NEW POOR
from page 39
May the coming year be filled with
health, happiness and prosperity
for all our family and friends
Irving and Carol Smokler
and our nephew
Marc Barron
wish my friends & family a very healthy,
happy and prosperous New Year.
Sally Lux
Above: Drachler students Danielle
Steinhart of Orlando, Fla., and
Alyssa Cohen of Chicago stop in
front of the new AMA building
in Argentina. The first building
was destroyed in a 1984 bombing
Right: Drachler 2004 graduates
pause in front of the Casa Rosa,da,
the Argentine White House. They
are, from lefi; Diana Kogan of
Indiana, a Ralph I. Goldman
Fellow; Jenny Cohn, Adina
Pergament and Rachel Radner, all
of etroit; and Andrew Ravin
and en Lifihitz, both of Chicago.
The new poor are the Jews who for-
merly made up the large middle class
and must now seek monthly assistance
just to fulfill their basic needs.
We learned that 35 Jewish day
schools, or half of what once existed in
this thriving Jewish community, have
closed in the last three years. We were
told that many agencies have cut their
annual budgets by up to three quarters
to survive in the new economic reality.
We also found that people in this
country live amidst many contradic-
tions. We witnessed thousands of
Argentineans living in a shanty town just
blocks away from some of the wealthiest
hotels and neighborhoods in the city.
Although we did not perceive anti-
Semitism, we were struck by the security
posted at all Jewish buildings, a residual
of the 1992 terrorist bombing of the
Israeli Embassy and the 1994 bombing
of AMIA.
Our Help Needed
9/10
2004
40
Most importantly, we learned that while
the Jewish community in Buenos Aires
is coping, but continues to need our
help. The needs of the Argentinean Jews
have grown while their economic capa-
bility to meet them has shrunk dramati-
cally. They still rely heavily on foreign
aid.
Several professionals shared with us
their worry that the American Jewish
community will soon forget them. They
worry that now that we have seen all
they've done to combat the crisis we will
believe they no longer need our help. I
can tell you, this is not the case. They
need us now more than ever.
The most important lesson I took
home with me from Argentina is that
crisis brings opportunity. I saw with my
own eyes what a Jewish community can
do when faced with real problems that
must be dealt with immediately.
However, I hope that crisis is not a
requirement for the kind of action and
effort I saw just a few months ago. I
hope that we Jews in America, facing no
traumatic crisis at the moment, can use
the resources and skills we have to make
our own community better for our chil-
dren and ourselves.
Eighteen people returned changed
from this trip to Argentina with infor-
mation, stories, pictures and pieces of
wisdom we picked up from our col-
leagues and fellow Jews. El
Glenda Wucherfrom St. Louis, Mo., is a
student in the Drachler program.