The CEO of the Israel Chief Welfare Council Dr. Yitzchak Kadmon released some very troublesome statistics regarding poverty among the children of Israel. Dr. Kadmon presented President Shimon Peres with the annually statistical journal “Children in Israel 2013” which provides a realistic look at the condition of children in Israel from the perspectives of income, crime, health, education and special needs to name a few.
The president stated that the troublesome report “should cause us to lose sleep” due to the distressing reality regarding the nation’s children. The president spoke of the enormous potential that exists, which is being wasted.
Some of the alarming facts contained in the report include;
· Every third Israeli child is poor
· Every third Israeli citizen is a child.
· Every second child in Israel is on the verge of poverty
· Every sixth Israeli child has a file with state social work agencies
· Every seventh Israeli child suffers from physical abuse
· Every eighth Israeli child suffers from either a physical or mental disability
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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7 Responses
OK, let’s forget all the finger-pointing about the blizzard debacle, and see a concerted effort to change these appaling statistics! And for acheinu bnei yisrael in chutz la’aretz, we can do a lot by davening for these children!
The first thing we might be able to do is encourage their haredi parents to go out and get a job. That would cut the numbers down from 1/4 to 1/8, making this a much lesser issue.
Lets be consistent with our ideologies here, supporting that everyone be in kollel = supporting that their children live below the poverty line. This is what is concerning Dov Lipman shlit’a
Everything will be fine, the Admorim are coming.
If you compare the standard of living today to what it was 100 years ago (the last year of Muslim rule), or 50 years ago (during the first years of zionist rule when Israel was clearly a third world country whose devlopment was floundering in a sea of socialism), it is questionable if there are any serious poverty problems in Israel. Standards of poverty are relative within a society, and using a first world standard (reflecting the secular elite) misrepresents the situation. In fact most Israeli children are well fed, and well cared for, and increasingly in warm families of Bnei Torah (though this is considered abusive to those compiling the statistics).
There was plenty of money to spent on the internet ASSIFA,there is plenty of money to spend on the up coming GATHERING against Israel in New york .Use ALL that wasted money on the children ,so that no child will go hungry.
Professor Verizon49,
You are oversimplifying this grave situation. Even if you sent all the asifa/latest gathering money to israel, you’d still have a major problem bec it is an ongoing issue, not something that can be solved with a onetime payment no matter how large. If a huge sector of the population has ostensibly declared a vow of poverty by declaring men working to be assur or b’dieved you have an ongoing problem that can only be changed internally not from a few US donations.
Every year more than 400 impoverished haredim knock on my door in the US and ask for tzedaka. I have always given as much as I can. But clearly something has gone wrong with haredi society, that it produces so much poverty and misery.
I give them money, but most wouldn’t let their daughters marry my sons. Most wouldn’t want me to live in their neighborhood. Most wouldn’t approve of my education and career.