three-day trip to New York City that included diplomatic meetings at the Argentinian consulate and a headline appearance at JPMorgan Chase.

Berman told JNS that Milei “represents something unique.”

“The fact that he is a friend of Israel and a friend of the Jewish people is very important for us, but there is something deeper here,” he said. “There’s his appreciation of Judaism and of Torah.”

“The fact that his character is shaped in part by his study of the Torah—that is not as common,” Berman said.

When Milei said that an ethical society is an efficient one, that made an impression on Berman.

“Being just is part of being productive. That’s a really important model for our students to see and to consider in the world,” he told JNS.

The speaker series brings thought leaders, like Milei, to Yeshiva, which Berman thinks is important for both students and for the speakers.

“I’ve learned so much from my conversations with these people, and I really want our students to meet them,” he said. “I also want them to meet our students.”

“In my experience, when leadership meets our students, they leave encouraged about the future and with a greater understanding of what the Jewish people are bringing and what the leadership for the Jewish people of the future are,” he said.

© JNS