`New Poor'
U-M's Drachler students
see needs of Argentina's
Jewish community.
GLENDA WUCHER
Special to the Jewish News
Ann Arbor
arlier this summer, I took one of
the most educational and pow-
erful journeys of my life. I was
fortunate enough to travel to Buenos
Aires, Argentina, with the students and
staff of the University of Michigan
School of Social Work's Sol Drachler
Program in Jewish Communal
Leadership.
Our mission for this trip was specific.
We went to Buenos Aires to study the
structure and function of the Jewish
community, which is more than
200,000 strong, and to learn how the
community has learned to cope with
the economic crisis that has plagued the
country for more than five years. The
most severe impact occurred after the
devaluation of the peso in December
2001.
In the seven short days we spent in
Buenos Aires, we visited with Jewish
communal professionals at the
American Jewish Joint Distribution
Committee, the Jewish Agency For
Israel, the Arlene Fern School (a Jewish
day school), Hillel, Baby Help, the Ariel
Job Center, Temple NCI-Emanuel, the
Leatid Program, Hebraica (a large
Jewish Community Center), Akim (an
agency for Jewish adults with mental
disabilities), the ORT Argentina school,
BAMA (a Jewish education agency),
Comedores Populares (a Jewish soup
kitchen) and Radio Jai (the only Jewish
radio station in Latin America).
We also had the opportunity to meet
with numerous other Jewish communal
professionals as well as with profession-
als at Caritas, a large Catholic social
services agency.
Throughout the course of our trip, I
was amazed at how open the staff, vol-
unteers and participants were with us.
They spoke frankly about the effects of
the economic crisis on the Jewish com-
munity and the priorities and projects
of the Jewish agencies that serve them.
We learned that 70 social welfare cen-
ters have opened in Buenos Aires after
the major crisis in 2001 to provide
food, financial assistance, medical care
and psychological services to the "new
poor.
NEW POOR on page 40
E
Best Wishes
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for a New Year filled
with good health and much
happiness.
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