During the week of December 8, 2002, I spent five days in Buenos Aires, together with two colleagues in the Jewish Vocational Service network. We went as co-workers in the Jewish communal/vocational field to consult with colleagues in Buenos Aires. Each of us had a specific agenda. Mine was to visit with the staff and potential clients at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) in Buenos Aires and to discuss the implementation of our pilot program at JVS/ Boston, called Argentina Life Lines. With support from CJP and in partnership with the Emigrant Aid Committee of the Argentinean Jewish Relief Campaign, JVS has designed a program to provide employment assistance to Argentine Jews wanting to immigrate to the Boston area. Due to the collapse of Argentina’s economy and the desperate conditions there, thousands of Jews are making the difficult decision to emigrate. Absent a close U.S. relative, the only way that an Argentine can legally immigrate to the United States is by means of securing an employment visa. HIAS opened its office in Buenos Aires to provide the range of migration services to Jews and they have been creating a database of individuals hoping to relocate to many different countries, including the United States. In hopes of laying the groundwork for an effective collaboration, I went to Buenos Aires to meet HIAS’s on-site staff, consult on their database (now in beta testing) and also to meet with some individuals in the potential candidate pool. Abby Snay, Executive Director of JVS/San Francisco, came at the invitation of The Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) to offer program ideas and expertise, especially related to services of the Ariel Job Center. This is the center that has been established to serve the thousands of Jewish professionals hoping to remain in the country. Genie Cohen, Executive Director of the International Association of JVSs (IAJVS) came to begin building a relationship between HIAS/BA, the Ariel Job Center and the JVS network throughout the United States, Canada and Israel. This report summarizes what we learned about the current situation, how the Argentine Jewish community has responded, and offers some suggestions of how the JVS system can help.

The Context: Political and Economic
Argentina has a population of 36 million of whom 200,000 are Jewish. 80% of the Jewish community lives in Buenos Aires. There have been five crises for the Jewish community including:
1. bombing of the Israeli Embassy in 1992
2. bombing of AMIA in 1994 resulting in the death of 85 people
3. collapse of Jewish banks in 1998. These banks had been established in the 50s and 60s as cooperatives and revenues had been used to fund social services.
4. widespread poverty that hit the middle class in 2000-2002
5. Argentina’s “meltdown,” consisting of riots, freezing of assets, default on debt

The result, in economic terms is an official unemployment rate of 21.5% and an unofficial rate of 35%. 162,000 small businesses have collapsed. There has been an 85% drop in IT spending - resources are going to maintenance of existing systems. In the first quarter of 2002 there was a loss of 300,000 retail jobs. 53% of the population is living below the poverty level.  The majority of Jews belonged to Argentina’s middle class, in socio-economic terms. They now comprise the “new poor” and experience emotional and physical as well as material loss. We were told that before 2000, there were 4,000 Jews (2% of the population) considered “structurally poor.” The community always took care of them. In 2001 there were 15,000 requests for assistance (food, medicine, housing, money). In 2002 there were 26,000 requests in the first 6 months and 30 families are coming each day.

The Response
The Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) is the overseas arm of the U.S. Jewish community that provides assistance to other Jewish communities world-wide in need. In Argentina the JDC has expanded from 37-71 centers and from 15,000 to 32,600 clients. Jorge Shulman, JDC’s Director in Argentina, explained the 3-pronged intervention strategy that JDC has implemented in Argentina:
1. Welfare - food vouchers, soup kitchens, school lunch/food for old age homes; medicines; grants to prevent eviction; scholarships to complete education
2. Employment: the Ariel Job Center: job placement and small business
3. Community building- institutional mergers: downsizing to reflect community shrinkage.
 
HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) opened its office in Buenos Aires in October 2001 to provide information and counseling to individuals and families on legal migration options. Many Jews cannot see any future for themselves and their families in Argentina. They look for viable options in other countries – and they come to HIAS for advice and help. The Buenos Aires office is headed by Enrique Burbinsky and a staff of 7. HIAS offers group and individual counseling services on the range of migration issues. HIAS recognizes Israel as the core of Jewish life. As Enrique told us, “Only Israel waits for us.” This year 6500 have immigrated to Israel –300 during that very week. But HIAS respects individual choice and they have facilitated emigration also to Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Brazil, Ireland, Australia, Canada, Europe and the U.S. We learned that within Latin America, in areas where there is the desire to build the Jewish community and establish Jewish day schools, the host community finds work and housing for the immigrant and provides a stipend.

Our visits:
The Ariel Job Center was opened in October 2001 and is a partnership between the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and the Tzedaka Foundation, in collaboration with ORT. In their own words, the Ariel Job Center is “the Jewish community’s first employment and small business center for professionals, former industrialists, entrepreneurs and businessmen with an academic or professional background.” I can describe the Ariel Job Center in one word – “amazing”!! The staff, headed by Alejandra Goldschmidt, the Director of the Employment Area, is highly experienced and competent, very enthusiastic and clearly committed to their mission of preparing professionals for the new reality in a supportive environment where people can “recover their dignity.” They have a staff of 3.5 full time and 20 consultants/instructors. The staff included individuals with graduate degrees in psychology and human resources, as well as organizational development, teaching, etc. (The current market in Argentina makes staff of this caliber affordable). The JDC set up the Ariel Job Center with state-of-the-art technology. Clients’ on-line applications are transferred to the database, and through a key-word search, matches are found with employers. Ariel has an outplacement center set-up, i.e. a virtual office, complete with computer and phone that clients can use for 3 months. They offer “productivity meetings,” like our peer support groups and job clubs. In one short year they have developed and implemented an impressive array of services including a pre-employment training curriculum: overview of the current job market, job search strategies, group and individual assessment based on a SWOT analysis, interview training. For professionals who need to change careers/update skills they offer training in Excel, Word, Access, PowerPoint, Accounting software, It for architects and designers, Flash programming, Dreamweaver; business English and Portugese.
We sat in on a “productivity meeting,” met job-seekers individually, sat in on a workshop (complete with simultaneous translation)! My colleagues and I each presented our own JVS programs, structure, client base, funding streams, to the Ariel staff . We exchanged ideas for collaboration and materials. In one year, the Ariel Job Center has placed 290 professionals in new jobs. From 16 new job openings a month when they started, staff now report up to 50 new job openings a month.  We also saw the small business development department and met with some entrepreneurs; I brought JVS microenterprise training curricula for which they were very grateful.

The CODLA is the job center for non-professionals. Staff there reported that their has 1500 employers and 12,000 clients, 50% of whom are Jewish. Most of the job openings are in security, sales, customer service and office support. Job seekers can enter their information into the computer and the software produces a resume automatically. People come to the CODLA to view the job listings posted on bulletin boards. They also offer job clubs, interview practice. There are six staff and 4 computers for clients. If a candidate wants to become an entrepreneur, s/he can get some help at the CODLA (analogous to our feasibility training) and then they are referred to Ariel. Like JVS/Boston and our one-stop career center, the CODLA also plans to expand their services to employers, providing fee-based services.
 
At HIAS Sandra Gutkovsky is our primary contact. At the request of the EAC, she arranged an opportunity for us to meet with about 20 men and women who want to leave Argentina and may want to come to the U.S. Among the people we met were MDs, lawyers, architects, human resource professionals, accountants, psychologist, music teacher/musician, biologist, financial analyst, Hebrew teacher. These individuals were selected by Sandra to demonstrate the breadth of professional background of potential candidates for our program. Some people provided me a copy of their resume; some had already sent it via e-mail to JVS. Some of the attendees had specific communities where they wanted to move, i.e. San Francisco, New York. I also met privately with a charming woman who is hoping to come to Boston; she has a specialty in treating eating disorders and also has experience with the elderly. Her husband is a very experienced architect.
 
Next Steps (for JVS Boston)
There is a need for candidates wanting to come to the U.S. to become familiar with the U.S. resume format. We provided a bit of on-site help, i.e. use of language, format but I will follow up with providing resources for producing an American-style resume. We will also provide resources for candidates to become familiar with English “jargon” for their professional specialty. The high level of skill and experience represented in this group struck me. Sandra showed us the HIAS database (in Beta testing) which is scheduled to go live in January. HIAS gathers an enormous amount of information on each person and family wanting to emigrate. The JVS system (and employers anywhere) will be able to access only the professional profile and resume. There were 200 resumes in the database. 
We advised HIAS staff on some word usage/terminology, etc. for their database fields and instructions to be more in sync with the American style. We made suggestions on how candidates should enter the narrative information on their profiles in a way that will be most useful to an American reader.  
I was happy to meet Enrique and Sandra, with whom Patricio ( JVS’s bicultural employment specialist) will have most contact. I now have a sense of how to maximize our coordination w/ HIAS in BA. We corrected a few “misconceptions” about what it “takes” to become a full-time Hebrew teacher in a day school (at least in Boston) and also a teacher of Spanish. My colleagues and I advised HIAS staff on the need for potential candidates to do internet research on United States employment terminology for their specific area(s) of expertise, job search techniques, etc. We suggested (gently) that HIAS staff coordinate as much as possible w/ the Ariel Job Center – especially on advising professionals on how to “Americanize “ their resumes. I followed up w/Alejandra at the Ariel Job Center on this point and she told me that they are working on this coordination. (note: the business and expertise of HIAS is migration counseling and all that entails. The Ariel Job Center has the know-how in employment counseling). I also promised to share some of our materials on volunteer training and development and on employer outreach.

Summary
This was a truly memorable trip! We worked hard, learned a lot, but we also enjoyed amazing hospitality, met some truly delightful people and enjoyed the beautiful “Paris of South America.” Since we stayed in the Ricolletta section, the up-scale tourist area, we had delightful outdoor cafes, restaurants, and shops. We had a half-day tour of the city with a first rate guide, and our JDC escort, Cinthia, made sure we were well cared for. She also helped us to contribute to the sagging economy by introducing us to some specialty shops for leather!

Two things I learned for sure…after meeting the staff and visiting the Ariel Job Center, I am convinced that our colleagues in the vocational field in Argentina will add value to the JVS network. I look forward to a rich and productive relationship. And, secondly, I believe that the Jewish community in the U.S. can be assured that their support for the crisis in Argentina is being put to good use.