formal studies six years later, in 1993, at the Schechter Institute of Jerusalem, where he studied under Rabbi David Golinkin and Prof. Avigdor Shinan, among others. One year later he came back to Buenos Aires, where he received his formal Rabbinical Ordination, together with Ariel Stofenmacher, presently the Executive President of the Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano, and Margit Baumatz, the first woman to receive Rabbinical Ordination in South America Teacher and Rabbi Only one year after having been admitted into the Abarbanel Institute and as a result of his outstanding academic achievements he began teaching in a Jewish elementary school. He was appointed as 7th grade teacher on Hebrew, Jewish History and Israel Geography at the Bet El Jewish Elementary School. It is at that time that he began also his practical rabbinic training with his mentor, Rabbi Abraham Skorka. In 1986 he was appointed as middle school teacher on Prophets, Mishnah and Gemara at the Solomon Schechter School of Buenos Aires. He also took the synagogue direction of “Comunidad Hertzlía” of Buenos Aires. Between 1987 and 1992 he was also advisor on bibliography for students at the Abarbanel Institute. In those years Yosef Kleiner also began teaching at that Institute and even prepared its preparatory program (mechinah). Along with these activities and his studies, he delivered several lectures at the B'nai B'rith, the Sociedad Hebraica Argentina, the Franz Rosenzweig Adult learning Institute of the Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano and at the Jewish Congregation of Bahía Blanca. In 1988 he received the “Rabbi Dr. Theodore Friedman” award to the outstanding student of the Rabbinical School of the Seminario. In 1990 he took the synagogue direction of the Jewish Congregation of Bahía Blanca (Asociación Israelita de Bahía Blanca), position he held until 1992 when he left for Israel to finish his formal rabbinical education at the Schechter Institute. After having received his rabbinical ordination, Yosef Kleiner became the Rabbi of the Sephardic Congregation in Chile (Comunidad Israelita Sefaradí de Chile) in 1994. During his years in Chile he played an active role in the Institute for Sephardic Studies that was sponsored by his Congregation and represented, as well, the local Jewish community in the Latin American Conference on Poverty held in 1996 by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. He also wrote a monthly column in the magazine “El Vocero” called “Tomando kavé con el rabino” (Let’s have