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(JTA) — Javier Milei invoked the story of the Maccabees in his inaugural deal with as Argentina’s president on Sunday, extending the right-wing populist’s outstanding fascination with Judaism as he celebrated his personal inconceivable victory.
“It isn’t by likelihood that this assumption takes place within the vacation of Hanukkah, the pageant of sunshine, and that the identical celebrates the true essence of freedom,” Milei mentioned throughout his speech on the steps of the parliament constructing in Buenos Aires. “The conflict of the Maccabees is the image of the victory of the weak over the highly effective, of the few over the numerous, of the sunshine over darkness and total of the reality over untruth.”
Milei, 53, defied expectations when he was elected final month. A self-declared “anarcho-capitalist” who was essentially the most right-wing of the 5 candidates, he ascended quickly over the past 12 months as he assailed the outgoing authorities, saying that its insurance policies had fueled unemployment and inflation.
He delivered his speech together with his again to the nation’s lawmakers, in a break with custom permitting him to face a big rally outdoors the parliament constructing.
Towards the tail of his speech warning Argentineans to arrange for a tough financial reforms, he mentioned he recalled how he and his now-vice president, Victoria Villaruel, had initially been instructed that their two-year-old political celebration, Freedom Advances, would have little affect.
“We have been instructed we couldn’t do something as a result of we have been solely two in 257 congressmen,” he mentioned. “And I additionally do not forget that my reply that day was a quote from the E-book of Maccabees, 3:19, that goes: It just isn’t the scale of the military that victory in battle is determined by, however energy comes from heaven.”
President Javier Milei of Argentina provides a speech after his inauguration ceremony at Casa Rosada presidential palace on Dec. 10, 2023, in Buenos Aires. (Tomas Cuesta/Getty Pictures)
The speech was in step with Milei’s uncommon relationship with Judaism. The non-Jewish economist has been finding out with an Argentinean rabbi and has mentioned he’s fascinated with changing, although he says he doesn’t see the function of president as suitable with Jewish observance. He visited the grave of the Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi in New York Metropolis in his first journey overseas after being elected and has vowed to make Israel — the place he promised to maneuver Argentina’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem — his first overseas vacation spot as president.
At marketing campaign rallies, Milei has typically walked on stage to the sound of a shofar, and in one in all his ultimate public appearances earlier than the election, Milei was seen waving an Israeli flag amongst a big crowd in Rosario.
One Israeli flag was seen amid the ocean of Argentinean flags at his speech in footage of the inaugural occasion broadcast to Argentineans.
Milei, whose time period will final 4 years, was flanked by world leaders, together with the king of Spain; Chilean President Gabriel Boric, a left-wing critic of Israel; Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a populist who cruised to a fourth time period final 12 months; and Ukraine’s president, Volodymr Zelensky, who was making his first journey to Latin America since Russia attacked his nation in February 2022. Jair Bolsonaro, the populist chief just lately unseated in Brazil, additionally attended.
Milei handed a menorah to Zelensky, who’s Jewish, after the 2 leaders greeted one another warmly outdoors Casa Rosada, the nation’s authorities headquarters, in a handoff captured on the stay TV broadcast of the ceremony. Zelensky has embraced Milei as he has sought to construct assist for Ukraine in Latin America.
On Saturday night time, on the eve of his inauguration, Milei met with a bunch of relations of Israeli hostages kidnapped in Gaza since Oct. 7, lighting the Hanukkah candles with them and Israeli Overseas Minister Eli Cohen, who was within the nation for the inauguration.
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