Steve Walz writes for the Jewish Press:
Unemployment levels may be at their lowest levels in years in Israel, but would you believe that as the number of unemployed citizens decreases the number of people needing food packages and other forms of assistance from private charitable organizations is actually increasing?Welcome to the wonders of the Israeli economy.
According to one of the country’s largest outreach organizations, nearly 30% of the population is asking for help with the weekly grocery list, as more and more middle class families are gainfully employed but cannot properly feed themselves.
Last week, the government released its monthly economic report. Though the price of gasoline and foodstuffs continues to rise, the average Israeli income fell by nearly 2.5% to 7,800 shekels or about $2,000 a month ($500 a week). Restaurant workers, farmers, teachers and construction workers made substantially less. Is it any wonder why high school teachers went out on strike for nearly a month a half?
So let’s say the husband is a schoolteacher earning 6,100 shekels a month, while his wife works at a restaurant as a cook or waitress, adding 3,100 shekels to the monthly budget. Between paying the mortgage, utility bills, insurance, gasoline/insurance for the car, monthly food bills and basic bills for two schoolchildren (public school, not private), there would be virtually no financial reserves for clothing or many other things we take for granted — movies, vacations, etc.
And let’s not forget that city, state, water and social security taxes eat away between 40-45% of earned income. Israeli citizens are among the highest taxed people in the Western world.
It’s bad enough that the government refuses to provide "human" assistance to many indigent Holocaust survivors and new immigrants from poor countries who are living in utter misery. But now the working middle class has to quietly ask charitable organizations for food because the government refuses to force the business community to act equitably toward fellow Jews.
Should a 25-year employee at one of Israel’s largest conglomerates be forced to cry in front of a TV journalist as he reveals that his employers who rake in huge profits have failed to give him a raise after 25 years of dutiful service?
The Land of Milk and Honey is being milked by those who refuse to share the honey with their employees. Is it any wonder that nearly 500,000 expatriate Israelis lived legally and illegally across North America?
