Latin American Jewish Youth Groups Hold Parley; 14 Lands Represented

The first Latin American Jewish Youth Organizations conference opened here today with the goal of creating closer ties between Jewish young people in the Latin American countries and in Israel.

Among those who addressed the 120 delegates from 14 countries at the initial sessions were Eliahu Dobkin, head of the Jewish Agency’s youth department in Jerusalem; Israel Ambassador Yitzhak Harkavi; Mark Turkow, World Jewish Congress representative; and Abraham Tafla, pioneering youth delegate who discussed the problems of Jewish youth in countries outside of Israel. The delegates named four committees to grapple with such specific questions as expansion of Hebrew education and setting up territorial and regional organizations of Jewish youth.

A concurrent youth conclave began deliberations with delegates from universities in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela and Peru. The delegates agreed to a program to bring to Israel 30 students from their countries for a nine-month seminar. The seminar participants would pledge to spend two or three years, after returning from Israel, on the task of organizing Jewish students in Latin America.

The conference noted that only 10 percent of the 23,000 Jewish university students in Latin America were members of Jewish youth groups. Seminar participants will be chosen jointly by the youth group, the Jewish Agency youth department and Israel Embassies in Latin America.