The American Jewish Committee (AJC) has named its first director of strategic partnerships to head its Latin Affairs division locally in Miami, Florida in order to engage the growing Latino community to support the fight against antisemitism.
Michael Teichberg will lead the organization's Latin American affairs locally, and corporate and technology industry associations in both the Miami and Broward regional offices, offering programs supporting AJC's mission to combat antisemitism and hate, promote pro-Israel relations, foster intergroup and interfaith relations and upholding human rights and democratic values globally.
“Michael's experience as a millennial Latino Jew, his history creating new programming, and his experience working with Latin America and in the Miami community will allow AJC to engage all segments of the growing Latino community in new ways,” AJC Miami and Broward regional director Brian Siegal said.
In 2007, the first Latin American Task Force (LATF) in the US, made up of leaders from the Jewish Latino community, was founded in Miami to engage the Jewish and non-Jewish Hispanic communities.
This group, along with AJC's Belfer Institute for Latino and Latin American Affairs (BILLA), based in Washington, DC, has presented unique programming over the years, including an annual commemoration of the act of terrorism. AMIA 1994 in Argentina, an annual Spanish-language event honoring Hispanic leaders, and has hosted several annual AJC BILLA Strategy Forums for Jewish leaders from Latin America, Spain, and Portugal in the USA.
“We are proud to have volunteer LATF members working with such passion promoting Latin American issues with BILLA, the only institute in the Jewish world continuously capable of building national, hemispheric, transnational and global bridges while ensuring the well-being of Jewish communities and the trilateral of the US-Ibero-America-Israel,” said Dina Siegel Vann, director of AJC BILLA.
“There is a great opportunity to strengthen collaboration and help promote cultural, academic and scientific ties between Latin America, Israel and Miami, together fighting antisemitism with community members of all faiths and nationalities,” Teichberg said.