The State and Holocaust Survivors

In the past few weeks there has been a recent reports on how well or poorly Israel treats its Holocaust survivors. This is a recent JPost article on the matter. Its been reported that the government will give each survivor 85NIS per month. I've never been able to figure out how they came up with that figure coming to about $20/month. It's a ridiculously low number.

It seems to me that Israel has an obligation to provide for these people. The Nazi's brought them to the lowest of the low, a government dehumanized them; here in Israel, the Jewish state, we should re-humanize them. We should pay them whatever it should take just to survive. If it's 1500NIS/month then they should get it without any qualifications.

It occurred to me that we should also ask them to help Yad Vashem - tell their stories, whatever they can do to keep the historical account up to date and accurate. Write letters to convince others to tell their stories or speak to tourists. Do this and we'll give you another 500NIS/month. It's not a job, its a right that they get just for being who they are.

Anything less than giving them full support is tantamount to do what the Nazis did, dehumanized them.