When Jewish communal workers think of the Jewish world, they mostly ponder needs, demands, crises and limited resources. So it is pleasant to hear about some good news within that overall picture.
Michael L. Novick, executive director of strategic development for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, truly had some good news to report when he came to Milwaukee last week.
In an interview at The Chronicle offices, Novick, 54, said the Jewish community of Argentina is beginning to recover from the devastating economic crisis it endured when that country’s economy collapsed in December 2001.
Novick said that economists judged this crisis to be “three times worse” than the Great Depression that struck the United States in the 1930s.
“Within two years after the crisis began, more than 36,000 Jews needed to be taken care of,” said Novick. “That meant they had no other place to turn. Not to families, not to friends.”
“At its peak,” which was November 2003, “roughly half of the Jewish community was thrown into sudden poverty,” the majority of them former members of the middle class, Novick said.
To meet this, the JDC “with the support of American Jewish federations,” set up 75 welfare centers, placing them throughout the country, but mostly in Buenos Aires, where 90 percent of Argentine Jewry lives, he said.
But now “the Argentine economy is steadily improving,” and the number of needy Jews “has steadily dropped,” reaching 18,200 last month, Novick said.
“We anticipate that within the next four years, the Argentine Jewish community will reach the point where it will resume self-sufficient status … barring unforeseen circumstances,” Novick said.
Nevertheless, those 18,000 people still constitute a huge population in a community that historically has had only about 4,000 “chronically needy Jews,” said Novick.
Priority areas
Novick was in Milwaukee to make a presentation to the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s Israel and Overseas Committee. This body helps determine the amount the MJF allocates for organizations and projects helping Jews in Israel and abroad.
According to the MJF’s 2005-2006 Report to the Community, the MJF allocated $2.9 million for Israel and Overseas Allocations for fiscal year 2006-07. Most of this amount went to the Jewish Agency for Israel ($1,685,625) and the JDC ($561,880).
Novick said the JDC’s mission is threefold. First, it moves Jews out of the way of physical danger, mostly by transporting them to Israel in partnership with JAFI.
Second, it concentrates on “reaching Jews around the world living below the poverty line in their respective countries and providing them with basics” like food, medicine, housing, etc.
Finally, it seeks “to help rebuild Jewish communities throughout the world that have been damaged by political events or economic catastrophe.”
Novick told The Chronicle that he would speak to the Milwaukee committee about areas “where we’re giving priority attention.”
First of these is “feeding hungry elderly Jews in the former Soviet Union.” Novick said that about 222,000 poor and elderly Jews live in some 2,700 cities and villages, and their government pensions are insufficient to provide them with necessities like housing, medicine and food.
Second is “the challenge of ensuring that there will be a vibrant Jewish community and Jewish life in the FSU in the coming decades,” he said. More than 1 million Jews live in those countries, and “we have a window of opportunity to reach out to them and to bring them into the modern Jewish world.”
A third is property restitution in the countries of Eastern Europe.
Novick explained that many Jewish communities have succeeded in petitioning governments to return properties once owned by the Jewish community. “This process is vital in helping those communities achieve financial self-sufficiency,” said Novick.
The JDC helps assess the viability of such properties and helps renovate them so they can help produce income for the communities, Novick said.
Finally, the JDC spends some 40 percent of its $306 million budget in Israel, said Novick. There, it works as a partner with the government “to identify the most pressing issues facing Israeli society” and “to bring innovative responses to those issues.”
Novick, who lives in Bellevue, Wash., has been a professional Jewish communal worker for some 24 years. In the JDC position he has held for the past seven years, Novick is “responsible to 22 major Jewish communities” that he visits “from time to time.”
He also travels abroad conducting seminars in fundraising for professionals and lay leaders all over the world. In fact, he said he is “in a different country almost every month.”
“I love the opportunity to personally experience Jewish life in different countries around the world and to give back, sharing the skills and experiences I’ve benefited from,” he said.
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