Volunteer learns about the Jewish experience in Buenos Aires.
Volunteer learns about the Jewish experience in Buenos Aires.
By Shaun Shlomo Feldman
CJN Intern
Matthew Cohen is one of many youths who took part in a Ve’ahavta program to assist the Jewish community in Buenos Aires this past May.
Ve’ahavta: the Canadian Jewish Humanitarian & Relief committee is a non-profit Toronto-based organization that funds humanitarian aid and relief projects worldwide. Launched in 1996, its mission is to spread the message of ?tikkun olam?-or?repairing the world?- to all corners of the globe.
Cohen, 19 is a graduate of Crestwood Preparatory College in Toronto and has just finished his first year at the University of Western Ontario, where he’s majoring in political science. He heard about the opportunity to volunteer abroad through a friend whose father is on the board of directors at Ve’ahavta, and he knew immediately that it was something he wanted to be a part of. ?Right away I was drawn to it. I mean, I didn’t really have any summer plans, besides getting a summer job, but I wanted to travel,? he said.
?Doing Birthright [Israel] was an idea, but that never happened. So, right when I heard about [Ve'aavta], that stood out as the thing that I wanted to do, because it’s such a great experience to be able to travel and see the world on your own, and at the same time help out and do something good for a community that needs it.’
Buenos Aires is home to the world’s largest Latin Jewish community, with about 190, 000 Jews. About 25,000 to 50,000 Jews live in the provincial cities of Cordova, Tucuman and Rosario. But these numbers have been dwindling over the years, with many Argentine Jews immigrating to other countries due to a plethora of social and political problems faced by the country, including rising poverty and crime rates, as well as rampant anti-Semitism.
Ve’ahavta has been providing food, clothing, shelter, medicine and subsidies for the community in Argentina and offers programs for volunteers in Argentina. Ve’ahavta has also been spreading awareness of the situation there to more fortunate Jews in North America.
Cohen, who went to Buenos Aires with two friends from university, said the five-week program began with orientation, which included touring the city, and taking Spanish classes.
For the next few weeks, Cohen helped out at a daycare at a Jewish community centre-something he used to do at home when he looked after children at his synagogue-Toronto’s Temple Emanu-El- on High Holidays and Friday nights- and taught English to university students at the the local Hillei, where he says they would ‘hold conversation classes.?
Cohen said that one of his most memorable experiences came when the group traveled to the slums outside the city limits to help other volunteers build houses for 100 families in need in just three days.
?We were lucky enough to be a part of the project, and it was definitely one of the highlights of the trip,? he said.
He and his group spent three nights sleeping in a school with about 100 Argentines their own age.
?We got to know all the people there,? he said.
?[We would] have conversations about what our life was like in Toronto, our university experience and everything like that. And that was really cool. We saw them again a week afterward in the city. There was a big party, and we hung out with all of them.
?I still talk to some of them on Facebook and MSN.?
When he wasn’t volunteering, he had some free time to explore the city, and even attended a couple of soccer games.
?[The work] wasn’t overwhelming, but we had stuff to do every day in terms of volunteering, and then we had one weekend where we were off for two nights,? he said.
?We had time to go out on our own and explore [the city] ourselves, which was nice. It was a lot of connecting with people our own age and sort of understanding what the Jewish experience is like in Buenos Aires and allowing our Jewish experience to rub off on them,?
Cohen said his time in Buenos Aires has enable him to connect with his Jewish roots by providing him with an alternative perspective on Jewish communities around the world.
?A lot of them, I think, may be aren’t fearful, but maybe just aren’t comfortable with their Judaism,? he said.
?I think it allowed me to see how Jews live in other parts of the world, like what Judaism means to them and how [their customs] differ from ours.? For more information about Ve’ahavta, visit www.veahavta.org.
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