Alliance partnership in Argentina nurtures the ‘shared identity’ of young Jews

Posted

If you tell any of the fifth graders at the J.N. Bialik School, in Rosario, Argentina, that you live in Rhode Island, they will immediately light up. They are eager to show off what they know about the state’s geography, its weather, even its educational system.

This knowledge comes from an entire unit on Rhode Island in English class, which culminated in filming video tours of their school for students at the Jewish Community Day School of Rhode Island (JCDSRI), in Providence.

“Today, they continue talking about it: the Rhode Island project, the Rhode Island video, the Rhode Island students. It was quite important for them,” says Paula Coviello, the chair of Bialik’s English Department. “I had imagined that they were going to be excited, but not as much as they were. I was very, very surprised.”

During the pandemic, the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island introduced a global-partnerships program to complement the existing Annual Community Campaign grants.

“It often feels like we have a weaker connection” to overseas partners, said Adam Greenman, president and CEO of the Alliance. “We set out to change that [by] building people-to-people connections between our Rhode Island community and these communities.”

Bialik’s video-tour project is one of the most visible fruits of this program, which also includes a community center in Warsaw, Poland, and several organizations in the Afula-Gilboa region of Israel. JCDSRI has also crafted related curriculum for its students, and last November, two members of Bialik’s board (Javier Indelman and Javier Gueiler) came to Providence to visit the school.

“It was a great experience for all of us, and such a treat to have these dedicated community members spend time with us, getting a sense of our likenesses and our shared vision,” said Jennifer Zwirn, chief relationships officer at the Alliance, who works closely with professionals and volunteers on the ground in these partner regions. “The beauty of forming these partnerships is that people-to-people connections happen naturally, so it hasn’t taken much convincing to be a part of this effort.”

Education has long been a priority for the Alliance, which names it as one of the six core Jewish values that it honors. The organization directs more than a third of its community investments to both local and overseas formal and informal education programs, from day schools and tutoring to curriculum and professional development.

This commitment to education made it particularly important to get involved in Bialik, which is the only Jewish school in Rosario, a city of 1.3 million. The school educates an incredibly diverse population, ranging from Orthodox children who need intensive Hebrew classes to non-Jewish students looking for lab spaces and, starting this year, robotics programs. It also serves a wide age-range: kids can be enrolled at 6 months, and many stay until they graduate at age 18.

Dana Epstein, Bialik’s director, said the school is crucial for the continuity – and even growth – of Rosario’s Jewish community.

“Young people come to Rosario to study at university. After a few years, when they become a family, they come to our kindergarten with their children,” she said.

In contrast, Argentinean cities without Jewish schools may be more likely to see young families leave for places like Buenos Aires, where most of Argentina’s Jews now live.

In fact, the Alliance had initially considered working with World ORT schools in Buenos Aires, before deciding to work with Bialik, whose high school is ORT-certified.

ORT “has a very strong reputation [in Argentina] beyond the Jewish community,” said Sergio Widder, Latin America director for American Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) a Jewish humanitarian organization.

As their relationship has grown, Bialik and JCDSRI have encountered some logistical difficulties. Among them are their different school years: Bialik’s breaks fall during much of a typical U.S. fall and spring semester. That leaves a short window of opportunity for students to communicate with one another; since the start of Bialik’s school year, a few weeks ago, the schools have been racing to find times for the students, as well as educators, to meet.

Andrea Katzman, head of school at JCDSRI, pointed to Indelman’s and Gueiler’s visit last November as an example of quality time that makes up for the lack of quantity.

“They spent much of the day talking about their school to JCDSRI administrators, teachers and students. The Bialik board members were impressed with the vibrancy and diversity they saw at JCDSRI [and] returned to Argentina reenergized about the partnership,” she said.

Another recent challenge for Bialik has been economics. During the pandemic, the JDC estimated that half of Argentina’s day-school students received scholarships or subsidies. Then, in 2022, inflation in Argentina reached 95%.

“Families are poorer and poorer, and find it harder to pay for tuition,” Widder said. “Inflation has a permanent, ongoing negative impact.”

The Alliance’s partnership with World ORT provided $32,000 of tuition assistance last year alone – equivalent to roughly 40% of Bialik’s high school scholarship pool – to keep its school community stable enough to conduct projects like the JCDSRI-Bialik partnership. (The JDC received Alliance funding designated for meeting basic needs of these Bialik families as well.)

Ultimately, the partnership is so important because it helps students in both places develop a sense of shared identity.

“Part of students’ academic journey involves exposing them to the multiplicity of Jewish thought, traditions and communities, including those beyond the borders of the United States,” Katzman said, pointing to JCDSRI’s core values, such as kehillah (community) and kavod (respect). She said she hopes “to deepen their connections over time through video calls, pen-pal letters and maybe – someday – in-person visits.”

While Bialik has worked with schools in Israel for many years, Epstein believes it is deeply important for her students to learn about American Jews, too, especially since many of their ancestors arrived as part of the same wave of immigration in the late-1800s.

“Our ancestors are the same people. They came from Central Europe, from Germany. The movement of the societies, of the families, even the communities and the food ... our characteristics are the same.

“For many years, I think Jewish communities around the world didn’t know anything about [one another],” Epstein said.

Want to get involved with the Alliance’s overseas or local allocation committees? Know of an organization that might benefit from the Alliance’s global reach? Contact Jennifer Zwirn, chief relationships officer, at jzwirn@jewishallianceri.org. To donate to the Alliance’s work in Argentina or in other partnership regions, go to https://www.jewishallianceri.org/support-us/featured/donate-now.

TUVYA BERGSON-MICHELSON is a junior at Brown University and an intern at the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island.

Alliance, philanthropy, ORT, JDC, JAFRI