Miami is gateway for Latin Jews

Community seeks economic stability

LARRY LUXNER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Argentine immigrant Alvaro Psevoznik, with his son, stands outside the Buenos Aires Bakery in Miami Beach.

Photo by Larry Luxner

At a suburban shopping mall on 169th Street and Collins Avenue, hungry lunch customers can choose among options ranging from Einstein Brothers Bagels and Parrilla San Telmo to the grilled chicken and sizzling fajita taco salad at Mexico Bravo Glatt Kosher.

Further south along Collins Avenue, one can visit the Buenos Aires Bakery, a popular sidewalk cafe_ that sells bottled Israeli fruit juice - along with ham-and-cheese sandwiches and half a dozen brands of yerba mate, a traditional Argentine herbal tea.

Indeed, the bazaar-like choices are testament to the burgeoning community of Latin American Jews who now call Miami home.

One of the cafe's regulars is Alvaro Psevoznik, a 31-year-old secular Jew from the northwestern Argentine province of Salta.

Back home, Psevoznik owned a radio station and promoted local rock concerts. When his country's economic crisis started cutting into ticket sales, however, he decided it was time to pack his bags for Miami.

"I came here alone on a tourist visa with $4,000 and no job," he says.

Eventually, Psevoznik sent for his wife, Marcela, and their two small children. Marcela, formerly a teacher at the only Jewish school in Salta, got a visa with the help of the Latin American Migration Project, or LAMP.

Psevoznik is not alone in Miami: Just as New York was the U.S. gateway for Eastern European Jews escaping persecution 100 years ago, Miami today has become the gateway for thousands of Latin American Jews escaping economic instability.

No one really knows just how many Latin American Jews live here. In 1994, a demographic study by the Greater Miami Jewish Federation revealed around 12,000 Jews of Hispanic origin in Miami-Dade County, or 5.6 percent of the area's total Jewish population.

Cubans, recent arrivals don't mix in Miami

Today, the number is substantially larger - perhaps double - with the biggest contingent coming from Argentina and smaller numbers from Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil and elsewhere.

"I'm pleased at the pace with which our synagogues and Jewish agencies have reached out and begun to involve them," says Jacob Solomon, the federation's executive vice president. "But so far, the nature of that involvement has largely consisted of programs and activities designed specifically for them. In other words, they're getting connected, but not integrated."

Furthermore, large financial discrepancies exist among the new immigrants: Some arrive with next to nothing, while others have saved millions of dollars in U.S. bank accounts.

Marina Blachman, LAMP's coordinator, said her program began in June 2001 with a $240,000 grant from the Miami federation. Since then, LAMP has assisted more than 2,500 people.

"Most people came in the first year and a half, when they could get here without a visa," she says. "They just bought a plane ticket and took one suitcase with them."

Since February 2002, when U.S. immigration authorities removed Argentina from the visa waiver program, prospective Argentine travelers must visit the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires before they can come here.

Juan Dircie, LAMP's case manager, came from Buenos Aires two years ago, having worked at Israel's Bar-Ilan University and local offices of United Israel Appeal and Keren Hayesod.

"The ones who go to Israel have no other possibilities," he says. "In Israel, they give you the airline ticket, the housing, everything. You come here, you're on your own."

Funding for these articles was made possible, in part, by The George Rohr Foundation, Inc.

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