UP FRONT I
4
Israel's Poor
Continued from preceding page
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12
FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 1992
money than the poorest ten-
th.
These sorts of figures pro-
duced front-page headlines,
and quite a degree of shock.
Israel, after all, is supposed
to be a relatively egalitarian
country, and one that looks
out for its weaker citizens.
At least, it was believed, no
one, or almost no one, is
allowed to go hungry here.
Then the national
teacher's union held a day-
long phone-in on the effects
of poverty on students and
dozens upon dozens of
teachers, principals and
parents called to tell stories
of children who go to school
hungry; children who are
ashamed to go to class be-
cause their parents can't af-
ford to give them a sand-
wich; children who have to
work after school to help
their parents pay their tui-
tion, books and bus fares;
and children, as young as
nine years old, whose
parents pull them out of
school to go to work and help
feed the rest of the family.
Four of the small, left-wing
opposition parties put for-
ward no-confidence motions
against the government and
failed in the Knesset against
indifference to the poor. Dr.
Israel Katz, a former min-
ister of labor and welfare,
described the session as
Israel's "semi-annual half-
day 'festival of poverty' after
which we go back to business
as usual."
The Knesset was virtually
empty during the discussion
with the legislators return-
ing only to vote down the no-
confidence motions, thus
keeping the government in
power.
During this brief period
when poverty was on the
public's mind, I met with Eli
Ben-Menachem on his home
turf, the south Tel . Aviv
schunot a euphemism that
literally means
"neighborhoods," but is
understood to mean
"slums."
In his first term as a Labor
Party Knesset member, the
4 3-year-old Mr. Ben-
Menachem has emerged as
the most respected fighter
for the people of the schunot.
He is . also the only Knesset
member who lives in one —
in a graffiti-scrawled apart-
ment building in south Tel
Aviv's Kfar Shalem, the
neighborhood where he grew
up.
A couple of dozen residents
were waiting for him in the
medieval slum known as
"Argazim" ("packing
crates"), named for the
crates that poor Sephardi
immigrants used to build the
Zip
neighborhood's first
"homes" in the early 1950s.
Today the crate houses
have been replaced by hovels
of raw, crumbling, concrete
blocks, but the streets and
sidewalks dividing them are
still nothing but dirt. Most of
the residents saw their
windows smashed, their
doors blown out and their
roofs and walls cracked or
caved in by a Gulf War Scud
that landed not too far away.
They now wanted to show
Mr. Ben-Menachem how
their homes, patched up
since the war, had been left
drenched and muddied, their
children shivering and sick,
by the recent un-
precedentedly powerful
rainstorms.
"Even the Arabs in Gaza
live better than this," said
one jobless father of eight,
pulling aside his unhinged
bathroom door to show how
the mud and water had been
knee-deep inside. Another
man pointed to the exposed
electrical wires hanging all
over his house.
Everyone was pulling at
Mr. Ben-Menachem. "Look
at my two children, how
their blankets are soaked . . ."
"Come see how my hot
water heater was blown off
the roof. . . " "First the war
fell on our heads, then the
storm fell on our heads —
everything falls on our
heads . . . "
This is the sort of scene
that led Mr. Ben-Menachem
to throw the poor people's
money at members of the
Knesset.
"The poverty is worse than
it's ever been, much worse
than it was when I was
growing up with nine kids in
the family," he says. "I could
recite statistics all day long,
but you have to do some-
thing unusual to get
anybody's attention because
nobody wants to hear about
it." ❑
I NEWS
Levy Visits
Beijing, China
Jerusalem (JTA) — For-
eign Minister David Levy
seemed likely to achieve two
of Israel's major political ob-
jectives as he took off for Bei-
jing.
He expects to be able to
announce by the end of the
week the establishment of
diplomatic relations bet-
ween Israel and China.
He also hopes that India
will soon upgrade its rela-
tions with the Jewish state
to full diplomatic status.
Discreet contacts are on-
going with New Delhi.
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