Israel lures Argentina's Jews
By Joshua Brilliant
United Press International
TEL AVIV, Israel, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- Jorge Leibovich, his wife and
three children stepped off an Iberia flight this week that brought them
from Argentina to a country that offered them not only an immigration
visa and automatic citizenship, but is also covering the cost of the
move and tens of thousands of dollars toward buying an apartment:
Israel. Top Stories
The Leiboviches were among the first 63 new immigrants who arrived
this week following the riots that have gripped Argentina. They have
been preparing the move for months, but will benefit from new incentives
Israel announced last Sunday to attract more of Argentina's Jews.
The incentives to attract overseas Jews grow out of the Zionist
ideology that the Jews, whom the Romans forced out of their ancestral
land in the beginning of the Christian era, should return.
"We are responsible for the fate of every Jew from the moment he
announces his desire to immigrate to Israel," Philosophy Professor Asa
Kasher wrote this week in the Maariv newspaper.
Israelis are suffering from an economic depression and spreading
unemployment. However, reflecting the Zionist ideology, Kasher insisted
that the Jewish people ought to help potential newcomers before they
depart their countries of origin, on their way to Israel, and after they
arrive, "despite every economic hardship that Israel's citizens feel."
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is seeking to attract 1 million new
immigrants over the next 10 years.
The latest plans seek to focus on Argentina because of the economic
conditions there, South Africa because of the rising violence, and
France where there is an increasing Arab population, Jewish Agency
officials said.
Most of Argentina's Jews belong to the middle-class, which that
country's economic crisis has hit hard.
Some 200,000 Jews live in Argentina, and the Jewish Agency said it
believes one out of four are now poor.
It is estimated that some 1,700 Jewish families lost their homes.
Some people moved to cheap hotels while others live under bridges, in
public squares and parks.
The number of welfare recipients in the Jewish community increased
from 4,000 to 20,000, the agency said.
The economic crisis body hit Jewish institutions, too, reducing
funds for social, educational and other programs, the former president
of the Delegation of Argentine Israeli Associations, Ruben Beraja, told
United Press International.
Jorge Leibovich said he lost his job as an accountant a year ago.
His 14-year-old daughter, Mariela, recalled living in fear that burglars
would break into their home as the country's economy deteriorated.
Another immigrant from Argentina, Miriam Elbaum, who took the same
flight as the Leiboviches, said her husband was a taxi driver. "There is
no work. You don't see any money. Nobody pays anything," she said.
Another immigrant, Freddy Roth, said he had to close his store two
years ago. It sold eyeglasses, cameras and hearing aids. "My brother and
sister told me to come to Israel and not stay in Argentina," the
60-year-old Roth said.
It was not only the economic situation that got them moving. There
was an increasing disillusionment with the political system and
the endemic corruption, Alberto Indij, an active member in the
Jewish community, said in an interview in Buenos Aires.
The Argentine Jews should be particularly welcome in Israel. "Most
of them are professionals, academics," the Absorption Ministry's
Director-General Ronen Plotz told UPI.
Plotz noted that some 1 million people came from the former Soviet
Union in the past decade, and every wave of immigration spurred economic
development.
In the past week alone some 900 immigrants arrived, according to a
senior Jewish Agency official, Ephraim Lapid.
Eighty percent of them came from the former Soviet Union and some
70 people arrived from Ethiopia, Lapid told UPI. However many of those
new immigrants are not Jewish. They take advantage of Jewish family
ties, or ancestry, to improve their standard of living.
Argentine Jews are different. Many studied in Jewish schools, some
speak Hebrew. Many have visited Israel before and some said they had
thought of immigration, or aliyah, years ago.
The Argentine economic crisis spurred the Israeli incentive
program, while similar plans for South African Jews are still awaiting
the attorney general's approval, Plotz said.
The Jewish Agency said it sent 18 emissaries to Argentina and
employs 50 local people there.
The standard Israeli offer to new immigrants includes airfare,
transferring household goods and generous help in acquiring an
apartment. Some new immigrants are housed in absorption centers where
they learn Hebrew and get used to their new country.
Under an agreement signed this week by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
with the Jewish Agency's Chairman Sallai Meridor, the government will
provide each Argentine family an additional $20,000 toward buying an
apartment (with one-third of these funds being a grant), and the Jewish
Agency will allocate an extra $2,500 per family, Lapid said.
According to Jewish Agency figures, some 1,500 people came from
Argentina in 2001 and 6,000 have approached its representatives.
This, however, is no "exodus," Beraja observed.
Indij noted that many Argentines are looking at opportunities
abroad these days. Some of the key destinations for the country's Jews
are the United States and Spain.
Leibovich said he had tried the United States. "I've been to the
U.S., but there are a lot of problems getting papers. We started to
study the alternatives and during this time the situation in Argentina
was becoming very bad," he said.
He was sorry to leave Argentina. "It's very sad to leave a country
that gave us a lot of things. I studied, I am a professional, an
accountant. All my kids studied. I waited for my elder daughter to
finish high school in order to come to Israel to study in the
university."
The reaction in Buenos Aires to their move to Israel seemed
positive. "We received wishes from our friends and families. They think
we are the first," he recalled.
Asked if he was not afraid to bring his wife and three children to
a country gripped by fighting with the Palestinians, Leibovich said:
"I've been to Israel twice, in 1992 and 1996. When I was walking in the
streets of Israel during those trips, I felt secure. When I was a kid in
Argentina in the 1970s, there were bombs in Buenos Aires."
The security situation is "an obstacle," he continued, but "we have
to be optimistic and not pessimistic. Peace is coming soon," he said.
(With reporting by Joshua Dylan Mellars in Buenos Aires.)
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