South
Of
Border
Stru
le
Economic downturn hurts Faxic's

WI

LARRY LUXNER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

only 0.9 percent last year, after it con-
tracted by 0.3 percent in 2001.
'About 85 percent of our exports go
to the U.S. market," said CCJM's
director general, Mauricio Lulka.
"When the Americans aren't buying,
we're not selling."
A chemical engineer by profession,
Lulka said Mexico in the past was very
protectionist. "But then we opened our
borders to imports," he said. "Many
businesses, including Jewish-owned
businesses, weren't prepared for compe-
tition, so they closed."
While a handful of Mexican Jews —
like Moises Saba, the billionaire owner
of TV Azteca — are extremely rich,
most community members are middle
to upper-middle class, Lulka said. In
fact, he said, "between 8 percent and
10 percent of Mexican Jewish families
are considered poor by Jewish stan-
dards," and receive some type of official
assistance.

Mexico City
ast year, Bertha Avimelech
landed a job managing
Clyvia Boutique, a fancy
dress shop fronting Avenida
Masaryk in Mexico City's upscale
Polanco neighborhood.
Avimelech, 45, earns the equivalent
of $1,000 a month supervising seven
salesgirls. That's not even enough to
buy any of the imported wedding
gowns she sells to her wealthy cus-
tomers — but in Mexico's uncertain
economy, every peso counts.
"My husband and I have a jewelry
store, and I used to work with him
there," she said. "But our sales went
down, and what we were making didn't
cover the cost of our children's school.
So I went to Fundacion Activa to look
for work, and they put me together
with the owner of this store. If it
Shrinking Middle Class
weren't for them, I would never have
found this job."
"There's definitely poverty in the
Fundacion Activa was established in
Jewish community," said Fundacion
1997 by the Comite Central de la
Activa's director, Miriam de Picazo.
Comunidad Judia de Mexico, or
"The middle class hasn't disappeared,
CCJM, an umbrella organization repre- but every day it's getting smaller. Our
senting Mexico's 40,000
Jews. Among the foun-
dation's projects is a job
bank that matches busi-
nesses that need
employees with mem-
bers of the Jewish com-
munity looking for
work.
"If you ask me
whether I'm poor I'd say
no, I don't consider
myself poor," Avimelech
said. "But I know a lot
of people in this same
situation."
Indeed, even in subur-
ban Mexico City — amid the glitzy
objective is to help people who,
shopping malls of Polanco and the
because of the economic crisis in this
stately mansions of Chapultepec — one country, have lost their jobs or their
can find increasing pockets of Jewish
businesses."
poverty. That's because Mexico, whose
In the beginning the service was free.
economy is linked to the United States
Since June 2002, however, employers
through the North American Free
who hire job candidates listed in the
Trade Agreement, has yet to recover
foundation's Bolsa de Trabajo monthly
from a recession that caused the coun-
bulletin are asked to make a tax-
try's gross domestic product to grow by
deductible donation equivalent to one-

L

His $1,800 monthly salary
isn't enough to pay for his
children's Jewish school
even though the community
picks up 40 percent of the
tuition.

S

SW, 3

fourth of the applicant's first-month
salary.
Between 1998 and 2002, about 65
percent of the 1,092 applicants inter-
viewed by Picazo eventually were
matched with Jewish employers.
One of them was Benjamin Alfie.
The father of two manages Mykonos, a
discount apparel store in the heart of
Mexico City's historic district. Here,
surrounded by noisy pushcart peddlers
and taco vendors, Alfie sells blue jeans,
underwear and T-shirts to the Mexican
working class — people whose socioe-
conomic level is a lot lower than his
own.
A descendant of Syrian Jews from
Damascus, Alfie, 38, speaks Spanish
and Hebrew but never made it past
high school. Instead, he went into the
retail business and eventually opened
his own clothing store. Sales dropped,
and last year Alfie went to Fundacion
Activa in search of employment.
"Now I'm taking a course in business
administration," Alfie said.
His $1,800 monthly salary isn't
enough to pay for his children's Jewish
school — even though the community
picks up 40 percent of the tuition. Alfie
could send them to public school,
which is free, but that's not an option
for him. "It's very important that my
kids get a Jewish education," Alfie said.
That attitude, prevalent in the com-
munity, may explain why only one in
10 Mexican Jews marries out of the
faith — one of the lowest intermarriage
rates in Latin America.
According to CCJM estimates,
around 95 percent of the country's Jews
live in sprawling Mexico City and its
environs, mainly Polanco and the
newer suburbs of Huixquilucan, Las
Lomas and Cuajimalpa. The remaining
5 percent reside in the cities of
Guadalajara and Monterrey, with small-
er communities in Tijuana, Cancun
and San Miguel de Allende.
More significantly, 95 percent of
Jewish families in Mexico belong to
one of the country's 25 or so syna-
gogues, and 91 percent of Jewish chil-
dren attend Jewish schools — making
for very strong religious identity and
little assimilation.
Anti-Israel demonstrations in Mexico
have increased somewhat in the last 12

months, but anti-Semitism generally is
not a problem in this overwhelmingly
Catholic society.
"Mexico is a very poor country, with
40 percent of the population living
below the poverty line," said Renee
Dayan-Shabot, director of Tribuna
Israelita, a Jewish think tank. "So there
is resentment against wealthy people
here, but not because they're Jews."

New Bias Law

In early June, President Vicente Fox
signed a landmark law that forbids reli-
gious, racial, sexual or cultural discrimina-
tion of any kind, including anti-Semitism.
"We're very happy that something like this
has been passed in Mexico," Dayan-
Shabot said. "We worked on this project
for many years, and the Jewish communi-
ty was part of the commission that ana-
lyzed this legislation."
Fox's cabinet currently includes three
Jews: Victor Lichtinger, secretary of the
environment; Julio Frenk, secretary of
health; and Santiago Levy, director of
the Social Security Institute. Two Jews,
Claudia Sheinbaum and Jenny Saltiel,
hold high positions in Mexico City's
municipal government.
Despite Mexico's current economic
slowdown, Jews there are far better off
than their brethren in Argentina and
Uruguay. In fact, Mexico has attracted
at least 200 Argentine Jewish families
since Argentina's economic crisis spi-
raled out of control in 1999.
"Most of these newcomers are univer-
sity graduates," said Palti Somerstein, a
Buenos Aires-born rabbi who did a six-
year stint in Bolivia before being hired by
Mexico City's Beth Israel Community
Center several years ago.
The Argentines come here, the rabbi
said, thanks to Mexico's relative prosperi-
ty and its Spanish-speaking culture. It's
also easier to get residency in Mexico
than in the United States — especially
since February 2002, when U.S. immi-
gration authorities began requiring visas
for Argentine visitors.
"Our congregation has built a network
in order to help them find jobs, health
care and other necessities," Rabbi
Somerstein said. "Some of them lost
everything in Argentina, so they can't go
back. I personally have found jobs here
for at least 30 of them."

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9/19
2003

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