The Situation In Argentina

January 6, 2002

The situation continues to deteriorate while the people await action from the latest head of State, President Duhalde. Devaluation of the Peso seems imminent. Unrest will either increase or decrease, depending on what immediate measures are taken to relieve economic stresses on the whole nation.

Meanwhile members of the Jewish community continue the struggle – some even to have enough to eat. Others lose electricity and gas supplies, fail to pay rent or mortgage payments on time, if at all. Hundreds of calls for help have been received from Jews in the countryside. There have been suicide alerts. The welfare caseload will be climbing from the current 15,000 (7,300 families) to about 21,000.The situation changes day by day and we are walking on shifting sands.

We aim to provide each family with a monthly food package costing $25. And cash assistance on a case-by-case basis to meet utilities bills, to buy medicine, and for family emergencies. We are increasing the number of voluntary relief centers from the 40 that are currently operating. At the same time we are continuing retraining of the jobless and providing small loans to businesses.

While projections are hard to make, we estimate that about $8 million will be required in emergency aid for the year 2002. Of this we originally expected AMIA and Tzedaka (local agencies) to produce four million pesos. At parity with the dollar this would have been the equivalent of $4 million. Devaluation will of course lower the local contribution.

Michael Schneider and Gene Philips will be in Argentina to assess AMIA and Tzedaka’s capacity to raise their share of the required funds and what we can expect them to produce after devaluation.

Michael recently held an emergency meeting with Steve Hoffman at UJC and reported the situation to the large city executives by conference call last Friday. UJC will be appointing a committee in order to decide how to raise the additional funds that will be required. Karen Shapiro will be the chair.

The JDC board, having already approved a $1 million grant towards this crisis has sufficient funds for another eight weeks. Hopefully, an emergency package will have been established by that time and a further report will be sent to board members.

At the same time JAFI reports an increase in enquiries for Aliya and have indicated an unspecified and unpredictable need for the year 2002 for transportation and absorption costs.