An article in today's Clarin (Argentina) reflects the continuing economic problems in Israel and the better situation in Argentina.

Cientos de argentinos regresan al pais por la crisis en Israel - Hundreds of Argentines go back home because of the crisis in Israel

(My translation below):

Felisa Schwalb is 58 years old. She arrived in Israel in October 2002 as part of a wave of immigrants that, until that year, included 6,300 Argentines. Now she feels disillusioned. She and her husband had work in Argentina: Felisa was a massage therapist and her husband made and sold home and bath products. "If we decide to come to Israel it is for our grandchildren and our three children. But it turns out the children are unhappy and the saddest part is that, despite our love for the place, we can't be against our son's decision to go back to Argentina".

Felisa is one of the Argentines - between 600 and 1,000 according to sources - that, having immigrated to Israel to escape the crisis in Argentina, have now begun to return to their country of origin due to the lack of work and the insecurity in the area due to the "Intifada" or Palestinian rebellion.

It's about immigrants of Jewish origin that arrived in Israel taking advantage of the Law of Return and that couldn't deal with the problems of the Israeli economic crisis it was reported yesterday in the newspaper Ma'ariv.

The people that have returned to Argentina are part of the contingent of 7,000 Argentines that arrived in Israel in the last two years, as part of a vast program of the authorities of the Jewish state. To attract them, they were given financial help over and above the normal benefits given to Jewish immigrants.

Daniel, a 35 year-old with his tickets for his return to Argentina in his hand, told Clarin: " I though it would be difficult, but it was worse than I thought."

Like his mother, Daniel sees the danger of bombings as secondary. "The main problem is the lack of work", he maintains. The young immigrant clarifies by saying that "in Israel there are good people, but there are also some bad ones". He alluded in this way to employers who took advantage of immigrants like himself to lower costs and increase profits. Beaten down by these distasteful events and pained to leave his siblings and parents in Israel, Daniel explains how he couldn't get integrated and in perfect Hebrew says: "Here I'm not Daniel, but my identity number".

Israel has brought in more than one million immigrants in the last three years, the majority from the ex-Soviet Union, although the armed conflict with the Palestinians since September 2000 has dealt a fatal blow to the economy of this country, that is living through it's worst recession in 53 years.

According to Ma'ariv, the rightist government led by Ariel Sharon has not answered the needs of Latin Americans for work, a situation that was studied today in a special session of the parliamentary Commission on Immigration.

The newspaper highlighted that the conditions leading to the decision of hundreds of immigrants to return is the profound economic recession in Israel and the bettering of the same in Argentina since Nestor Kirchner's arrival as president.

"we go from one job to another for minimum wage. And that's when there is work because there are times when we don't even have that", according to an Argentina immigrant, who is married and the father of three children, that in Buenos Aires was the owner of a clothing store. According to this immigrant, who lives in northern Israel and asked not to be identified, "I was here for months without telling my parents in Buenos Aires that I didn't have a job, because I was ashamed."

Many Argentine immigrants are used to saying that "if we have to be poor, we prefer to be poor in Argentina, where at least we understand the language".

Rabbi Mauricio Balter, head of the Argentine community in Kiryat Bialik, told Clarin that "the situation in Israel is very difficult. Today - heexplainss - jobs areheldd by Russian immigrants, in groups that are difficult to penetrate.". And therefore the pain continues for those who return: "In Argentina at least we know how to get by in poverty".