Argentina’s Jews Pray For Lost Submarine – Still Radio Silence After A Week

Image by Getty
(JTA) — Argentina’s chief rabbi held a prayer service for the return of a missing submarine and its crew of 44.
The country has been living with tension and uncertainty for the last week, since the ARA San Juan submarine was reported missing in the Atlantic Ocean.
On Tuesday, Chief Rabbi of Argentina Gabriel Davidovich held the special prayer service at the AMIA Jewish community center building in Buenos Aires, where the superior rabbinate operates, joined by the executive boards of the AMIA and CUJA, or Jewish Argentine United Campaign.
AMIA tweeted a prayer asking God to have “mercy on our brothers lost at sea, who are in desolation and captivity, and bring them from affliction to relief, from darkness to light, and lead them now, quickly, to life and to freedom.”
From the province of Cordoba, located in the center of the country, the rabbi of the Israelite Union Centre of Cordoba, Marcelo Polakoff wrote a song of hope in support of the crew titled “Looking to See the Sun,” and uploaded it to YouTube.
The governments of Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, France, Norway, Peru, the United Kingdom and the United Stated have sent ships, airplanes and submarines to provide logistic support and information exchange during the search for the missing submarine.
The Argentine Navy lost contact with the ARA San Juan submarine on November 15, shortly after the captain of the submarine reported a failure in the electric system. It is estimated that the sub had enough oxygen on board to last a week from the last transmission.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Naftali Bennett is back: Former Israeli prime minister will make another run at Netanyahu
-
Fast Forward Citing post-Holocaust doctrine, Germany seeks to deport 4 pro-Palestinian protesters, including one American
-
Fast Forward Trump administration freezes research funding to Princeton amid antisemitism investigations
-
Fast Forward ‘Another Jewish warrior’: Fine wins special election for U.S. House seat
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.