In Argentina, a Catholic President and His Rabbi

President Javier Milei of Argentina is a Catholic who leads Pope Francis’s native country.

He also regularly studies the Torah, attends Shabbat dinner and has said that perhaps his most important adviser is his rabbi.

Over the past several years, Mr. Milei has taken an intense and, among most world leaders, unusual interest in Judaism.

He has posted Hebrew verses from the Torah on social media, traveled internationally to meet rabbis, called Moses an inspiration and said that, if it were not for the challenges of observing the Jewish Sabbath while serving as president, he would convert to Judaism.

His growing devotion to the Jewish faith has also begun to inform Argentine policy.

The nation has become Latin America’s fiercest defender of Israel, declaring Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, a terrorist organization. Mr. Milei has pledged to move Argentina’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. And he has appointed his personal rabbi, Shimon Axel Wahnish, as Argentina’s ambassador to Israel.

He has also promised renewed efforts to seek justice for the 85 victims of the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. The 30th anniversary of that attack is on Thursday.