Israel

Sunday, 12  March 2017

Child poverty

There is something definitely wrong somewhere here.

I keep reading how the Israeli economy is strong, keeps ticking upwards and growing at a very healthy rate.

Yet, I also keep getting solicitations to make a donation on the occasion of Purim; one of which has  the slogan “ No one in Israel, old or young should have to go hungry  on Purim”, picturing a little kid with a piece of bread in her mouth.

And this is not the only occasion, by any means, when other solicitations arrive on behalf of Holocaust survivors, IDF soldiers, war orphans and widows.

What is the point of having and, at times, bragging about, a booming economy if the Government and the people of Israel are not prepared to feed properly and maintain its poorest, whether they be the Holocaust survivors, children and the aged, at  the least, at a decent minimum level of living ?

What is the point of fiscal success, if the country occupies a poor ranking in world child poverty statistics?

I suppose that’s what happens with right-wing governments all over the world.

And where are those American Jews, the so-called “universalist” ones, who do seem to manage to write or speak a paragraph without sputtering Tikkun Olam and engage in all sorts of charitable work before making sure that the needy members of their tribe, if no one else, at least the children, in Israel get looked after first?

Ke pekado! (What a pity) as we say in Ladino. Ke pekado indeed