Minister of Social Welfare Isaac Herzog is demanding that the handling the care of Holocaust survivors be transferred to his ministry from the Ministry of Finance. Participants at an emergency meeting yesterday decided to set up an inter-ministerial committee to submit appropriate legislation within a month, with the approval of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Representatives of the Ministries of Finance and Social Welfare, the National Insurance Institute, the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference), and Holocaust survivors organizations attended the meeting.
Under Herzog’s proposal, the Ministry of Social Welfare will set up a special administration, which will consolidate all agencies and resources needed for the care of Holocaust survivors.
Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel chairman Noah Flug said 80,000 of the 250,000 Holocaust survivors in Israel were living below the poverty line in appalling conditions.
Herzog said, “Israel is in the midst of a serious situation that is a blot on Israeli society: the treatment of Holocaust survivors, whose contribution to the country since independence cannot be questioned. Israel has a moral and financial duty to those whose time is running out.”
Data indicate an absurdity in which it is better for Holocaust survivors to reside in Germany than in Israel. In Germany, Holocaust survivors are eligible for a monthly stipend of €800 a month (NIS 4,400), as well as free housing and medication. Together with an old-age pension, a Holocaust survivor receives €1,200 a month (NIS 6,600). In Israel, the old-age pension is just NIS 1,600 a month.
Journalists Orly Vilnai and Guy Maroz disclosed the figures in a documentary, “Payments Ethic”, aired on Channel 2 and Bis Doco yesterday. The film presented Israel as the only country that is miserly towards Holocaust survivors and deliberately drags its feet in their affairs. In addition, Israel’s banks have not transferred over NIS 100 million to survivors, claiming that the actual sum to be transferred is less.
An example of the Israeli government’s obtuseness, was seen during a Knesset debate last week initiated by the Holocaust survivors lobby, headed by MK Colette Avital (Labor). A Ministry of Finance official made it clear that the ministry had not changed its mind that special aid would only be given to Holocaust survivors who were physically harmed by Nazi persecution. The government insists that survivors appear before a medical committee to prove disability, which would make them eligible for a pension of NIS 1,040 per month. The ministry is not satisfied with a survivor simply having gone through the Holocaust.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on April 16, 2007
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