For the first time in its history, the Jewish community in Buenos Aires is
organizing seders for tens of thousands of people on the second night of
Passover. The evening is intended not only to remember the Exodus from
Egypt, as important as that is, but also to show solidarity with suddenly
impoverished Argentine Jews who, before the economy crashed, confidently had
counted themselves among the middle and upper classes.

"The idea is that not just the Onew poor,' but everyone will share a seder,"
explained Alberto Senderey, an Argentine who serves as director of
international community development for the American Jewish Joint
Distribution Committee, known familiarly as "The Joint."

"Some will pay, some will be invited," he added at a March 14 briefing for
members of the United Jewish Federation¹s Women's Division. "We have to let
people know that we will help each other. The service is not just to give
food to each other. It is to say that there is a new meaning why we tell
this story, because here and there we have to cross again the Red Sea and
together we can do it."

The depth and width of that Red Sea were related by Women's Division
president Marsha Berkson prior to Senderey¹s speech. Of approximately
200,000 Jews in Argentina, 175,000 live in Buenos Aires. Once that city
boasted 60 Jewish day schools, but now 20 have been closed. One of the
city¹s Jewish Community Centers prior to the economic collapse had 700
family memberships. Six hundred families no longer are able to pay the dues..

Overall, the Jewish Community Center movement in Argentina has been
diminished from 20,000 membership units to only 6,000 paying dues. In the
old days, said Senderey, by the time an Argentine Jewish family added up the
money they paid for JCC membership, to support their synagogue and to
contribute toward Israeli charities, they spent $2,000 a month.

"To be a Jew in Argentina was expensive, like having a kid in college,"
Senderey said. "Today, people are under $300 a month earnings. They mortgage
their houses, suspend their medical insurance, and don¹t pay their
utilities." 

A video told of a textile factory owner who also owned several retail
clothing stores. The stores and the factory closed in the economic collapse
that took with it two Jewish-owned banks. The factory owner lost his home
and now lives with his wife in a one-room flat "so small he must walk
sideways to get around the bed."

This particular man has adjusted somewhat to his situation. He has taken a
job for wages fumigating buildings plagued by insects and rodents. He is
able to admit his loss of status and to get on with his life. Many others
still live in shock and denial.

Of the 200,000 Jews in Argentina, 44,000 are under the poverty line,
according to a study released two weeks ago. "We are helping 31,000 of them;
we are getting more than 1,000 new cases a week," Senderey said.

In what is often compared to America¹s Depression of 1929, Argentina's
economic collapse has left Jews feeling simultaneously supported and
vulnerable. An escape route to Israel is always available, even subsidized
by the Jewish Agency for Israel. For those who want to remain in Argentina,
the Joint under Senderey's guidance has developed a three-pronged strategy.

"First is welfare -- food, medicine and roof," he told the Federation women.
"We know that in May, June and July, many people will be evicted because
they have not been paying their rents or their condominium dues." Currently
the Joint has 1,700 people lodged in hotel rooms. These are "one-star
hotels, clean, nice, but you don¹t know who is in the next room," he said.
"The bathroom is shared and when your girl of 12 years old is going to the
bathroom, you walk with her because you don¹t know who else is in the
hotel."

The Joint is chartering hotels, or whole floors of hotels, for use as
temporary headquarters. Around Buenos Aires, it has created weekend and
evening emergency centers, because "if you need to buy medicine because the
kid is sick, and you don't have cash, where do you go? We cannot have a
welfare center in one place."

The second prong, he said, is employment. "In the last four weeks, 74,000
people have lost their jobs," he said. "That would be like if you in America
lost 700,000 jobs" in the same period.

"We are putting in a vocational service system" in which people who need to
find new employment are trained. "If there are 500 candidates for a job, you
will have this little extra to win the position," the newly unemployed are
reassured.

"Also, we have micro-businesses," Senderey said. For example, in the kitchen
of a closed-down Jewish school that once served 1,000 children, "eight women
now are running a bakery and are sustaining their families with these
bakeries."

The third prong of the Joint's strategy, he said, is to plan for the
community's future. "We have lost buildings because our mortgages were in
dollars and there was no way to pay them." When Argentina emerges from its
financial crisis, perhaps in three to five years, the community will need
facilities, perhaps not for 200,000 people, but for 130,000 people. Plans
are being made to buy some of those facilities back.

Planners assume that as many as 70,000 Jews will emigrate from Argentina
over the next several years. Some 1,300 went to Israel last year; another
5,000 are expected this year. However, with the intifada going on, even more
Argentine Jews are expected to move to other places. Many were settling in
the United States, but since Feb. 20 it is not so easy to come to this
country. Up until that date, Argentines didn¹t need visas to come to the
U.S. Now they have to wait 10 days to get a visa and must be able to prove
that they have sufficient money to live in America without becoming a
burden, Senderey reported.

The Argentine Jews are going to other countries, in some cases by
invitation. Jewish communities around the world that feel they need an
infusion of new blood, particularly families with children, are putting
advertisements in Argentine newspapers seeking immigrants.

About 50 teachers of Argentine Jewish day schools lost their jobs, and they
too are the focus of recruitment efforts. "To be a teacher (at a Jewish
school) you have to have a degree from the university, a master's in
education and a title that is recognized by the Hebrew University," Senderey
explained. These teachers are considered by recruiters as wonderful
prospects to be Jewish camp directors, teachers and JCC staff members in
other countries.

In the United States, United Jewish Communities -- of which the United Jewish
Federation of San Diego County is a member -- is raising money to help the
Argentine Jews.

While no formal campaign has yet been launched here, San Diego County
residents who want to help may send a check bearing the notation "Argentine
Jewish Relief" to the United Jewish Federation offices at 4950 Murphy Canyon
Road, San Diego, CA 92123.