The Movement for Reform Judaism

For many years it was assumed that though Israelis were passionate advocates of aliyah, Jewish immigration, they were less than enthusiastic about olim, immigrants. Now when aliyah has been reduced to a trickle, the adage no longer applies. Instead, a paraphrase has become topical: though Israelis are passionately committed to preserving the memory of the Holocaust, they're less than generous to Holocaust survivors. Though they speak of the imperative to preserve the memory after the witnesses have gone and can no longer testify, they're doing their utmost to humiliate some of them by making their last days scandalously miserable.

The issue is no longer the conspiracy of silence that followed the years and decades after the Holocaust, when the survivors themselves found it almost impossible to speak about their ordeals. Today, the problem is that between sixty to eighty thousand survivors in Israel live below the poverty line. They came into the country, often from the former Soviet Union, when it was no longer possible to obtain individual compensation from Germany. Though Israel had received large sums to help people in such situations, the mixture of bureaucracy and callousness has deprived the would-be recipients of  their due. They speak but nobody seems to listen.

In the fiery speeches during the impressive ceremonies that took place yesterday and today to mark Yom Hasho'a, Holocaust Memorial Day, many leading politicians, among them the Prime Minister, expressed dismay that so many victims are not allowed to live out their last days - many die daily, for old age has caught up with them - in comfort and dignity. In view of the seeming inactivity of the same politicians, their words ring hollow on this issue, as they do on so many others.

Colette Avital, a Member of Knesset and a candidate for the Presidency of Israel, who heads one of the many organizations ostensibly dedicated to the welfare of Holocaust survivors, remarked the other day that Israel is the only country in the world where a substantial number of Holocaust survivors live in abject poverty. It's a shame of historic proportions.

It seems that, in the last resort, the hapless victims don't have anybody to champion their cause. Therefore, almost as a last-minute effort, arrangements are now being made to provide for them. As a first step, their file is being moved from the Ministry of Finance, which measures its success by how much it can impoverish its already poor citizens, to the Ministry of Social Welfare, which may prove to have more heart, if it gets the resources.

Much is now in the hands of Isaac Herzog. Having been demoted from Minister of Tourism to Minister of Social Welfare, he has decided take up the case of the poor Holocaust survivors. Altogether, he seems to be one of the few members of the current government who shows both skills and integrity. The country expects swift and resolute action from him and his staff. We can only hope that his colleagues will support him.

It's the only way to make sure that the survivors will no longer be victimized by their own people in their own state, one of the founding myths of which is the Holocaust and one of its central doctrines is, "Never again!" The matter is, therefore, not just social welfare for poor victims, but the very integrity of the State of Israel.

Jerusalem 16.4.07 (Yom Hasho'a)      

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