Impoverished Holocaust Survivors in Israel

In Israel, Holocaust survivors demand more help
Thousands marched in Jerusalem Sunday to demand more aid for Israel's estimated 240,000 Holocaust survivors.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-survivors6aug06,0,928265.story?coll=la-home-center

With placards and T-shirts reading "the Holocaust is still here" and "Forgive us for surviving," men and women in their 60s, 70s and 80s, many of them frail, labored through a five-block route from the parliament building to Olmert's office. Children, grandchildren and other supporters joined the survivors in their "March of the Living," which drew at least 2,500 people.

"How can the government spend all these billions to pay off its external debt?" asked Moshe Solomon, who was captured by the Nazis in Greece. "What about the moral debt that this government and its predecessors owe the people standing here and those who could not make it?"

Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis during World War II. Hundreds of thousands who survived concentration camps, many of them suffering physical and psychological damage, came to Israel after its founding in 1948. Many survivors receive between $240 and $1,390 per month, which includes aid from the Israeli government and reparations from Germany and other sources. That aid, however, is not enough to pay for medicine, psychological treatment and in some cases food. Government officials say about 80,000 of Israel's Holocaust survivors live below the poverty line.

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Incredible. What was that country formed for, if not to tenderly care for the Holocaust survivors? Surely not for the joy of bringing "Hooters" to Israel, endlessly fighting the Palestinians, sniping at the Catholic Church, and becoming more secular than any surrounding country. How do US and other donors to Israel feel about this, where their money is going? Talk about Holocaust denying... these poor people. My Jewish ex used to see in Brooklyn at the bakery people with the numbers tattooed, and our hearts were wrenched then thinking of what they suffered through. How much more that they are not cared for sufficiently in Israel itself? I worked for a rich jerk who spent office time researching how culpable German civilians were sixty years ago, yet I wonder if he cared how the survivors were treated in Israel?