Israel - Report: 1 in 4 Holocaust survivors suffers poverty
One in four of Israel's 200,000 Holocaust survivors
suffers from economic distress which is expected to worsen due to the austerity
measures that are said to take place in 2013, a new report reveals.
Marking the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the
Foundation for the Benefit of Holocaust Victims in Israel (FBHV) published data
which revealed that 87% of survivors who asked for financial aid in 2012 –
about 20,000 people – were subsisting on less than NIS 5,000 (roughly $1,350) a month.
About 58% of aid seekers survive on NIS 3,000 ($800)
alone. The aid requested sometimes includes provisions for dental care or
reading glasses, as the survivors' health worsens as they get older.
"I eat twice a day, that's enough. But there's not
enough money for medicine or heating so every day you calculate what to save
and what to spend," said Shalom Lazar, 75, who escaped the Nazis with his
family as a child, and came to Israel in the '70s.
"I'm helped by volunteers who bring food once a
week, otherwise I couldn't survive," said Lazar, whose entire income
totals NIS 2,800 ($750), comprised of an elderly stipend and guaranteed income
from the National Security.
Apart from the dire economic straits, one of the major
problems which Holocaust survivors face is loneliness.
Some 10,000 survivors are childless, half of them are
widowed, and many have no contact with their families.
"It's a great desperation. The loneliness is hard
when you come home and can only talk to the walls," said Lazar, who lives
alone in a room and a half apartment in Jaffa.
It appears the latest bump in the State's budget for the
welfare of Holocaust survivors – a NIS 50 million ($13.5 million) increase,
which has put the total budget at over 2 billion – is not enough.
"The welfare services offered to Holocaust survivors
haven't been updated since 2007 despite their growing needs," said Rony
Kalinsky, CEO of the FBHV. "I'm afraid that in 2013, which is said to be
an austere year, Holocaust survivors in Israel will continue to suffer."
According to Kalinsky, the next three years are
"critical years which pose the last chance to allow a respectable existence
to Holocaust survivors."
Last year had also shown a marked rise in anti-Semitic
incidents worldwide, as indicated by the annual anti-Semitism report by the
Cantor institute.
The report, which has been submitted to the government
Sunday morning, links the violent incidents to the rise of extreme parties
which demonize Israel, and also notes the increased popularity of Jew-related
conspiracy theories on the social networks.
The annual International Holocaust Remembrance Day, set
by the UN in 2005, is marked on January 27, the day the Auschwitz-Birkenau
concentration camp was liberated by the Red Army on 1945.
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