Ha Lachma Aniya

“This is the poor bread, which our forefathers ate in the land of Egypt. Any hungry stranger can come and eat. Anyone needy can come and have Passover with us. This year we are here, next year - in the land of Israel. This year we are slaves, next year - free people.”

From the Passover Haggada.

(My humble translation. Please forgive any inaccuracies, my Aramaic isn't so good. This is the only part of the Haggada that is in Aramaic and not in Hebrew, besides some of the songs at the end, if I am not mistaken)

posted by Imshin 14:21

My last post must have given the impression that everyone is hungry in Israel. This is not the case at all. It’s a big mitzvah to give to the poor in Passover, and it could be that a lot of the ultra-religious charities are going overboard.

I truly fear that the long queues are more a result of a breakdown of values than of real economic difficulties. Some people have no shame to stand in queue for a free box of matza and disposable nappies. I know a few people like that. They don’t care where it came from, as long as they get a piece of the action.

I get the feeling that an alert photographer would probably be able to snap a photo of the same little old Yemenite lady with the flowery headscarf in every queue he visits. One newsreel actually showed someone coming out of one of these food places with a parcel and loading it into the baggage compartment of his shiny new car, which was parked round the corner.

Yes, things are bad and people have to cut their expenses, as in any recession, but the malls and the markets are full, and everyone seems to have a cell phone, surely a luxury item. And as I said yesterday, hi-tech is reportedly picking up, and the foreign investors are coming back.

So are the tourists, apparently. A friend just came back from a few days in one of Eilat’s more expensive hotels, and said it was packed full of English and French speaking people. I asked him if they were Jewish. He said the French were, but that the English speaking seemed to be mainly, surprisingly enough, non-Jewish Brits.
posted by Imshin 11:16

I’m becoming increasingly nervous about the Passover food queues. They’re still showing them on the news and in the papers. Yediot Aharonot (Hebrew link) said that the people running these places say that thousands are continuing to show up and they are finding it difficult to keep order, not to mention that they were running out of stocks.

The paper says that some of the people in the queues were municipal workers who hadn’t been paid for months because of disagreements between their municipalities and the treasury (The treasury claims that these municipalities have squandered their funds and that they must become more efficient. I ask myself if the mayors of these municipalities, and their overpaid deputies in their fancy cars, have been doing without their salaries, these last few months).

The lady I know that runs a food project doesn’t have her people queue up like that in public. She certainly doesn’t have the press come and take pictures of the people she feeds. She prepares them parcels and brings them to their homes, with the help of a little army of volunteers. She gets the names from Welfare. I think that’s so much more humane. Dad also does “Meals on Wheels”, twice a week, bringing food to people right to their homes.

But a lot of people don’t like to go to Welfare, because you have the authorities sniffing around you all the time, trying to take your kids away or force you into a nasty home for poor old people, or something.

I rang up the food project lady to ask her what she thinks about the food queues. She was resting after working so hard all week, preparing parcels and bringing them to the families. She was tired, but happy to have been able to help so many. She said people had been so kind, donating money, and volunteering to help.

She said she thought the food queues were shameful. She said that besides them being extremely embarrassing for the people who had to stand in them, she thought them a very inefficient way to give out food. She said the likelihood of the food not reaching those who really need it was very high.

There are a lot of people who have no problem to stand in a food line and get something for free, even if they don’t really need it, and even if it means taking food out of the mouths of the really hungry. On the other hand, the really destitute probably find it difficult to get to the distribution centers, and even more difficult to schlep the food home once they have it. She added that the really needy are often the ones who are the most embarrassed to be seen in public receiving charity, the ones most struggling to keep up appearances.

She went on to say that a lot of ordinary people from the neighborhood in which she operates her project approached her and her fellow volunteers at their little warehouse place, this week, to try and get some free food. They could see them preparing the parcels and they wanted some too. Not because they were hungry, but because it was there and for free. She sent them all round to the local municipal welfare office. She said that when you have only so much to go round, you prefer giving it to people who have been vetted.

She said that the local municipality gave out more modest parcels to people who usually manage to get by, but were finding the holiday difficult to fund.

She described the parcels they gave out this year, all carefully measured and planned so as to last the families through the holidays. A family on her list is very lucky indeed! It took two men to lift many of the parcels, and each family got a crate of fruit and vegetables, as well. That’s so heartwarming.

Much as I am sorry for the people in the food queues they're showing on the news, I can't help feeling I am being emotionally manipulated. I know there are people in real difficulties, more than ever, but I don't know if they are the people in those queues. They always manage to stick some sly remark about Treasury Minister Bibi Netanyahu and his economic program into the article, or on to a corner of the same page of the newspaper. This is suspect in my mind.

There is good news, and that is that Israeli hi-tech is picking up at last. It had it on the news (can’t find an English link), and R.T., who works in hi-tech, also mentioned it. Maybe next year in Jerusalem, there will be less food queues and not more.

Shabbat Shalom
posted by Imshin 18:10

Would someone like to work for me? Please?
I sometimes don’t know what to make of the news. They show all these people queuing for Passover food parcels. They describe destitution and hunger. The queues are growing from year to year, the reporters explain. Someone I know who runs a food project tells a similar tale. It’s so sad (I am so lucky to have enough to eat).

But then, why can’t I find an Israeli cleaner? Could all these people really be so poor that they are reduced to charity, but still none of them want to clean houses for a living? I don’t get it.

I know, many of them are old or sick; many of them can’t do any sort of hard manual labor. I know, most have probably worked hard all their lives, poor souls, but just can’t make ends meet on today’s pensions or welfare checks.

But they can’t all be too ill or too old to work. There must be one or two who wouldn’t find it too difficult. It’s not like I’m an unreasonable employer. I would never follow a worker of mine around or behave unpleasantly. I’m generous about wages and I give a nice bonus on holidays. You see, I feel a bit embarrassed about having someone work for me, so I would rather just leave them to get on with it.

I had the most incompetent cleaner, but I never complained, not even once. I reckoned everyone deserved a decent living, even if they were not very good at their chosen profession. A soft touch, that’s me.

So I stare at the screen, watching these people in the big queue, waiting to get their rations. The man who runs the food project has such good, compassionate eyes. He describes the troubles of the people he helps. What a lovely, kind person.

I too feel compassion for the people in this queue, and in many others all over the country, and I often open my purse as does my Bish, but all the time I have a nagging little thought eating away in my brain, “If they would only come to work for me, maybe they wouldn’t need charity.”

“I’m not afraid of hard work.” They tell me on the phone. I am happy. At last! I take the day off work to show them the ropes, and then they don’t show up.
posted by Imshin 17:58

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