amia - la historia de jessi / amia - jessi's story

This Friday marks the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attack on AMIA (Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina), the umbrella organization for all Jewish organizations in Argentina. 85 people died in the attack and each year the community gathers to ask for justice and remember those lives that were lost. My supervisor and Hebraica's Youth Department Director, Jessica Rozenbaum, was 16 when the attack happened. She has told me her story from the day of the attack before but I wanted to share it with all of you. Although it was a terrifying day, her story is inspiring:

It was July 1994. I was in my second year of Madrichim School in Hebraica. It was going to be my last camp as a chanicha. The first winter break’s week had already gone by, and then on the second we would go to Kesher, the winter camp for teens.

July 18th was a Monday, and the attack happened in the morning. I heard when everything tumbled, as I lived in the neighborhood. Quickly we found out AMIA had been blown up.

Two friends of mine, who are still my friends today, lived very close to the building. One lived next to it, and the other by the corner. So my first worry was to see how they were, but clearly all the phone lines were cut and there was nothing I could do to hear about them. Hours went by and we would keep hearing about all the horror and the deaths. A few hours later I got news from my friends, luckily nothing happened to them and their families. They were quickly evacuated from the place.

First time in the evening we were all there in Hebraica. We needed to get together, see what we could do, see each other, hear about one another. The children, the madrichim, the members, the employees, everyone was there. And fast Hebraica became a gathering center of medicines, water, and all the things people were asking for in order to help.

Me and some friends tried to go to Pasteur, AMIA’s street, in order to help remove all the debris. Everything was chaotic, everyone was trying to help but nobody knew what to do and how to do it. We returned to Hebraica. They wouldn’t let the minors get close to the scene. The situation got worse and worse, we would keep finding out about people who went missing, people we knew, friends of friends.

In the afternoon, all of us who went to Madrichim School went to the streets and started to post flyers in the streets to invite all the people to the event that would take place on Thursday of that same week, in order to ask for justice. That act was afterwards known as the “Umbrellas act”, because that day it rained a lot, and the act took place under the umbrellas of all the people who were there. The walk we did to hand out all the flyers was really long and hard. We knew we were doing something but we didn’t feel it was enough. Everyone looked strange, or we were strange.

My Monday ended in Gaby’s uncle’s house, the girl who lived in front of AMIA, trying to understand the unintelligible, being there to accompany Gaby and her family in the house they would live in for the next time as her house was destroyed by the hit.
My other friend, Deby, the one who lived in the corner of AMIA, wasn’t able to get back home either, as people were not allowed to step on the streets near the place. She lived in my house for a week.

My camp, Kesher obviously did not take place. We spent the whole week in Hebraica, with our need to do something, the fear, the questioning, and the looking for answers. We were in our second year of madrichim school, and our compromise was huge. Many families decided to take their kids out of Hebraica and other Jewish organizations. There was fear, a certain paralysis. All the teens that went with me to Hebraica didn’t stop going, and our compromise was bigger after the attack.

We learned and got used to being checked everytime we entered a Jewish building, to go with a security guard to every camp, to parents not wanting their children to go to the club, to wonder why. After the attack I learned the word impunity and its meaning. I had never heard it before, it had never happened to me before.

The next week winter break was over. We had to get back to our routines, to our regular activities, but nothing was regular, something had changed forever. We went back to school. That Monday was harsh. We went back to madrichim school. That week was also hard there. There were not enough words to talk and keep talking. To look and look for an answer.

Then the situation settled a little. In that second half of the year I went to rescue some of the books that were left from AMIA’s library as a volunteer with some of my friends. We would take them out of the street and then clean them and clasify them, and that was all minors could do. By doing that, we were rescuing the history, the culture, the past. Books in hebrew, in yiddish.. books and more books….

A few years went by and a group called “shinui” (change) started growing in hebraica. The idea was to generate a space for madrichim, to think and start taking action in the call for justice, in the claim to not let it stay unpunished. We would get together every week. In 1997, the night before the main act, the first big action of shinui was proposed: “Youth on guard until it clears”. The idea was to get together, generate a space and stay awake all night before the main act. The proposal was shared among all the organizations and madrichim.

We stayed there in the street where the AMIA was bombed the whole night, there where workshops, talks, and mainly youth presence.

That night that was the first youth act that still happens each year. As years went by it changed, got shaped in different ways, by different organizations, different people, but the space was always a filled one, and one with a legacy taken and assumed by the young generations along these past twenty years.

I hope this legacy keeps being passed over. For justice. For not letting impunity get naturalized. For the role of the youth, asking for justice and saying all the things others don’t say and keep on silence. For the role of being a madrich as a living transmitter of all that moves us and that we believe in. For the feeling of knowing there’s always something we can do. For the Jewish sense of asking for justice.

-Jessica Rozenbaum, Youth Department Director, Hebraica