Chilean Mogul Parties at Kotel

By COLlive reporter
Photos: Israel Bardugo

There’s donating a new Torah and there’s donating it Farkas-style.

Leonardo Farkas Klein, equally known in Chile for his mining business as for his philanthropy, donated 4 new Torah scroll to be used for davening at the Kotel in Jerusalem and held a party to welcome them.

Attending the writing of the final letters and the festive meal that followed the dancing were Israel’s outgoing Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, Kotel Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch and his friends Chile Shliach Rabbi Menashe Perman and Rabbi Benzion Korf, Director of the Lubavitch Educational Center in Miami, FL.

Also spotted were Eli Beer from Israel’s Hatzalah volunteer organization, R’ Berke Mendelson of Kfar Chabad and events producer David Scharf. The event itself was produced by Michael Caplin.

Farkas, easily identifiable by his the long curly blond mane, hired a 50-piece orchestra for the occasion, directed by Yuval Stoopel. And if that wasn’t enough, entertainment by music superstar Avraham Fried and renowned cantors Dudu Fischer and Itche Meir Helfgot.

But for those that know him, none of this is out of the ordinary for Farkas.

A passionate music fan, Mr. Farkas’s father started his son on the piano at 2 years old. Just before he turned 21, he moved to the United States, where he performed in the Catskills and Miami, playing in small clubs, and then on cruise ships, the New York Times reported.

Unable to afford other musicians, he used much of the $10,000 he brought from Chile to buy 15 keyboards and called himself “The Orchestra Man.” He later moved back to Chile and was successful in the mining business.

“My father always said money comes and goes,” Mr. Farkas once said. Brunilda Gonzalez, the mayor of Caldera, who joined forces with Farkas to build about 900 homes for the poor, said: “His philosophy is, ‘G-d has given me a lot, so I’m going to give double’.”