The government’s long-awaited bank reform has resulted in an average monthly savings of half a shekel (about 15 cents) for Israelis, while many individual fees actually went up.
Nearly two years after Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer called the list of Israel’s bank charges “ridiculous,” reforms finally went into effect to standardize fees in the banking industry. The monstrous number of fees that banks were charging was reduced from 198 to 72. But otherwise, the proposals were broadly disappointing.
“They looked for what would hurt the public and that’s where they struck,” said parliamentarian Moshe Kahlon. “A crisis of confidence has been created between the public and the banks, which will be hard to overcome in the coming years.”
Fischer says some movement is better than nothing in Israel’s largely uncompetitive banking industry, which functions as an oligopoly. He urged Israelis to take advantage of the changes by doing what they do best—bargain. He encouraged comparative shopping and haggling with banks over their fees in order to force competition, the lack of which is considered the biggest stumbling block to reform.
“Competition is important for bank customers because it creates more varied services. This is the greatest and only power that will lead to streamlining,” Fischer said. “It is necessary to give the reforms…time to work.”
The Bank of Israel is urging consumers to compare the cost of maintaining a checking account, credit cards, and other services at various banks. Its website will feature calculators for users to estimate fees and to find the bank that offers the lowest rates for their personal banking needs.
Consumer organizations were upset that the Bank of Israel didn’t limit the number of bank fees, but the American-born and educated Fischer prefers a hands-off policy.
“Sweeping supervision is undesirable and unacceptable in the world,” Fischer said. “It will bring us to a place where we don’t want to go and would actually hurt the competition that we all want so much, and ultimately hurt consumers.”
Some consumers already insist that the reforms have backfired.
“It used to cost me $1.50 per check to deposit checks from abroad,” a Jerusalem businessman said. “Now they’re taking $6 per check and adding commission too. A transaction that used to cost $9 now costs $70. It’s legal theft.”
Last year, a parliamentary committee reported that Israeli banking fees are 70 percent higher than those in the developed world while Israeli salaries are on average 30 percent lower. No surprise, but the banks are reporting record profits.
Aug 17, 2008
Which U.S. Candidate Is Better for Israel?
Wondering who to vote for based on your Israel preferences?
Michael Oren, a Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem research and educational institute, unveiled a comprehensive study of the vastly different directions a John McCain or Barack Obama presidency would take regarding Israel and Middle East policies. The study, based on the candidates’ comments over the last two years, shows vast disparities in thought on the region and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Oren said that George W. Bush’s legacy redefined what it means to be “pro-Israel.” Bush had the most distinct Israel policy of any American administration in terms of the peace process, yet he was the first president to publicly call for a Palestinian state and a contiguous one at that.
Bush also began using what Oren calls “code words.” For example, taking “current realities” into account in negotiations on Jerusalem refers to sprawling Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, described as “settlements” by the international community. Reiterating the concept of a “Jewish state” means that Palestinian refugees would not be allowed to return to Israel in a two-state solution.
Nevertheless, Bush’s pro-Israel stance hasn’t swayed the majority of American Jews, who traditionally vote Democratic.
“American Jews do not place Israel at the top or their priority list,” Oren said. “Even the American Evangelical community is not entirely united around the Republican candidate.”
Out of 130,000 registered American voters in Israel, some 35,000 voted in the 2004 elections. According to Kory Bardash, chairman of Republicans Abroad Israel, an overwhelming 70 percent voted Republican, showing their priorities to be quite different than Jews living in America.
In the Shalem Center study, Oren concluded that Obama would possibly negotiate with a Palestinian government that included Hamas whereas McCain would not. McCain has called on the Palestinian Authority to dismantle terrorist organizations while Obama hasn’t mentioned it. Obama is against “settlement expansion,” words never used by McCain.
Obama would also take a wider, more regional view of Mideast politics, much like the State Department, and seek a “comprehensive” peace which would include both the Palestinians and Syria. McCain would focus on the Israel-Palestinian track before adding another nation to the equation.
On the divisive topic of Jerusalem, Obama declared at a Jewish lobby gathering that the city should be the undivided capital of Israel but backtracked a few days later. McCain on the other hand advocates moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Oren estimates that Obama would put pressure on Israel to give up settlements while McCain would be more sympathetic to Israeli claims to Jerusalem. On Iran, Obama favors open dialogue while McCain would not agree to negotiations unless major preconditions are met, such as halting the quest for nuclear weapons and ending calls to wipe Israel “off the map.”
If Israelis had it their way, a majority would have wanted Hillary Clinton to win the Democratic nomination and then the presidency. Israelis have been enamored with the Clintons since the presidency of Bill Clinton, who was seen as a strong friend of the Jewish state.
“It was an unusual thing,” Oren said. “The way he bonded with the Israeli people was preternatural. He had an intensely and uniquely personal relationship with this country.”
Oren attributed it to the father-son relationship between the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Clinton.
Except for a few elite academics, Oren says Israelis are woefully uninformed about American politics. “Israel is a rather provincial country,” he said. “It has no ‘long term’ in foreign policy.”
Michael Oren, a Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem research and educational institute, unveiled a comprehensive study of the vastly different directions a John McCain or Barack Obama presidency would take regarding Israel and Middle East policies. The study, based on the candidates’ comments over the last two years, shows vast disparities in thought on the region and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Oren said that George W. Bush’s legacy redefined what it means to be “pro-Israel.” Bush had the most distinct Israel policy of any American administration in terms of the peace process, yet he was the first president to publicly call for a Palestinian state and a contiguous one at that.
Bush also began using what Oren calls “code words.” For example, taking “current realities” into account in negotiations on Jerusalem refers to sprawling Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, described as “settlements” by the international community. Reiterating the concept of a “Jewish state” means that Palestinian refugees would not be allowed to return to Israel in a two-state solution.
Nevertheless, Bush’s pro-Israel stance hasn’t swayed the majority of American Jews, who traditionally vote Democratic.
“American Jews do not place Israel at the top or their priority list,” Oren said. “Even the American Evangelical community is not entirely united around the Republican candidate.”
Out of 130,000 registered American voters in Israel, some 35,000 voted in the 2004 elections. According to Kory Bardash, chairman of Republicans Abroad Israel, an overwhelming 70 percent voted Republican, showing their priorities to be quite different than Jews living in America.
In the Shalem Center study, Oren concluded that Obama would possibly negotiate with a Palestinian government that included Hamas whereas McCain would not. McCain has called on the Palestinian Authority to dismantle terrorist organizations while Obama hasn’t mentioned it. Obama is against “settlement expansion,” words never used by McCain.
Obama would also take a wider, more regional view of Mideast politics, much like the State Department, and seek a “comprehensive” peace which would include both the Palestinians and Syria. McCain would focus on the Israel-Palestinian track before adding another nation to the equation.
On the divisive topic of Jerusalem, Obama declared at a Jewish lobby gathering that the city should be the undivided capital of Israel but backtracked a few days later. McCain on the other hand advocates moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Oren estimates that Obama would put pressure on Israel to give up settlements while McCain would be more sympathetic to Israeli claims to Jerusalem. On Iran, Obama favors open dialogue while McCain would not agree to negotiations unless major preconditions are met, such as halting the quest for nuclear weapons and ending calls to wipe Israel “off the map.”
If Israelis had it their way, a majority would have wanted Hillary Clinton to win the Democratic nomination and then the presidency. Israelis have been enamored with the Clintons since the presidency of Bill Clinton, who was seen as a strong friend of the Jewish state.
“It was an unusual thing,” Oren said. “The way he bonded with the Israeli people was preternatural. He had an intensely and uniquely personal relationship with this country.”
Oren attributed it to the father-son relationship between the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Clinton.
Except for a few elite academics, Oren says Israelis are woefully uninformed about American politics. “Israel is a rather provincial country,” he said. “It has no ‘long term’ in foreign policy.”
From Immigration to Integration
Once at the bottom rung of society, Ethiopian Israelis are showing signs of a breakthrough
Few immigrants to Israel since World War II have endured as grueling a journey to Israel as the Ethiopians. Nearly all Ethiopian Israelis have experienced months-long treks through deserts, time spent in refugee camps, losing family members and then the woes of being absorbed into a competitive economy and modern culture.
Coming from a third-world country where electricity and technology were luxuries, many Ethiopians didn’t even know what a refrigerator was and used it as a shoe cabinet when they first got to Israel. But they had followed their faith and a life-long desire to live in Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel).
Most Ethiopian Jews arrived in Israel on two spectacular airlifts: Operation Moses brought 8,000 in 1984 and Operation Solomon brought 14,000 in 1991.
Integration has been challenging. The stereotype of Ethiopian Israelis in their relatively short three-decade existence here has been that of cleaners and security guards—the lowest paying jobs with no need for education. But now first- and second-generation immigrants are tenaciously delving into society and reaching new levels of success.
Bat-El Ananya is one example. She knew that if she was going to succeed in Israel it was going to be by relentlessly pursuing a degree—she did not want to be a cleaner. But she was off to a late start having immigrated at the age of 9. She spent two to three years in an intensive Hebrew course, had to make new friends, deal with culture shock, go to a new school and acclimatize to new challenges.
“All this to deal with as a child is huge,” she said. “But I very much wanted to advance and become a full member of Israeli society and learn a good profession.”
Now she’s a lawyer and works at Tebeka, an organization that represents Ethiopian Israelis, many of whom are unaware of their rights. Because many of the older generation haven’t fully learned Hebrew, they are easily taken advantage of when it comes to getting fired or being compensated. Anaya learned that in Israel, it takes more than just education to succeed. The biggest hurdle of mild-mannered Ethiopians is sometimes in modifying their behavior.
“It’s hard to act with Israeli chutzpah, but you have to,” she said. “I grew up with both cultures, a very fantastic mixture. I learned both, but for the older Ethiopians, it’s hard to deal with.”
A recent government report confirmed that the 110,000-strong Ethiopian community has had trouble assimilating. Ethiopians tend to live in the suburbs where housing is cheaper, but jobs are sparser. Many men, in fact, live in the cities during the week two or more hours away from home.
About a third of all spousal killings in Israel in 2006 involved Ethiopians, more than 20 percent of children do not go to school and about a quarter of teenagers use drugs, according to reports from the National Ethiopian Project. Even Prime Minister Ehud Olmert admitted mistakes in absorption: “The [Ethiopian] immigrants sought to feel like a drop that returned to the ocean; however, they were not received with open arms, but with alienation and sometimes racism.”
Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein heads the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), an organization that has sponsored programs to help young Ethiopians succeed in Israel. He fears that racism may creep into Israeli society based on misconceptions and stereotypes of jobs and education.
“We won’t be able to integrate the Ethiopians here fully until we feel, we understand, we know the path and history they went through to get here,” said Eckstein, who speaks some Amharic and has visited Ethiopia.
The IFCJ sponsors a program to train Ethiopian university graduates as journalists and another program with the Tebeka Center to place Ethiopians with higher education in solid jobs. The programs help do what any first-generation immigrant cannot: network.
“We don’t have fathers who have connections—we need help to achieve our dream,” said Tal Chekol, now an attorney. He recalled how he closed the gap after arriving in Israel at age 8 and only starting school at 11. Chekol passed the bar exam and eventually landed a job, also at Tebeka.
“Ethiopians often don’t know how to access services in Israel and are embarrassed to ask for help,” said Jennifer Kaplan, founder of Project Sheba, which also seeks to make connections where none may exist. “They live at such a grassroots level that they do not think about basic things.”
Project Sheba helps families in attaining basic services and tutoring students because their parents can’t help. Later, it eases the transition for parents when the children become their teachers because they know more Hebrew and dove more quickly into the new culture.
“The quiet, refined respectful child of Ethiopia becomes the talkative, outgoing sabra [native-born Israeli] who knows more about Israeli society than his parents,” Kaplan told Israel Today.
Enuue Shimrit Kassa walked through Sudan for a month, spent a year in a refugee camp and lost part of her family trying to get to Israel. But now she appears to have fully integrated. She is assertive, strong and publicly disagrees with her elders—a far cry from the docile culture of the north African nation. She didn’t get to this point, however, without a massive identity crisis.
“When I was 16-17 years old, I rejected my own culture,” she recalled. “I didn’t want to be Ethiopian, just Israeli. I was ashamed of my parents—they couldn’t come to my school, couldn’t speak the language. I felt I’m the parents of my parents.”
Kassa is a radio news presenter now and, like her, these success stories are finally becoming more commonplace among the Ethiopian community.
“The Former Soviet Union immigrants come educated mostly,” Micha Feldman, one of the driving forces behind Ethiopian immigration, explained. “Ethiopian adults are illiterate in their own language. Kids came disadvantaged into the school system. Therefore the accomplishment on their side is so big.”
Few immigrants to Israel since World War II have endured as grueling a journey to Israel as the Ethiopians. Nearly all Ethiopian Israelis have experienced months-long treks through deserts, time spent in refugee camps, losing family members and then the woes of being absorbed into a competitive economy and modern culture.
Coming from a third-world country where electricity and technology were luxuries, many Ethiopians didn’t even know what a refrigerator was and used it as a shoe cabinet when they first got to Israel. But they had followed their faith and a life-long desire to live in Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel).
Most Ethiopian Jews arrived in Israel on two spectacular airlifts: Operation Moses brought 8,000 in 1984 and Operation Solomon brought 14,000 in 1991.
Integration has been challenging. The stereotype of Ethiopian Israelis in their relatively short three-decade existence here has been that of cleaners and security guards—the lowest paying jobs with no need for education. But now first- and second-generation immigrants are tenaciously delving into society and reaching new levels of success.
Bat-El Ananya is one example. She knew that if she was going to succeed in Israel it was going to be by relentlessly pursuing a degree—she did not want to be a cleaner. But she was off to a late start having immigrated at the age of 9. She spent two to three years in an intensive Hebrew course, had to make new friends, deal with culture shock, go to a new school and acclimatize to new challenges.
“All this to deal with as a child is huge,” she said. “But I very much wanted to advance and become a full member of Israeli society and learn a good profession.”
Now she’s a lawyer and works at Tebeka, an organization that represents Ethiopian Israelis, many of whom are unaware of their rights. Because many of the older generation haven’t fully learned Hebrew, they are easily taken advantage of when it comes to getting fired or being compensated. Anaya learned that in Israel, it takes more than just education to succeed. The biggest hurdle of mild-mannered Ethiopians is sometimes in modifying their behavior.
“It’s hard to act with Israeli chutzpah, but you have to,” she said. “I grew up with both cultures, a very fantastic mixture. I learned both, but for the older Ethiopians, it’s hard to deal with.”
A recent government report confirmed that the 110,000-strong Ethiopian community has had trouble assimilating. Ethiopians tend to live in the suburbs where housing is cheaper, but jobs are sparser. Many men, in fact, live in the cities during the week two or more hours away from home.
About a third of all spousal killings in Israel in 2006 involved Ethiopians, more than 20 percent of children do not go to school and about a quarter of teenagers use drugs, according to reports from the National Ethiopian Project. Even Prime Minister Ehud Olmert admitted mistakes in absorption: “The [Ethiopian] immigrants sought to feel like a drop that returned to the ocean; however, they were not received with open arms, but with alienation and sometimes racism.”
Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein heads the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), an organization that has sponsored programs to help young Ethiopians succeed in Israel. He fears that racism may creep into Israeli society based on misconceptions and stereotypes of jobs and education.
“We won’t be able to integrate the Ethiopians here fully until we feel, we understand, we know the path and history they went through to get here,” said Eckstein, who speaks some Amharic and has visited Ethiopia.
The IFCJ sponsors a program to train Ethiopian university graduates as journalists and another program with the Tebeka Center to place Ethiopians with higher education in solid jobs. The programs help do what any first-generation immigrant cannot: network.
“We don’t have fathers who have connections—we need help to achieve our dream,” said Tal Chekol, now an attorney. He recalled how he closed the gap after arriving in Israel at age 8 and only starting school at 11. Chekol passed the bar exam and eventually landed a job, also at Tebeka.
“Ethiopians often don’t know how to access services in Israel and are embarrassed to ask for help,” said Jennifer Kaplan, founder of Project Sheba, which also seeks to make connections where none may exist. “They live at such a grassroots level that they do not think about basic things.”
Project Sheba helps families in attaining basic services and tutoring students because their parents can’t help. Later, it eases the transition for parents when the children become their teachers because they know more Hebrew and dove more quickly into the new culture.
“The quiet, refined respectful child of Ethiopia becomes the talkative, outgoing sabra [native-born Israeli] who knows more about Israeli society than his parents,” Kaplan told Israel Today.
Enuue Shimrit Kassa walked through Sudan for a month, spent a year in a refugee camp and lost part of her family trying to get to Israel. But now she appears to have fully integrated. She is assertive, strong and publicly disagrees with her elders—a far cry from the docile culture of the north African nation. She didn’t get to this point, however, without a massive identity crisis.
“When I was 16-17 years old, I rejected my own culture,” she recalled. “I didn’t want to be Ethiopian, just Israeli. I was ashamed of my parents—they couldn’t come to my school, couldn’t speak the language. I felt I’m the parents of my parents.”
Kassa is a radio news presenter now and, like her, these success stories are finally becoming more commonplace among the Ethiopian community.
“The Former Soviet Union immigrants come educated mostly,” Micha Feldman, one of the driving forces behind Ethiopian immigration, explained. “Ethiopian adults are illiterate in their own language. Kids came disadvantaged into the school system. Therefore the accomplishment on their side is so big.”
Tower of Hope
BEIT SAHOUR - Standing as an unconventional symbol of hope to Palestinian children, a three-story high climbing wall towers over the outskirts of this Christian community near Bethlehem.
It was built by hand by volunteers from Paidia, a non-governmental organization based in Pensacola, Florida that uses recreation as a tool to teach children leadership, environmental awareness and tolerance.
“We believe in education through recreation for the purpose of mobilization,” said Jason Pollack, who moved from the US with his wife Sarah to run the children’s programs here.
Established in 2006, Paidia’s visibility has grown with the climbing wall—the only one in the Palestinian territories—which is swarmed by neighborhood children. Visitors can climb on the weekends for just two shekels (about 60 cents).
Paidia’s focus is on Palestinian children in Bethlehem, Beit Sahour and another suburb, Beit Jala. The organization gathers children of Christian and Moslem backgrounds, both residents and refugees, and places them in a neutral setting where they learn to rely on each other through organized recreational activities that promote cooperation and trust.
Many Palestinian towns are devoid of parks, sports fields and playgrounds. Activities are almost nonexistent and bored youth abound. So Paidia’s programs meet a major need in Palestinian society.
“There is a real need here for positive recreational activities,” Pollack told Israel Today. “We give these children an opportunity to put what they have learned into practice to help them transform their communities.”
Their activities also counter the Hamas and Islamic Jihad summer camps where kids get militia-style training, Koran classes and lessons on political prisoners. This year, Hamas conducted some 300 summer camps for tens of thousands of children while Islamic Jihad held activities for about 10,000 children who learned how to handle guns and rocket launchers.
Children between the ages of 5 and 18 took part in Paidia’s summer camp learning different values. After-school programs, ropes courses, hiking and other activities are also offered throughout the year. The programs get the children out of their own world to span the animosity between the divided segments of Palestinian population.
Paidia doesn’t intentionally cross the Israeli-Palestinian divide—Pollack said plenty of other organizations do that and do it well. But Paidia hopes, he said, that “a stronger Palestinian society will improve the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.”
“We are beginning to hone in on what we can do well: cross-cultural training in a cross section of the community here,” Pollack said.
A non-denominational NGO, Paidia focuses on “developing human capital,” as Pollack put it. Its goal is to raise up local leaders in the community to take over so Paidia can move on to other nations.
It was built by hand by volunteers from Paidia, a non-governmental organization based in Pensacola, Florida that uses recreation as a tool to teach children leadership, environmental awareness and tolerance.
“We believe in education through recreation for the purpose of mobilization,” said Jason Pollack, who moved from the US with his wife Sarah to run the children’s programs here.
Established in 2006, Paidia’s visibility has grown with the climbing wall—the only one in the Palestinian territories—which is swarmed by neighborhood children. Visitors can climb on the weekends for just two shekels (about 60 cents).
Paidia’s focus is on Palestinian children in Bethlehem, Beit Sahour and another suburb, Beit Jala. The organization gathers children of Christian and Moslem backgrounds, both residents and refugees, and places them in a neutral setting where they learn to rely on each other through organized recreational activities that promote cooperation and trust.
Many Palestinian towns are devoid of parks, sports fields and playgrounds. Activities are almost nonexistent and bored youth abound. So Paidia’s programs meet a major need in Palestinian society.
“There is a real need here for positive recreational activities,” Pollack told Israel Today. “We give these children an opportunity to put what they have learned into practice to help them transform their communities.”
Their activities also counter the Hamas and Islamic Jihad summer camps where kids get militia-style training, Koran classes and lessons on political prisoners. This year, Hamas conducted some 300 summer camps for tens of thousands of children while Islamic Jihad held activities for about 10,000 children who learned how to handle guns and rocket launchers.
Children between the ages of 5 and 18 took part in Paidia’s summer camp learning different values. After-school programs, ropes courses, hiking and other activities are also offered throughout the year. The programs get the children out of their own world to span the animosity between the divided segments of Palestinian population.
Paidia doesn’t intentionally cross the Israeli-Palestinian divide—Pollack said plenty of other organizations do that and do it well. But Paidia hopes, he said, that “a stronger Palestinian society will improve the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.”
“We are beginning to hone in on what we can do well: cross-cultural training in a cross section of the community here,” Pollack said.
A non-denominational NGO, Paidia focuses on “developing human capital,” as Pollack put it. Its goal is to raise up local leaders in the community to take over so Paidia can move on to other nations.
Jul 27, 2008
New Israeli regulations could cripple Christian ministries
Israel’s Ministry of Interior has decided to reinstate an old regulation that is threatening to cripple, if not shut down, several Christian ministries by limiting the time volunteers can spend serving in Israel to 27 months.
The ruling was as sudden as it was drastic. The effects began to be felt earlier this month when three volunteers from Christian Friends of Israel, assuming their visas would be renewed at the Interior Ministry under the previous five-year agreement, were instead told they had two weeks to pack up and leave the country.
Since then, several more volunteers who have been in the country at least two years have been denied visa renewals and are planning hasty departures. Many others have been left with a heavy sense of uncertainty as their own visas come due in the following months.
Several Christian organizations, which were founded to bless Israel, are bolstered by volunteer staff who until now served for up to five years in various capacities. The sudden change in policy has suddenly cut some staffs by 50 percent or more.
The regulation does not specifically target Christian volunteers, but is having the greatest effect on Christians and Christian organizations, which have a heavy presence in the land.
And while some of the larger Christian organizations are granted long-term staff visas and will perhaps be able to cope better with sudden losses, the smaller organizations - subject to the new turnover even at the managerial and founding levels - could end up shutting down or, at best, severely minimizing their outreach in the land.
The decision has left the community reeling and scrambling to make last-minute arrangements both for those leaving and others filling their voids. Volunteers who did not want to publicly criticize the government’s decision spoke to Israel Today on background. One manager said it is a critical time to lose people after investing in them for two years. Another pointed out that their own date of impending departure didn’t allow enough time to pass on their responsibilities.
Yuval Yerushalmi, attorney for four Christian organizations in Jerusalem, said while the enforcement affects all volunteers, “all this is definitely making our lives more difficult.”
Yerushalmi stressed that the new regulations cannot be painted as "anti-Christian activity," but acknowledged that they will leave Christian organizations hard-pressed to function on the same scale as they once did.
Even if, as many say, the Messianic Jewish body in Israel is forced out of the closet and picks up the humanitarian slack, one reason the Christians were here was to mend centuries-old rifts between Jews and Christians. That mission will undoubtedly be negatively impacted by the new regulations.
Those volunteers asked to leave will be allowed back into Israel on another volunteer visa of 27 months after a year out of the country. However, they must return with a visa approved and issued by the Israeli embassy in their country of origin, a difficult and cumbersome task.
The ruling was as sudden as it was drastic. The effects began to be felt earlier this month when three volunteers from Christian Friends of Israel, assuming their visas would be renewed at the Interior Ministry under the previous five-year agreement, were instead told they had two weeks to pack up and leave the country.
Since then, several more volunteers who have been in the country at least two years have been denied visa renewals and are planning hasty departures. Many others have been left with a heavy sense of uncertainty as their own visas come due in the following months.
Several Christian organizations, which were founded to bless Israel, are bolstered by volunteer staff who until now served for up to five years in various capacities. The sudden change in policy has suddenly cut some staffs by 50 percent or more.
The regulation does not specifically target Christian volunteers, but is having the greatest effect on Christians and Christian organizations, which have a heavy presence in the land.
And while some of the larger Christian organizations are granted long-term staff visas and will perhaps be able to cope better with sudden losses, the smaller organizations - subject to the new turnover even at the managerial and founding levels - could end up shutting down or, at best, severely minimizing their outreach in the land.
The decision has left the community reeling and scrambling to make last-minute arrangements both for those leaving and others filling their voids. Volunteers who did not want to publicly criticize the government’s decision spoke to Israel Today on background. One manager said it is a critical time to lose people after investing in them for two years. Another pointed out that their own date of impending departure didn’t allow enough time to pass on their responsibilities.
Yuval Yerushalmi, attorney for four Christian organizations in Jerusalem, said while the enforcement affects all volunteers, “all this is definitely making our lives more difficult.”
Yerushalmi stressed that the new regulations cannot be painted as "anti-Christian activity," but acknowledged that they will leave Christian organizations hard-pressed to function on the same scale as they once did.
Even if, as many say, the Messianic Jewish body in Israel is forced out of the closet and picks up the humanitarian slack, one reason the Christians were here was to mend centuries-old rifts between Jews and Christians. That mission will undoubtedly be negatively impacted by the new regulations.
Those volunteers asked to leave will be allowed back into Israel on another volunteer visa of 27 months after a year out of the country. However, they must return with a visa approved and issued by the Israeli embassy in their country of origin, a difficult and cumbersome task.
Jul 22, 2008
In the Shadow of Gaza: ‘We Are Losing the Future’
Three years ago this month, Israel uprooted 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, ostensibly to “ease friction” with the Palestinians. But Israelis in Sderot and other communities surrounding Gaza have gotten anything but the promised peace and quiet.
Since the “disengagement” in August 2005, more than 5,000 rockets and mortars have been fired at Israel from Gaza. In the first six months of this year, 1,075 rockets and 1,204 mortars were fired across the border, exceeding the total in any full year previously.
Businesses have suffered heavy economic losses and 50 percent of the region’s residents have been diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
This reporter travelled to the border region to find some of the stories you don’t hear every day in the news.
The Conundrum of Humanitarian Aid
A few months ago, Oleg Lipson, 37, and Lev Cherniak, 53, were working at the Nahal Oz terminal, which supplies Gaza with most of its fuel, when four Palestinian gunmen stormed across the border fence and opened fire, killing them both.
It was a win-win situation for Hamas. Not only did they kill two Jews, but they also managed to stifle the flow of fuel to Gaza, forcing the terminal to close for days. This created a contrived fuel crisis in Gaza, which brought international sympathy to the Palestinians and international condemnation on Israel.
The terminal is operated by an Israeli fuel company. Trucks arrive on the Israeli side and unload their cargo into an underground pipeline that transfers the fuel into Palestinian territory.
In this vicious cycle, Israel walks a tightrope between humanitarian concern for the Palestinians and the safety of its own citizens.
Colonel Nir Press, who heads the Erez Crossing Coordination Office, outlined the irrational routine of his work. As his office endures frequent rocket and mortar fire, he and his soldiers arrange for humanitarian aid trucks to enter Gaza and review requests by Palestinians to travel to schools and hospitals in Israel and abroad.
“In the last few months they attacked the crossing every week,” he said. “Unfortunately Hamas does not care for the civilian population of Gaza; they are targeting the crossing because they want suffering on the Gaza side.”
Whenever there is an attack, the crossings must close in order to regroup. Press said an average of 75 trucks a day cross into Gaza, but “on an attack day, it’s half that.”
Post Traumatic Stress
While most rockets do not hit Israeli homes, the trauma of each launch is finding its way into the lives of many Israelis in the Gaza border region.
“Fifty percent of the people are suffering from trauma, usually called post traumatic, but it’s not ‘post’ yet,” said Chen Abrahams, a social worker. “It has been like this for eight years.”
Abrahams lives at Kibbutz Kfar Aza where a neighbor was killed earlier this year in plain sight of many residents. As a social worker in Sderot, Abrahams sees many cases of trauma to varying degrees, but says that every child has its own manifestation of anxiety.
And she is not immune either: Her 8-year-old son sleeps in bed with Abrahams and her husband and has been doing so for months now. “You can imagine what that does to the relationship between me and my husband,” she said.
Parents also grapple with issues like whether to let their children play outside, or sometimes, even whether to go to school. Schools have begun to make a game out of running to the shelter since sirens go off frequently.
The Red Alert system gives a 15-second warning to residents when a rocket has been launched. But that doesn’t help everyone.
“Deaf people don’t hear the alert,” noted Chezy Deutsch, director of international relations for the army’s Home Front Command.
Deutsch and his team go door to door mapping out residents with specific needs. They distribute beepers to the deaf and advise caretakers on how to move the elderly and immobile in case of an emergency.
Productivity Suffers
Many businesses in southern Israel are losing productivity not just to property damage, but more to the constant rocket alerts that send workers scurrying for cover.
“There is an alarm five to 10 times a day,” said Ronnie Levine, vice president of marketing for Erez Industries, a textile and plastic manufacturer at Kibbutz Erez near the Gaza border. “The workers leave the machine, run outside for shelter and when they come back, either the machine is not working” or they spend time trying to find out if their family members are okay.
“Eighty-five percent of their mind is not on the machine,” Levine estimated, accounting for a 30 percent loss in business over three years.
Prior to the Gaza evacuation, Erez employed Palestinian workers and still pays the salaries of two who worked there 20 years.
At Nirlat paint factory, employees can see right across the barren field to Gaza. “They are constantly observing us,” said manager Yehuda Kaplan. Nirlat has absorbed a couple of direct hits from rockets and mortars. After each, workers have taken one to two days off before they dared return.
Further north, 10 percent of the land at Kibbutz Nahal Oz can no longer be cultivated because it is in sniper range. “Our main problem right now is to convince workers to go out in the fields,” said agricultural manager Yankela Cohen.
Cohen, 73, is no stranger to these hazards. In the 1950s the kibbutz was founded as a joint military-agricultural venture and the workers dodged Egyptian fire. Now the kibbutz is prohibited from using a plane to spray pesticide within 1.5 miles (2.5 km.) of the Gaza border, for fear that it could be shot down, and pests are feasting on their crops.
“There are direct and indirect losses,” Cohen said. “There is no way to continue like this. We are going to lose the whole Negev. We are losing the future.”
Believers Find Peace in Their Hearts
“Fifteen seconds before you called there was a siren,” Dina Gelfand told Israel Today one evening during the “cease-fire” between Israel and Gaza. “A rocket just landed in an open field.”
Gelfand is the pastor of a small Messianic congregation in the rocket-battered city where 15 to 20 believers meet four times a week in an apartment. Sirens have interrupted their meetings many times, so they pray for God’s protection and frequently quote Psalm 91. They live amidst the terror along with the rest of the community.
“We have peace in our hearts,” Gelfand said. “For people who don’t believe in Yeshua [Jesus], the situation here is too hard to deal with.”
Ironically, one of the congregation’s main prayers is for the Palestinians of Gaza.
“There will be no peace here if there is no peace in Gaza,” Gelfand said. “They are also suffering, and suffering from worse things than we are.”
The congregation’s apartment suffered a direct hit by a rocket while a woman was inside. But miraculously the woman was completely unscathed and the rocket hit the cement shelter of the apartment, leaving it intact.
Just like the rest of Sderot and southern Israeli residents, Gelfand quickly educated herself in this situation: She knows where to run for safety, not stand near a window, preferably not to live on the top floor of an apartment building.
But Gelfand has no plans to leave Sderot. “This is my place. I know this is from God,” she said. “I love Sderot, 100 percent. I feel I’m home.”
Gelfand said the congregation helps the community where it can practically and by praying with families. Most of all, they are an example of peace in the storm.
“They think we’re crazy, they think that fear is logical and that you need to be afraid and that you need to be stressed,” Gelfand said. “But I know that God watches over me. God is alive, God is almighty. If we believe in this, there is peace and faith.”
Since the “disengagement” in August 2005, more than 5,000 rockets and mortars have been fired at Israel from Gaza. In the first six months of this year, 1,075 rockets and 1,204 mortars were fired across the border, exceeding the total in any full year previously.
Businesses have suffered heavy economic losses and 50 percent of the region’s residents have been diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
This reporter travelled to the border region to find some of the stories you don’t hear every day in the news.
The Conundrum of Humanitarian Aid
A few months ago, Oleg Lipson, 37, and Lev Cherniak, 53, were working at the Nahal Oz terminal, which supplies Gaza with most of its fuel, when four Palestinian gunmen stormed across the border fence and opened fire, killing them both.
It was a win-win situation for Hamas. Not only did they kill two Jews, but they also managed to stifle the flow of fuel to Gaza, forcing the terminal to close for days. This created a contrived fuel crisis in Gaza, which brought international sympathy to the Palestinians and international condemnation on Israel.
The terminal is operated by an Israeli fuel company. Trucks arrive on the Israeli side and unload their cargo into an underground pipeline that transfers the fuel into Palestinian territory.
In this vicious cycle, Israel walks a tightrope between humanitarian concern for the Palestinians and the safety of its own citizens.
Colonel Nir Press, who heads the Erez Crossing Coordination Office, outlined the irrational routine of his work. As his office endures frequent rocket and mortar fire, he and his soldiers arrange for humanitarian aid trucks to enter Gaza and review requests by Palestinians to travel to schools and hospitals in Israel and abroad.
“In the last few months they attacked the crossing every week,” he said. “Unfortunately Hamas does not care for the civilian population of Gaza; they are targeting the crossing because they want suffering on the Gaza side.”
Whenever there is an attack, the crossings must close in order to regroup. Press said an average of 75 trucks a day cross into Gaza, but “on an attack day, it’s half that.”
Post Traumatic Stress
While most rockets do not hit Israeli homes, the trauma of each launch is finding its way into the lives of many Israelis in the Gaza border region.
“Fifty percent of the people are suffering from trauma, usually called post traumatic, but it’s not ‘post’ yet,” said Chen Abrahams, a social worker. “It has been like this for eight years.”
Abrahams lives at Kibbutz Kfar Aza where a neighbor was killed earlier this year in plain sight of many residents. As a social worker in Sderot, Abrahams sees many cases of trauma to varying degrees, but says that every child has its own manifestation of anxiety.
And she is not immune either: Her 8-year-old son sleeps in bed with Abrahams and her husband and has been doing so for months now. “You can imagine what that does to the relationship between me and my husband,” she said.
Parents also grapple with issues like whether to let their children play outside, or sometimes, even whether to go to school. Schools have begun to make a game out of running to the shelter since sirens go off frequently.
The Red Alert system gives a 15-second warning to residents when a rocket has been launched. But that doesn’t help everyone.
“Deaf people don’t hear the alert,” noted Chezy Deutsch, director of international relations for the army’s Home Front Command.
Deutsch and his team go door to door mapping out residents with specific needs. They distribute beepers to the deaf and advise caretakers on how to move the elderly and immobile in case of an emergency.
Productivity Suffers
Many businesses in southern Israel are losing productivity not just to property damage, but more to the constant rocket alerts that send workers scurrying for cover.
“There is an alarm five to 10 times a day,” said Ronnie Levine, vice president of marketing for Erez Industries, a textile and plastic manufacturer at Kibbutz Erez near the Gaza border. “The workers leave the machine, run outside for shelter and when they come back, either the machine is not working” or they spend time trying to find out if their family members are okay.
“Eighty-five percent of their mind is not on the machine,” Levine estimated, accounting for a 30 percent loss in business over three years.
Prior to the Gaza evacuation, Erez employed Palestinian workers and still pays the salaries of two who worked there 20 years.
At Nirlat paint factory, employees can see right across the barren field to Gaza. “They are constantly observing us,” said manager Yehuda Kaplan. Nirlat has absorbed a couple of direct hits from rockets and mortars. After each, workers have taken one to two days off before they dared return.
Further north, 10 percent of the land at Kibbutz Nahal Oz can no longer be cultivated because it is in sniper range. “Our main problem right now is to convince workers to go out in the fields,” said agricultural manager Yankela Cohen.
Cohen, 73, is no stranger to these hazards. In the 1950s the kibbutz was founded as a joint military-agricultural venture and the workers dodged Egyptian fire. Now the kibbutz is prohibited from using a plane to spray pesticide within 1.5 miles (2.5 km.) of the Gaza border, for fear that it could be shot down, and pests are feasting on their crops.
“There are direct and indirect losses,” Cohen said. “There is no way to continue like this. We are going to lose the whole Negev. We are losing the future.”
Believers Find Peace in Their Hearts
“Fifteen seconds before you called there was a siren,” Dina Gelfand told Israel Today one evening during the “cease-fire” between Israel and Gaza. “A rocket just landed in an open field.”
Gelfand is the pastor of a small Messianic congregation in the rocket-battered city where 15 to 20 believers meet four times a week in an apartment. Sirens have interrupted their meetings many times, so they pray for God’s protection and frequently quote Psalm 91. They live amidst the terror along with the rest of the community.
“We have peace in our hearts,” Gelfand said. “For people who don’t believe in Yeshua [Jesus], the situation here is too hard to deal with.”
Ironically, one of the congregation’s main prayers is for the Palestinians of Gaza.
“There will be no peace here if there is no peace in Gaza,” Gelfand said. “They are also suffering, and suffering from worse things than we are.”
The congregation’s apartment suffered a direct hit by a rocket while a woman was inside. But miraculously the woman was completely unscathed and the rocket hit the cement shelter of the apartment, leaving it intact.
Just like the rest of Sderot and southern Israeli residents, Gelfand quickly educated herself in this situation: She knows where to run for safety, not stand near a window, preferably not to live on the top floor of an apartment building.
But Gelfand has no plans to leave Sderot. “This is my place. I know this is from God,” she said. “I love Sderot, 100 percent. I feel I’m home.”
Gelfand said the congregation helps the community where it can practically and by praying with families. Most of all, they are an example of peace in the storm.
“They think we’re crazy, they think that fear is logical and that you need to be afraid and that you need to be stressed,” Gelfand said. “But I know that God watches over me. God is alive, God is almighty. If we believe in this, there is peace and faith.”
Jul 2, 2008
Israelis Fear New Era of Terror after Bulldozer Attack
A day after an Arab construction worker drove his bulldozer on a deadly rampage down a busy street in downtown Jerusalem, crushing pedestrians and cars and killing three people, Arab city workers were back on the job, prompting many a dubious glance from Israeli passersby. In the wake of the attack, Israelis are coming to the realization that they have a serious threat in their midst and not just on the other side of the much-maligned security fence.
“This is someone who works for the government [i.e., the Jerusalem Municipality]. It’s not someone out of nowhere, out of the [Palestinian] territories,” Jerusalem resident David Bitton, 24, told Israel Today. “We have hundreds of them working on the street.”
Bitton said it is a mistake to let Arab workers start working the next day like nothing happened. “You show them that it’s okay, and then they will do it again.”
“The Arabs are trying to show, we don’t need suicide bombers, we don’t need shootings, we don’t need RPGs,” he continued. “We’ll kill you with cars. This is a psychological game.”
Cars, incidentally, were considered the “safe” alternative to a public transportation system targeted by Palestinian suicide bombers, but after people were crushed in their own vehicles a new, deadly variety of terror attack was introduced to Israel.
Several civilians and police officers ran toward the bulldozer, firing at the driver until he was shot point blank by an off-duty soldier. The dramatic footage was captured on video and beamed around the world.
The driver of the bulldozer managed to cover about 500 yards (meters) on Jaffa Road, the main street in Jerusalem, before he was stopped. Along the way he crushed a car, killing a woman inside. She threw her infant child out of the window as the bulldozer bore down on the vehicle, saving its life.
The bulldozer came to a stop atop another car, which, when it was extricated hours later, revealed a mound of twisted metal and mangled tires with colorful children’s toys embedded in the wreckage. Several other vehicles, including two public buses, were also severely damaged in the onslaught.
The attack was the fifth this year by Arab residents of East Jerusalem, who have Israeli identity cards and enjoy freedom of movement, unlike Palestinians from the territories. In March, another East Jerusalem Arab shot and killed eight students at a yeshiva (Jewish seminary) in the city. Earlier in the year, two Jewish municipality workers were nearly lynched as they drove through downtown East Jerusalem, and a Jewish security guard was shot and wounded in the Old City after an Arab snatched his gun.
The attacks threaten to upset a delicate coexistence in Jerusalem, where two-thirds of residents are Jewish and one-third Arab. They do not interact much socially and live in separate neighborhoods, but many Arabs work daily in Jewish areas of Jerusalem and the people get along.
Ibrahim Ramzi, an Arab resident who works near the scene of the attack, wept after observing the destruction firsthand. He said an act like this can never be justified by the Koran.
“How can any man ever arrive at a thing like this?” Ramzi said. “I want to put this out of my memory.”
Many Jerusalem Arabs condemn such attacks and insist that acts of terrorism emanating from their communities are isolated incidents and not the signs of a hostile undercurrent. But suspicions among Jewish residents of the city are growing with every attack.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
