December Newsletter
Israel Leads West in Child Poverty
The latest figures from the Israeli government’s National Insurance Institute show that:
1,534,000 Israelis (23.6 percent of the population) lived below the poverty line at the end of 2004 compared to 1,427,000 (22.4 percent) in 2003.
During 2004 the percentage of Israeli families living below the poverty line rose from 19.3 percent to 20.3 percent.
One in three Israeli children lived below the poverty line in 2004, the highest percentage of any western country. This was compared to 30.8 percent in 2003. The rapid rise over the year was due to government cuts in child allowance payments.
According to UNICEF, 22 percent of US children and five to 10 percent of Western European children live below the poverty line.
There has been a 50 percent rise in poverty among Israel children since 1988.
First-Ever Israeli Arab Appointed to Civil Service Vetting Committee
Dr. Faisal Azaizah, a former member of New Israel Fund’s Board of Directors, has become the first-ever Israeli Arab to serve on the Revivi Commission, which investigates and confirms senior appointments to the civil service and government-owned companies. Dr. Azaizah, who is chairman of the Arab-Jewish Centre and the Centre for Middle East Research at Haifa University, is a founding member of New Israel Fund grantee Sikkuy, the Association for the Advancement of Civil Equality in Israel.
Dr. Azaizah stressed that he would not serve as a “rubber stamp” on the committee. “I hope that with this nomination I will contribute to the advancement of the integration of Arab citizens into senior positions in government corporations.”
Dr. Azaizah’s appointment follows Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declaration last year that every state-run company must appoint at least one member of Israel’s Arab community to its board of directors.
Discrimination against Israel’s Arab minority in government service has been an issue that the New Israel Fund family has placed high on the public agenda and Dr. Azaizah’s appointment is the second major breakthrough in 2005. Earlier this year Oscar Abu-Razeq became the first Israeli Arab to head a government ministry when he was appointed as Director-General of the Interior Ministry by Minister Ofir Pines-Paz.
Israeli College Accepts Disabled Student After Threats of Court Action
When Alia Abu al-Khof, a 21-year-old student from the Galilee village of Dir Hana with cerebral palsy applied for the undergraduate program in education at Tel Hai College in Northern Israel, she was rejected because the college was not accessible to people with severe physical disabilities.
New Israel Fund grantee Bizchut: Centre for Human Rights of Persons With Disabilities led a national protest, and threatened litigation, which compelled the college to reverse its decision. “This was outright discrimination,” insisted Bizchut Executive Director Sylvia Tessler-Lozowick. “The college was violating its legal obligation to make its facilities fully accessible.”
Eitan Gedaliason, Director General of Tel Hai College, was regretful following the negative publicity that his institution received. “Perhaps we erred in our decision,” he admitted. “I’ve invited Alia and her parents and I’ll take them on a tour of the campus.” Several other colleges and universities contacted Alia and offered her admission to their education faculties, expressing their admiration for her motivation and resolve to obtain a higher education and work in her chosen field.
New Israel Fund Family Leads in Promoting Tolerance in Israel
To mark International Tolerance Day on November 16th, Israel’s Yediot Ahronot newspaper, the country’s largest daily newspaper, ran a feature entitled “Who Has Got Patience for Tolerance?” The answer according to the article is “Israel’s social change organisations, which are fighting for the rights of Ethiopian-born immigrants, foreign workers, people with disabilities, Arab citizens and immigrant children.” The article provides a platform for spokespeople from seven organizations, six of which are New Israel Fund grantees: Bizchut, Tebeka: Center for Legal Aid & Advocacy for Ethiopian Jews in Israel, Hotline for Migrant Workers in Israel, Sikkuy, and Israeli Association for Immigrant Children, Jerusalem Open House (for gay and lesbian rights).
Message from Alan Bolchover, New Israel Fund UK Chief Executive
There seems to be an awful lot to talk about this month – the election of Amir Peretz as the head of the Labour Party, Ariel Sharon and the start up of an entirely new political party. However, I have decided that I would focus on the passing of a decade since the murder of Yitzhak Rabin. Quite rightly, this has been marked by many commemorative ceremonies in which leaders and special guests have praised the former Prime Minister and the newspapers have been filled with long articles attempting to recall the period. Many commentators have raised the inevitable questions – what would have happened if Rabin were still alive? Was his murder an isolated event or a part of a clear trend and series of developments?
I believe that naval-gazing or imagining “what if?” to be a negative. Circumstances change and we must change with them. We must use changing events to spur us on and see them as new challenges that must be overcome. We will continue to improve our efforts year on year because the content of our work is in absolute contradiction to everything Rabin’s murderer sought to achieve. Shooting Rabin in the back was a bullet in the heart of Zionism, which strived to transform the status of the Jewish people from a religion to a nation.
The hand that shot Rabin is the same hand that paints out Arabic street signs and discriminates against their fellow countrymen on the basis of their outlook, religion, race, gender or sexuality. It is the same hand that penned the slogan "A Jew Does Not Expel A Jew" because it is apparently OK to expel, trample upon and humiliate a non-Jew if a rabbi has ruled that it is kosher to do so.
Ten years after that shot, standing on the podium at the General Assembly of the United Nations, our new Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called for the end of the occupation and a focus on narrowing the economic and social gaps in Israel. In doing so, Mr Sharon was accepting the essence of New Israel Fund's aims and our basic interpretation of the Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel.
New Israel Fund, in the proud mainstream of the Zionist tradition, proposes an open outlook in which there is room for all ideas and voices: Jew and non-Jew; Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and secular; the weak, the different and the foreigner. This is the basic and universal moral value of the world at large in today's reality.
Thank you for your continued support.
