Community left behind ponders future
FLORENCIA ARBISER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Edgardo Fejgelis and Martin Esses live just a few blocks from each other, but it is only their shared interest in leaving Argentina for Israel that will finally bring them face to face.
Fejgelis and Esses are two of an increasing number of Argentine Jews who have been calling the Jewish Agency for Israel since riots erupted in Buenos Aires earlier in December, leading to the resignation of Presidents Fernando de la Rua and Adolfo Rodriguez Saa.
Fejgelis and Esses are both scheduled to attend an information session at the Jewish Agency on Jan. 16.
They won't be alone - Jewish Agency officials in Buenos Aires say that in recent weeks they have received 300 percent more telephone inquiries and personal interviews for aliyah and 30 percent more inquiries from parents wondering about sending their children to university in Israel.
Fejgelis, 50, a salesman, and his wife, Elisa, a 52-year-old doctor, live in a three-room apartment at the heart of Villa Crespo, a neighborhood with many Jewish residents.
"(The) episodes (three weeks ago) are what sparked my desire to emigrate," Fejgelis says.
On the night of Dec. 19 - when protestors took to the streets banging saucepans - "I looked through the window and saw clearly the result of so much anguish and heartache," he says. "I thought about what life had in store for my two children. If these protests started with saucepans and ended with more than 25 people dead, what can happen next time - a civil war?"
Since the Fejgelises met 30 years ago, they often had thought of living outside Buenos Aires. They made inquiries about moving to the Argentine provinces, or perhaps to Canada, Australia, Mexico or Venezuela.
The morning of Dec. 21, Fejgelis was selling pharmaceutical supplies outside Buenos Aires. While drinking coffee at a gas station, he read in the newspaper about special benefits the Israeli government is making available to entice Argentine Jews to immigrate.
He ran to his car to get his reading glasses.
"This is my chance," he told himself, and went back home to speak with his wife.
That same day, Fejgelis called AMIA, Argentina's central Jewish organization, and asked how he could contact the Jewish Agency.
"I was so anxious that I feel Jan. 16 is too far away," Fejgelis says, peering over a small pair of glasses perched on his nose. "I always had part of my heart in Israel. I feel this can be our chance. And I still have to wait 20 days to see what it's all about."
Elisa Fejgelis - who works at the Argentine League for Welfare Medicine - is more skeptical.
"Israel does not seem the ideal place for me to live. Hebrew is impossible to learn," she says. "And I know my daughter" - Tamara, the only member of the family who has been to Israel - "would not come. I am a 'Yiddishe mama' and it is too hard for me to think of living far away from Tamara," or Diego, the couple's son.
Edgardo Fejgelis is in the midst of a lawsuit against a laboratory that closed without paying him any compensation. He is broke, and wondering how to pay his debts.
Elisa has about $7 in her bag and a measly salary check that she can't cash in any bank because of restrictions imposed since the riots.
"It might sound weird, but thinking of my family and me in 10 years time in Israel brings me a feeling of peace," Edgardo Fejgelis said.
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