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May 25, 2001/Sivan 3, 5761, Vol. 53, No.34
Drying Argentina's tears
FLO ECKSTEIN
Publisher
A cataclysmic wave of events has shaken to the core the Jewish community of Argentina, leaving well-educated, established middle-class families and their communal institutions vulnerable to the vicissitudes of national economic woes, joblessness, terrorism and instability.
Argentina's 200,000 Jews - the eighth largest Jewish community in the world - comprise 2 percent of the nation's 37 million citizens, comparable to our presence in the United States.
The 112-year-old community (the first Jews arrived from Russia in 1889) is well acquainted with misfortune. About 2,000 Jews were among 30,000 Argentineans abducted, imprisoned or murdered during Argentina's military dictatorship in the 1970s.
Then in March 1992, terrorists bombed the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 and wounding more than 200. The government has yet to identify suspects.
In July 1994, AMIA (Argentina Jewish Mutual Aid Association), the Jewish community's central building, was bombed, murdering 100 and injuring 200 more.
If that weren't enough, in 1998, the Jewish community itself nearly imploded following the bankruptcies of two Jewish-owned banks that had been its primary funding source. Of 70 elementary and high schools, at least 10 were forced to close. Many of Buenos Aires' 56 synagogues stand empty and in disrepair.
Most recently, there was what Michael Novick of the American Joint Distribution Committee calls the "middle-class meltdown" of 10-15 percent of Argentina's Jews. It began in 1996, when the nation leaped into the international marketplace. Damage to the local economy was so severe that merchants and other small business owners were forced to close their doors. Also caught in the upheaval were middle-aged professionals eased out by younger colleagues. National unemployment is nearly 15 percent.
By the end of the 1990s, the Jewish community was in crisis.
Enter the JDC, distributing food packages, school supplies and clothing; providing medical care; preparing people for new jobs and making employment referrals. Importantly, JDC is training the Jews of Argentina in the essential work of supporting one another through volunteering and raising and distributing charitable funds.
JDC's efforts in Argentina are a continuum of what it has been doing in behalf of the American Jewish community for 87 years, in 85 nations where Jews are in need.
When Novick, a Seattle resident and JDC's executive director for strategic development, was in Phoenix recently, he talked about JDC's widely known work with the elderly in the Former Soviet Union and with youths who immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia. His revelations about Argentina stunned listeners otherwise quite conversant about Jewish community around the world.
Now we know that a sizeable Jewish community in this hemisphere needs help and that a portion of our annual UJA/Federation contributions are being invested there. Perhaps we can do more. A mission of Chicago residents recently visited Argentina, to assess the needs and offer moral support.
It's time for a group from Phoenix - we are, after all, the leading Jewish community in the Southwest - to go too, to gain an on-the-ground understanding of what Argentinian Jews need and to let them know we care.
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