'Joint' Doubling Budget for Relief Of Argentine Poor
Republished with permission by The Foward
BUENOS AIRES — Saying that 1,500 Argentine Jews fall into poverty every month, the main Jewish international relief agency is more than doubling its budget to assist the crisis-stricken community here.
"Eighty percent of the community is middle-class and we never thought we would be directly affected, but everyone has a cousin, an uncle, a brother losing his job and calling for help," said Jorge Shulan, the Buenos Aires associate director of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which feeds and clothes the needy around the world with donations from North American Jewry.
Last week, the JDC board approved a $14 million budget for 2003 for its Argentine program, up from $6.7 million last year, $1 million in 2000 and $140,000 before that. Of the $14 million, $10 million is expected to be collected by the federations and $4 million provided by the JDC. An additional $2 million is to be raised by the local community.
In recent years, the JDC's Argentine program has morphed from a small operation into a multi-million-dollar welfare program. A third of the 200,000-strong community is thought to be living below the poverty line of $60 a month. The country's gross domestic product dropped 16% this year. Unemployment hovers around 30% and the once buoyant middle class is shrinking by the day. Poverty is estimated to have increased 40% between October 2001 and November 2002.
As a result, the Jewish community is counting more than ever on American Jewish money to cope with what has become known here as the phenomenon of "new poverty."
"There is nothing more important than feeding hungry Jews," said Steve Schwager, executive vice president of the JDC, stressing that the effort would not hurt other programs. "We are very satisfied with the way the program is being handled."
Until the mid-1990s, the JDC was not involved in social assistance here. Soon after the fatal bombing of the AMIA community center in July 1994, when 85 were killed and the community disrupted, the first indications of a new Jewish poverty started to appear.
"Because the community here was always self-sufficient and because there is no international experience to deal with this phenomenon, there was no mechanism in place," Shulman said.
In 1996-97, a "solidarity alliance" to provide social assistance was created among five institutions — the JDC, Tzedaka charity, AMIA, Banco Mayo and Banco Patricios — each of which pledged to give $250,000. Owing to an economic crisis and mismanagement, however, the two banks collapsed. In addition, AMIA's debt soon rose to $25 million, leaving only the JDC and Tzedaka with a smaller budget to distribute food, clothing and medicines to a growing population.
The real explosion came in 2001, when the economic crisis deepened. The social chaos and an institutional crisis culminated a year ago with the resignation of president Fernando de la Rua following deadly clashes in the streets of Buenos Aires between the police and protesters.
As of mid-December, 33,060 were registered in the JDC system as earning less than $60 a month. An equivalent number of those poor people is believed to be outside the system, making both ends meet with other assistance programs and help from family and friends.
As a result, the number of distribution centers operated in conjunction with various local Jewish groups has jumped from 6 to 72 and a system of food stamps has been put in place.
"These people don't want food stamps, they want work," Shulman said, adding that the JDC has expanded the activities of its job orientation center. The JDC is also trying to merge different Jewish institutions whose membership has sharply decreased — mainly Buenos Aires's two Jewish community centers and several Jewish schools — in order to cut costs.
In response to a question about how exactly this growing flow of American money was being used in a country rife with corruption, Shulman stressed that "every expense" is monitored internally and by Price Waterhouse. The JDC also has put in place a management information system to monitor the distribution.
Schwager confirmed that the JDC had sent its own auditors and that several United Jewish Communities fact-finding missions had travelled to Argentina. "They all came back very happy with what they saw," he said.
Like many of their countrymen, Argentine Jews have chosen to leave Argentina. Some 6,500 to 7,000 have immigrated to Israel and a similar number left for other countries, especially Europe and the United States. Miami has become a favorite destination. Even though the Bush administration re-established a visa system last year limiting the number of immigrants allowed annually into the United States, the flow has not stopped because people are able to obtain European passports or enter illegally.
"The community could shrink from 200,000 to 150,000 quickly," Shulman warned. "So we must do everything to ride out the storm and the action of the American in this regards has been invaluable."
By MARC PERELMAN
FORWARD STAFF
