Monday, April 02, 2007
4/02/2007 12:28:00 AM | 
Posted by
JoeSettler
I saw 2 sights recently while driving around.
The first was a long line of people waiting to get into a store (or what I thought was a store). As I got closer I saw that it was a food kitchen that was giving out free meals and food for Pesach.
What I found disturbing was how normal and ordinary the people looked. These weren’t lice-ridden, unshaven people answering out loud the voices in their heads.
These were people who looked like your neighbors, someone you went to work with, or might bump into regularly in the supermarket or in shul.
In short these people were normal people with families (and even jobs) who unfortunately hit rock bottom.
I’ve heard it said that 25% of the country is currently living under the poverty line.
This is very disturbing, because we aren’t talking about junkies and chronic welfare cases. We are talking about normal, hard working people who can’t make ends meet, no matter how much, how hard they work, or how many jobs they work at.
I don’t really have a point to what I mentioned above other than that I think these food charities are extremely important to donate too (if you can), as based on what I saw, they are doing a good job helping people.
The second sight I saw was in my yishuv where the municipality put down cans every few blocks that all say, ”for burning chametz”.
It’s nice to always see the small touches in Israel. It reminds you why you are here.
The first was a long line of people waiting to get into a store (or what I thought was a store). As I got closer I saw that it was a food kitchen that was giving out free meals and food for Pesach.
What I found disturbing was how normal and ordinary the people looked. These weren’t lice-ridden, unshaven people answering out loud the voices in their heads.
These were people who looked like your neighbors, someone you went to work with, or might bump into regularly in the supermarket or in shul.
In short these people were normal people with families (and even jobs) who unfortunately hit rock bottom.
I’ve heard it said that 25% of the country is currently living under the poverty line.
This is very disturbing, because we aren’t talking about junkies and chronic welfare cases. We are talking about normal, hard working people who can’t make ends meet, no matter how much, how hard they work, or how many jobs they work at.
I don’t really have a point to what I mentioned above other than that I think these food charities are extremely important to donate too (if you can), as based on what I saw, they are doing a good job helping people.
The second sight I saw was in my yishuv where the municipality put down cans every few blocks that all say, ”for burning chametz”.
It’s nice to always see the small touches in Israel. It reminds you why you are here.
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2 comments:
Various charities (MDA, and the like) will set up outside the grocery store across the street from my apartment.
We're not rich, but I make sure to buy an extra bag of groceries when the collections are going on.
Like you said, they do good work, and we all have a responsibility to help.
They do good work and we do have a responsibility to help. The normality of the people in line for the food is a result of the reprehensible economic policy initiated by the Sharon-Shinui government with Netanyahu as Finance Minister. They drastically cut child allowances, leaving large families, most of them with working parents, high and dry, with a shortfall of thousands of shekels a month.
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