Jccs Take Hold in South America

The Jewish Community Center (JCC) movement has taken hold in South America. That was a major finding of a 10-day mission by JWB leaders. According to Arthur Rotman, JWB executive vice president, the group was most impressed by the Cordoba Jewish Community Center in Argentina.

“The Center in Cordoba is for all groups in the Jewish community,” Rotman reported. “It really cuts across all socio-economic lines. There isn’t the kind of separation that we witnessed in Buenos Aires, where people whose parents and grandparents had come from a particular country in Europe and had set up their own Community Center. The Cordoba Center, in philosophy and practice, is the Center for the total Jewish community.”

Esther Ritz, president of both the JWB and the World Confederation of Jewish Community Centers, said that “Cordoba was also the only community in Latin America that I have ever been in where the Center people with whom we met convened a session for us with a rabbi. That was remarkable. We met with a young Conservative rabbi who obviously works very closely with the leadership of that Center as they work with other rabbis. That’s in sharp contrast to the secularism of the Centers in Buenos Aires, where there are people who know rabbis but it would never occur to them to connect a Center delegation with rabbis for discussion.”

CENTERS ARE MAKING STRIDES

Jewish Community Centers in South America “are not by any means where Centers in North America are,” Mrs Ritz added. “But over the last 10 years they have been consciously moving in the direction of what we call Jewish Community Center in terms of service. They are making efforts to serve pre-school children.”

Many of the South American Centers never had programs for the elderly until recently, she noted, but they are now programming, in some cases programming very excitedly for older adults. They all have very substantial artistical education facilities and they are gradually strengthening their general Jewish educational cultural activities.”

Mrs. Ritz said that all the Jewish Community Centers in South America except one — the Hebraica in Buenos Aires — began as sports clubs. The Hebraica began as a cultural institution, Mrs. Ritz explained. “It has an enormous cultural program and Jewish cultural program. The Hebraica is also probably one of the outstanding Centers in the world in children’s Jewish educational culture programming.”

A ‘SHELL’ AROUND THE JEWISH COMMUNITY

In reaction to the “severe economic and political difficulties” faced by Jews in Argentina, the Centers–particularly in Buenos Aires — provide a “shell “around the Jewish community, Mrs. Ritz said.

“They have formed this shell to protect themselves from the cold, bitter, economic and political realities,” Rotman said. “In forming the shell around themselves, they have planned for every conceivable activity that one could think of, so that at no point would any person need to leave the protection of that shell.”

“It is a shell to keep themselves and their children especially isolated from the general community,” Mrs. Ritz added.

In Brazil, the JCC in Sao Paulo is one of the largest Centers anywhere in the world, the two reported. “There are many JCCs in North America which have as large or larger membership than Sao Paulo,” Rotman said, “but these North American Centers make use of a number of facilities in different neighborhoods in the city. In Sao Paulo, in one building, the Center serves some 25,000 members, all of whom are active.”

Mrs. Ritz observed that the JCCs in South America have changed very substantially since her first visit there years ago. “For one thing,” she said, “The Centers in Buenos Aires are the largest in Latin America. As a group they add up to more than all the rest in Latin America. They are now working together, which was not the case before. They are doing in-service training together, they’re discussing problems together — that’s a plus.”

CITES A NUMBER OF CONCERNS

Nevertheless, Mrs. Ritz pointed out, each Center has its own special clientele which is not a geographic matter. It may be ethnic, it may be socio-economic, it may be a mixture of those things. It’s still a class society and, therefore, the Centers are not serving the whole community. You don’t find what we have in Centers in North America: the opportunity for Jews of all orientations — political, socio-economical and religious — to function together and be aware of themselves totally as a community.”

She said that “One thing that worries me about a community in jeopardy is that when it fails to understand itself as a total community, it is in deep trouble.” Mrs. Ritz said that that another major concern is that there is “no community fund-raising to meet local community needs. There is no central fund-raising for social services, including Centers.”

In addition to Mrs. Ritz and Rotman, other members of the 10-day mission were Haim Zipori of Jerusalem, director general of the Israel Association of Community Centers and executive director of the World Confederation of Jewish Community Centers, and Silvie Rossie, Joint Distribution Committee community worker in Rome.