MK Naftali Bennett, head of the Yamina party, met today with social workers who are demonstrating outside the Knesset, demanding better working conditions and threatening an open-ended strike if their demands are not met.
"I sat with a group of social workers for around an hour - social workers from Sderot, Tel Aviv, and all parts of the country," Bennett said afterward. "I wanted to understand the picture in depth. A million Israelis have lost their sources of income and now we are seeing a huge spike in the number of appeals to the welfare department. These represent families who are no longer able to pay rent, or wives whose husbands have become violent in the wake of unemployment, or those who have sunk into depression or severe anxiety.
"These social workers are on the front lines and they are collapsing under the pressure," Bennett stressed. "If Israel is going to weather this crisis, we have to do what we can to strengthen social services."