Javier Milei is excited and emotional. Tears flood his eyes. It is June, 2021, and, according to him, at the end of the previous year God Himself appeared to him to tell him that he had "the mission" to get into politics.
The libertarian is face-to-face with Rabbi Shimon Axel Wahnish. Milei arrived at the headquarters of the religious leader’s ACILBA Argentine Moroccan-Jewish community after having faced accusations of anti-Semitism and Nazism during the first months of his presidential candidacy. They were hard times for him, and a friend had recommended he soothe his sorrows by visiting Wahnish.
In their first meeting, held behind closed doors, something very striking happened: there was talk of a kind of prophecy.
"They talked for a long time and it was pointed out that Javier would lead a liberating movement in Argentina. Milei left that meeting very emotional," said Julio Goldstein, the leader who had brought them together and taxied the economist to the meeting.
Since then, more than two years have passed and a few things have changed – among them, Milei becoming President.
On December 10, at his inauguration, Javier was, once again, teary-eyed. He welled up while tightly embracing Wahnish, a gesture which lasted 20 seconds and was captured by the cameras of all the country’s television channels. They were at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Buenos Aires, where an inter-religious ceremony has just been celebrated to celebrate the new president. A number of religious figures spoke at the event. Among them, Milei’s rabbi.
Rabbi Wahnish is not the same as he was when he met the economist. He has gone from keeping a very low profile (even when his relationship with Milei first became known) to showing his face to the whole of society. When Milei raffled off his last monthly salary as a lawmaker earlier in December, the rabbi even participated in a livestream broadcast on Instagram which millions of people watched.
Now he has gone a step further: Rabbi Wahnish was one of the main speakers at the televised ceremony. The rabbi delivered his own campaign slogan ("Victory depends on the forces that come from heaven"), made a parallel with King Solomon ("who had the lion as his standard and brought prosperity to his people") and closed by delivering a choreographed message to the President: "We are going to ask for what you have been asking God for a long time, you remember, don't you? Let's say it together: wisdom, temperance and courage.”
Milei and Wahnish recited the prayer at the same time.
Man of faith
To understand the importance of all this in Milei's head, one must start from a premise: for him, religion, life and politics are the same thing. And someone who seems to understand how this logic works is Rabbi Wahnish.
"My spiritual guide," Milei calls him.
Since they met, the relationship between the two has become ever closer. It has run parallel with Milei's deepening interest in Judaism. In recent years, the libertarian would visit the ACILBA headquarters every 10 or 15 days to hold meetings with Wahnish, while the rabbi would send him verses from the Torah via WhatsApp to read, several times a week.
Towards the end of this year, the situation developed to a level not usually seen in relations between rabbis and believers: it was Wahnish who went to the Hotel Libertador to assist Milei and not the other way around. Indeed, minutes after the 53-year-old economist learned he had won the election, he asked the rabbi to hold a private meeting. Nobody knows what was discussed during their talk and Javier had one-on-one meetings with only four people that night in total.
Wahnish, a rabbi of Orthodox Judaism, will now be appointed Argentina’s ambassador to Israel. It was Milei's own request and one which poses several questions. The first one is about merit: does the "spiritual guide" reach this position because of his own abilities or because of his unique relationship with Milei? A minor doubt. The big question is how the decision will go down in the region. Argentina has never had a rabbi as an ambassador, and it is a clear sign of support for Judaism. Not to mention the President’s previously stated ambition of moving Argentina’s Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
However, all this is minor. The most important thing, according to some in Milei’s inner circle, is who will now be put in charge of the libertarian’s `containment" (a word used by many of the sources consulted) after Wahnish leaves the country. Will the economist be able to lead Argentina without his rabbi’s guidance?
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