40% of Israeli children at poverty risk - Yediot Aharonot
22 September 2009
Central Bureau of Statistics figures on socioeconomic change within Israeli society between 2003 and 2007 paint difficult picture. Israel is poorer, hungrier, and larger populations not seeking vital services, such as medical care. Gaps between Arabs and Jews are huge Risk of poverty is defined as belonging to a household with a disposable income per capita less than 60% of the national median equalized disposable income. Socioeconomic gaps are most sharply seen between Jews and Arabs. 27% of Jewish children are at poverty risp, while 73% of Arab children in Israel are at poverty risk. The rate of poverty risk for all the Arab population in Israel rose from 26% in 2001 to 30% in 2007. For comparison, the risk-of-poverty rate in EU countries remained around 15-16% between during this period. Some 90% of households with only one adult are single-mother households. Thirty-six percent of these households are not at poverty risk. Between 2003 and 2007, the rate of young people foregoing food for economic reasons rose by 7% (from 14% to 21%). Some 23% of women reported they gave up food versus 18% of men. The rate of foregoing food for economic purposes in the ultra-Orthodox population was nearly double that of the secular population (30% as opposed to 15% respectively). The situation of within the Arab sector is the most severe. The rate of foregoing food within the Arab sector more than doubled between 2003 and 2007 (21% versus 50% respectively). Among households with low per capita gross income (less than NIS 2,000, or $535, per capita), there was a 14% change in the rate of foregoing food, whereas the rate of foregoing food among households with high per capita gross income (more than NIS 4,000, or $1,070 per capita) remained static at 4%. In 2007, only 53% of people above the age of 20 reported being able to cover their monthly household operating expenses (such as food, electricity, telephone, etc.). When broken down by sector, 56% of Jews and only 33% of Arabs above 20 years old reported being able to cover these expenses. The report, entitled "The Face of the Society: Objective and Subjective Indices of Poverty and Social Exclusion", deals with eight societal parameters that paint a picture of Israeli society. These parameters are: social, economic, and employment hardship, poverty and social exclusion indices (in comparison with EU countries), welfare, education, health, transportation (including road accidents), law and order, and the environment. The report also deals with gaps between men and women in Israel. In 2007, 52% of adults above the age of 20 needed medical attention. Seventeen percent of this group did not seek medical treatment because of economic difficulties. This is a 4% increase from 2003 figures. In regards to feeling poor, the report found trends opposite than the statistical reality of poverty. In 2007, 28% felt poor versus 31% in 2003. More than 70% of those who felt poor gave up on sufficient cooling or heating of their home, supplementary health insurance, or dental work. In 2007, 15% of employed persons above the age of 20 were unsatisfied with their jobs and 44% were unsatisfied with their salaries. Some 9% of all employed persons feared losing their jobs, but 54% of them estimated that they would be able to find another job at a comparable salary should they be dismissed. Some 50% of women were unsatisfied with their salary versus 40% of men. European statistics on poverty risk are smaller by half of Israeli figures (15% versus 30% respectively in 2007). The number of large families in Israel is higher than the number of large families in Europe, and the number of wage-earners in such households is consistently smaller. This is the main contributing factor to the vast gap in poverty risk in Israel versus Europe.
More and more Israelis are poor, hungry, and abstain from seeking medical attention for themselves. This is the bottom line of the report published Monday afternoon by the Central Bureau of Statistics in honor of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. The report shows that 40% of children in Israel in 2007 were at poverty risk, as opposed to just 33% in 2001.Arabs in catastrophic situation
Less people feel poor
Charities struggle to feed Israel's poor - By Ben Lynfield - The JC
18 September 2009
As Rosh Hashanah approaches, Israeli charities are buckling under the strain of providing for growing numbers of needy people, while their own resources are dwindling because of the country’s economic downturn. “It’s very difficult for those of us who are holding the front,” said Shlomit Shulov-Barkan, deputy director of the Meir Panim soup kitchen network. It has been forced to lay off more than 40 of its 120 employees in the past six months due to declining donations, most of which come from Israelis. Another leading charity providing food for the needy, Latet, estimates that 200,000 families will need assistance on Rosh Hashanah. But despite a major fundraising campaign, its director, Eran Weintraub, doubts whether all those in need will be provided for. “The number of people we can help in peripheral areas is down. We distribute less because we get less donations.” Contributions to Latet have dropped by 30 per cent compared to last year, while need has grown by 15 per cent. From Latet’s experience in the field, there is nothing to corroborate optimistic headlines that the economy is turning around, Mr Weintraub said. “I hope someone will help the people we can’t get to. They live in food insecurity. It’s not a situation of starvation, but of hunger. Buying food will mean no money to pay rent or for schoolbooks or medicine.” Mr Weintraub faults the government for, in his view, leaving the burden of feeding the poor to voluntary groups. “The people in the government are not connected to the problem and maybe they don’t care,” he says. A government committee last year headed by Nahum Itzkovitz, director-general of the Social Welfare Ministry, recommended allocating NIS 50 million (£8 million) a year to voluntary organisations to feed the poor. “So far we haven’t see a dime, even though Netanyahu said as far back as Pesach that the government would deal with food insecurity issues,” according to Mr Weintraub. Mr Itzkovitz, however, said that his ministry is working on plans to launch a food bank with the business sector and charitable organisations. “We are working on this for the long-term and a little patience is necessary.” The ministry organised the distribution throughout the country of 46,000 holiday gift cards worth NIS 400 (£65) each, sponsored by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.
Mouths to feed - By Larry Derfner - Jerusalem Post
07 April 2009
Last Pessah, Meir Panim, the country's largest network of "soup kitchens," distributed boxes of Seder meals to 24,000 people. It also gave out NIS 250 grocery coupons to 6,700 people. This Pessah, only a few hundred people will get those coupons. And the number of those who will receive Seder meals-in-a-box? Zero.
"Our Pessah campaign has been all but canceled," says Dudi Zilberschlag, founder of Meir Panim and the leading fund-raiser and power-broker in Israel's haredi world, while multitasking with aides in his office at Jerusalem's Bikur Holim Hospital. In late 2007, his donors, who include the wealthiest Jews here and abroad, began reducing their contributions, but since Lehman Brothers went bankrupt last September and it became clear that the world was in the grip of something much worse than an ordinary, cyclical recession, these contributions have simply dried up.
"The big Israeli corporations are out of the game," says Zilberschlag, in his 50s, a gentle-spoken man who takes hard times philosophically. He mentions a couple of super-rich Israelis, saying that they used to give him about $100,000 each before Pessah. "This time - nothing," he says.
In the last year, Meir Panim has closed five of its 17 soup kitchens, while Koah Latet, its affiliated charity for clothing and household goods, has closed down two of 14 branches. The organization's NIS 50 million budget has been cut by 30 percent; 41 of its 134 employees have been let go.
"We used to give hot meals to 700 kids in our after-school programs, now we're feeding maybe 200. We used to deliver 900 meals to the homes of old, sick, handicapped people who couldn't come in - we've stopped those deliveries completely," says Zilbershlag. "We're basically down to the core of what we do - the restaurants [i.e. soup kitchens]. We're still feeding 6,000 people, we don't turn anyone away, but we can't give them meat every day anymore, so we give them more carbohydrates."
Meir Panim was founded eight years ago, shortly after the second intifada began, the economy nosedived and the government, strapped for cash, began slashing away at financial assistance to poor people. As the welfare state dwindled, private charity picked up the slack, until now there are more than 120 soup kitchens around the country.
FOR THE last eight years, the directors of these charities have always cried poverty, saying their donations weren't keeping up with the needs of the poor people they served. They were telling the truth, but it could be assumed that they were laying it on a little thick because that's what fund-raisers do.
Now, however, Zilberschlag and the others aren't exaggerating. The big chill is here. People everywhere feel that the ground is moving under their feet, and no one knows how long this is going to last or where it's going to leave them. In such a state of mind, one of the first things they cut back on is charitable giving. In a country like Israel, where the government has tacitly transferred much of the responsibility for care of the poor to private charities, this is a calamity. Some 200,000 families are kept afloat by private charities, and however hard it was before for these charities to hold them up, now they are simply sinking.
The plant closures and layoffs are throwing more people on the mercy of private charities, and while the newly-unemployed aren't showing up in large numbers yet, they're expected to if the economy continues to spiral downward - which is also widely expected. Eran Weintraub, head of Latet, the umbrella organization for the country's food charities, told The Jerusalem Post's Ruth Eglash last week that if this shortfall between the rising numbers of needy and the dwindling level of donations continues to widen, by the end of this year "the poverty situation will just become unmanageable." The lifeline for the poor is unraveling. Gevalt has become an understatement.
At Meir Panim's soup kitchen near the main entrance to Jerusalem, about a dozen old people, along with one man who looks to be in his late 30s, are eating a lunch of kugel, pasta, soup, burekas, a roll, a tangerine and fruit drink. In the office behind the kitchen, Nicole Miron is in her first month as manager, working as an unpaid volunteer. She worked for Koah Latet for several years until she got laid off four months ago; now she collects unemployment benefits and donates her time to the soup kitchen. Its clientele has grown to 300.
"We used to get only old people, Holocaust survivors, but now we're getting younger people with families who lost their jobs, who can't pay their mortgage, who got divorced," says Miron. While we're talking, three elderly people come to the doorway, one after the other, to ask very politely about when they will be getting their Pessah coupons. "Come in next Monday," she tells them sympathetically.
The lunch is prepared and served by volunteers, many of whom, Miron says, also depend on the soup kitchen for their main meal of the day.
I wait outside for the one young person who was eating lunch there and, after being promised anonymity, he tells me in fluent, Russian-accented Hebrew that he's been eating lunch there for about a month. "It helps. I work part-time as a housekeeper, and my salary isn't even worth discussing." He says he lost his full-time job when his employer, in economic straits, made cutbacks in the staff.
What did he use to do? "I'm a social worker." Where did he work? "At the Joint [Distribution Committee]."
ON REHOV Maccabim in Dimona, it's just after 11 a.m. and about a dozen people are waiting at the entrance to the local Meir Panim soup kitchen for lunch to start. Most of them are old, but there is one man in his 20s who has the unkempt, pale look of someone who hasn't had a pressing reason to get out of bed in the morning for a long time, and there is another man in his 20s or 30s who, every now and then, can be seen talking quietly to himself. A pile of donated clothes lies at the door for whoever's in need.
Dimona is a well-kept but poor, badly frayed town covered with three-story beige tenements from the 1960s and '70s. Old, worn-out people sit staring on benches in front of the buildings. The town blends in with the light-brown hills and desert surrounding it. We were there on the first warm day of the season, after a long period of rain. The sky was clear and beautiful, but there was also that bright desert stillness that hangs over these chronically poor Negev towns that seems to stop time. Being in Dimona is like being in a different country, in the Israel of 30 years ago.
Inside, plans are being made for the Seder night. This is a tradition at this soup kitchen, and this year about 140 people - half of them Meir Panim regulars, the other half Holocaust survivors and soldiers on their own - will be sitting down to dinner. There will be no skimping. "We hire a caterer, we have waiters - the best," says soup kitchen director Nissim Elmakayis.
Except for the Seder, though, Meir Panim's operations in Dimona have been hit hard. "I'm getting half the salary I used to get, I go months without getting paid. Unfortunately, because of the economic situation, it's not the same organization it used to be," says Albert Ayash, the food manager, a retired chief cook at a desert IAF base. He used to cook for 2,500 very well-fed soldiers, now he cooks for 450 malnourished civilians.
The clientele has increased by about 20% over the last year, says Elmakayis - a combination of laid-off employees, demobilized soldiers and working people whose debts overtook them. The organization used to deliver meals to 30 or 40 local families, but canceled this service when gas became too expensive.
"We used to serve meat at every meal, but now we can't," says Ayash. The menu for the day is soup, hot dogs, rice, eggplant, a roll and an orange.
Checking out the lunch room for Pessah preparations is Meir Hazan, head of the municipality's Youth and Education Department. To help make up the shortfall in donations - and, of course, as a character lesson - he says Dimona city schools asked each pupil to donate NIS 1 for charity. There was a much more intense door-to-door collection campaign by youth groups.
Zilberschlag says that instead of depending on millionaires and billionaires to feed Meir Panim's clientele, he's concentrating more on Internet and direct mail campaigns to the rank-and-file of the Jewish people, here and abroad, looking for a large volume of "NIS 18 and NIS 36 donations." The city of Dimona, which supports Meir Panim's local charities, is doing essentially the same thing, says Hazan.
There's been an ironic sort of trickle-down effect on places like Dimona, he says: "The Jewish Agency, the Jewish National Fund, the Rashi-Sacta Foundation - all these major Jewish philanthropies have always provided a great deal of the funding for projects in the periphery. But their big donors have lost a lot of money, they're contributing less, so these philanthropies have less to give us."
Still, the municipality's grassroots fund-raising has paid off: 1,500 local residents will be getting Pessah coupons worth hundreds of shekels each. But that's considerably fewer recipients than in years past. Says Hazan: "There's this beautiful Pessah tradition of kimha d'pis'ha [pre-Pessah charity] that we keep, and we always tried to give something, even a small donation, to all the elderly and poor in the city. But now we have to be much more selective - to concentrate our resources on the people who really cannot have the Pessah meal at all without getting substantial aid."
THIS WEEK the government was expected to take steps toward "bailing out" private charities and social aid organizations. Welfare and Social Services Minister Isaac Herzog said: "The nonprofit sector is under serious threat of crashing completely and most of those who will be affected by this are the country's weakest and neediest populations who rely on their services."
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is blamed by the "poverty lobby" for having greatly exacerbated the problem when, as finance minister in 2003-5, he made unprecedented cuts to welfare. For him now to turn around and bail out these charities who've been picking up the slack left by his government - and others, too - would be an ironic reversal of direction.
In recent years, one of the glaring symbols of Pessah here has been the long lines of poor people queuing up at food charities for hours, through the night, so they might get their Seder boxes before the supply runs out. Typically, the people are angry, they push, they shout, often they fight among themselves. It is an ugly scene - for the country, for the recipients.
"We want to get away from that, from those pathetic scenes," says Zilberschlag, explaining another reason, besides being strapped for cash, that Meir Panim isn't giving out Seder boxes this year and is using the little money it has for the holiday on grocery coupons. "This way nobody has to know who's on relief, you hand your coupon to the supermarket clerk, nobody has to be shamed in public."
SHAME IS a very important concern at Meir Panim. For this reason, the people who eat at the soup kitchens are required to pay a symbolic NIS 1 for their meal, so they are not completely shamed as beggars. Children are not allowed in at meal time for fear that they will be ashamed to see their parents taking charity, but also for fear that they will see this as natural and be instilled with the idea that it's acceptable to grow up to become a charity case.
"Shoshana," who has been eating lunch at Meir Panim near the entrance to Jerusalem, for some eight months, agreed to be interviewed by phone only after being promised that neither her name nor any identifiable detail about her or her family would be published. "I'm not used to this, to getting help, especially for food. I was always independent. This is hard for me, I'm ashamed. But what can I do? I have children. We have to eat."
A divorced mother in her 40s, she started coming to Meir Panim after she was laid off as a secretary at a large public sector office, where she had worked for many years. But even before she lost her job, her debts had gotten out of hand. Now, of course, she's unofficially bankrupt and can't get credit anywhere. "We've been served with eviction notices; they came to repossess our belongings; they want to cut off our water and electricity." She and her three children live on NIS 1,800 a month from the National Insurance Institute plus the piddling amount her ex-husband gives her in child support.
I ask if she and her kids go hungry.
"Yes," she says. "I've lost a lot of weight. I eat lunch every day at Meir Panim and I take home lunch in containers for my children. Sometimes the meal tides us over until lunch the next day. Sometimes they give me rolls so I can give the kids a roll with a little spread for breakfast. We don't have much for dinner. We don't have meat, or cheese - it's too expensive. Even fruit and vegetables - I consider them luxury items.
"My son is a combat soldier, and when he's on furlough he's ashamed to eat from the containers I bring home. He doesn't tell any of the other soldiers the situation we're in," she says.
"But it's not like I'm in a depression - this is our life now, I've gotten used to it. I don't think about it. Now that I describe it, it sounds sad, but usually I don't think about it, I don't look at it like this. And I try not to let it depress the younger children, to let them feel how deprived they are. When the mood at home is sad, I do something to lift their spirits. It doesn't cost much money. We make popcorn, we bake a cake. Just the smell of it makes them happy."
Will a magnetic card save holocaust survivors? - By Yael Bernowsky - Yediot Aharonot
18 March 2009
As part of a new trial project, approximately 1000 holocaust survivors will receive a magnetic card with which they will be able to buy groceries amounting to 300 INS (Israeli New Shekel) per month. One holocaust survivor said: "I am normally buying cheap products. Now I will be able to buy a bit more than usual". The state of the holocaust survivors in Israel is grim. As of last year some of them received a small increase in their pensions. However, lots of them are threatened by hunger and receive help from different charities. Currently, as part of a trial project, 1000 holocaust survivors will receive a rechargeable magnetic card with which they will be able to buy groceries for the coming 2009 Jewish Passover. This new card, which was developed in conjunction with Meir Panim, will be charged with 300 INS every month for a year. The card will allow the holders to purchase groceries from the main food outlets (except alcohol and cigarettes). Irena Power, an 84 year old Auschwitz survivor from Nazareth, received lately her magnetic card. "The card helped me buy products that I could not afford to buy without some serious thinking , for example meat. This is a very good card and it is a shame that it is not distributed to more holocaust survivors." Solly Armon, a project manager at The Company for Location and Restitution of Holocaust Victims Assets, a state organization working in conjunction with various charities, explained in a conversation with ynet that there is a disagreement as to the best way to help holocaust survivors. "Most of the time, the survivors are very lonely and therefore we are running a project where the food distribution is carried out by volunteers arriving at their house." However, it is worthy to note that when a survivor receive a magnetic card by post his self respect preservation is cared for as well as allowing the holder to choose the products he prefers to purchase. Survivors need not pass their personal details to receive the magnetic card. The charity involved in their case carries out the request at The Company for Location and Restitution of Holocaust Victims Assets and the decision for the said survivor eligibility is then decided. "There is not a clear opinion as to which way is better and we will try and then review the magnetic card trial project" said Solly Armon. Irena Power was transported to Auschwitz at the age of 17. At the time all her family has died in the holocaust. She emigrated to Israel, from Romania, as a widow (her husband died while she was still in Romania) only to lose one of her child to cancer. As soon as arriving to Israel, she asked the German government for compensation but was rejected for lack of documents and received no help in this case. "I was supposed to receive a pension from the German government as I worked for them and the government of Israel did not assist me. It does not matter anymore as I do not have long to live anyway" she sadly said. "The Israeli government pays me a pension, as I arrived to Israel as a pensioner, and I am used to survive and the very little available to me. At my age I do not need much anymore and I do not each much. I buy cheap products. Now I can afford to buy a bit more".
