The protest of the single-mothers continues. A large group of the women, who are demanding the reinstating of the full welfare payments that have recently been cut, attended a Knesset session - but began yelling wildly when Minister in the Finance Ministry Meir Sheetrit began speaking. They yelled that the planned measures are "just tricks and nonsense that will amount to nothing." Guards then escorted them out of the building. Some 40 MKs, however, signed a petition calling for nullifying the payment cuts. MK Ran Cohen of Meretz said that the payments must be restored until the government can create job opportunities with fitting pay."
A governmental "exceptions" board will begin work in the coming days, hearing requests by people who feel they have been unduly harmed by the economic cuts. The board, headed by retired Justice Ezra Kama, will have 20 million shekels a year to dole out at its discretion.
One of the single-mother protestors is Shula, who arrived in Jerusalem with one of her four children. She told Ynet how the welfare cuts have hurt her: "I was laid off, and I have no work. I receive 1,500 in child-support from my former husband, and welfare payment of 600 shekels. How am I supposed to pay for anything? Where can I cut back? A mother is supposed to do everything for her children, but with this money I can't give them anything." Her 10-year-old daughter, holding a sign reading, "Don't Hurt Mommy," asks, "How will we be able to eat or live?" Her mother looks on sadly, saying, "A child can't understand that there is no food, no money."
Iris, on the other hand, a single-mother from Hod HaSharon who works for a "communications" firm, objects to the above protest campaign. Speaking with Arutz-7 today, she said, "I'm not saying it's easy for a single-mother, and I'm not coming to judge anyone - but my approach is to keep on struggling. I'm a fighter, and I don't give in to helplessness, and my children will be fighters too. I was never rich, but I was brought up with the idea that you have to work for what you want, and not demand and say that I deserve something from someone else. One who says that will get nowhere... 'Mah pitom' ['it's unthinkable!' - lit., 'what suddenly'] to be supported by the government? Mah pitom?!"
Arutz-7's Ariel Kahane asked, "But these women are not saying that they deserve it, but rather that they can't exist without these welfare payments, that they don't have bread to put on the table." Iris responded, "I also had times when I didn't have bread. So what? So you try harder!"
Gavriel Peretz is one of two hareidi men who set out from Ashkelon on a march to Jerusalem in protest of the difficult situation facing families in his sector. "I'm married with four children under six years old," he told Arutz-7 today as he neared the Kastina Junction near Kiryat Malachi, "and neither my wife nor I work. The government says that there is work - but how can this be true when there are 300,000 foreign workers, and another who knows how many coming from Gaza... I've been not working for two years, and they just cut our grants by almost 800 shekels - how can we live on 2,500 a month when just the electricity alone is 700? ... In Ashkelon there are 15,000 out of 100,000 unemployed [these figures were not checked for accuracy - ed. note], and for every job offered, tens of people apply." Asked if he has a profession, he said that he was a truck driver, a guard, even the mayor's driver - "but now I do nothing. So I study Torah - but even yeshiva students will now have their payments cut..." At this point, almost 20 kilometers after he set out, Peretz stopped the conversation - and the walk - in order to tend to his marching partner who fainted from the heat. He hopes to start again tomorrow.
Reached by phone later at home, Peretz was asked by Arutz-7's Yosef Zalmanson if he was looking intensively for work. He said that he had been offered only a few job opportunities by the Employment Service, and that when he applied, he found dozens of others applying for the same position.
Former Finance Minister Avraham Shochat (Labor) told Arutz-7 today that "deep welfare cuts will lead to a different Israel, one with great poverty levels and tremendous socio-economic gaps - things that are practically an existential danger for the country." He said that the defense budget should be cut instead: "Defense always used to eat up a certain set percentage of our budget, but because of the recent violence, it has skyrocketed. In 2000, it was 37 billion shekels, and two years later [in the height of the Oslo War] it was 47 billion shekels. At this point, the dangers facing us are not as great as they were, and therefore we need not and cannot continue to bear this defense burden. Education and welfare can simply bear no more cuts." Shochat acknowledged that there are many things that must be improved in the economy, "but Netanyahu went too far and too fast. He did not distinguish between those who are able to look for work and those who will have to continue living with the grants no matter what. In any society, there are always those who need to be helped."
A governmental "exceptions" board will begin work in the coming days, hearing requests by people who feel they have been unduly harmed by the economic cuts. The board, headed by retired Justice Ezra Kama, will have 20 million shekels a year to dole out at its discretion.
One of the single-mother protestors is Shula, who arrived in Jerusalem with one of her four children. She told Ynet how the welfare cuts have hurt her: "I was laid off, and I have no work. I receive 1,500 in child-support from my former husband, and welfare payment of 600 shekels. How am I supposed to pay for anything? Where can I cut back? A mother is supposed to do everything for her children, but with this money I can't give them anything." Her 10-year-old daughter, holding a sign reading, "Don't Hurt Mommy," asks, "How will we be able to eat or live?" Her mother looks on sadly, saying, "A child can't understand that there is no food, no money."
Iris, on the other hand, a single-mother from Hod HaSharon who works for a "communications" firm, objects to the above protest campaign. Speaking with Arutz-7 today, she said, "I'm not saying it's easy for a single-mother, and I'm not coming to judge anyone - but my approach is to keep on struggling. I'm a fighter, and I don't give in to helplessness, and my children will be fighters too. I was never rich, but I was brought up with the idea that you have to work for what you want, and not demand and say that I deserve something from someone else. One who says that will get nowhere... 'Mah pitom' ['it's unthinkable!' - lit., 'what suddenly'] to be supported by the government? Mah pitom?!"
Arutz-7's Ariel Kahane asked, "But these women are not saying that they deserve it, but rather that they can't exist without these welfare payments, that they don't have bread to put on the table." Iris responded, "I also had times when I didn't have bread. So what? So you try harder!"
Gavriel Peretz is one of two hareidi men who set out from Ashkelon on a march to Jerusalem in protest of the difficult situation facing families in his sector. "I'm married with four children under six years old," he told Arutz-7 today as he neared the Kastina Junction near Kiryat Malachi, "and neither my wife nor I work. The government says that there is work - but how can this be true when there are 300,000 foreign workers, and another who knows how many coming from Gaza... I've been not working for two years, and they just cut our grants by almost 800 shekels - how can we live on 2,500 a month when just the electricity alone is 700? ... In Ashkelon there are 15,000 out of 100,000 unemployed [these figures were not checked for accuracy - ed. note], and for every job offered, tens of people apply." Asked if he has a profession, he said that he was a truck driver, a guard, even the mayor's driver - "but now I do nothing. So I study Torah - but even yeshiva students will now have their payments cut..." At this point, almost 20 kilometers after he set out, Peretz stopped the conversation - and the walk - in order to tend to his marching partner who fainted from the heat. He hopes to start again tomorrow.
Reached by phone later at home, Peretz was asked by Arutz-7's Yosef Zalmanson if he was looking intensively for work. He said that he had been offered only a few job opportunities by the Employment Service, and that when he applied, he found dozens of others applying for the same position.
Former Finance Minister Avraham Shochat (Labor) told Arutz-7 today that "deep welfare cuts will lead to a different Israel, one with great poverty levels and tremendous socio-economic gaps - things that are practically an existential danger for the country." He said that the defense budget should be cut instead: "Defense always used to eat up a certain set percentage of our budget, but because of the recent violence, it has skyrocketed. In 2000, it was 37 billion shekels, and two years later [in the height of the Oslo War] it was 47 billion shekels. At this point, the dangers facing us are not as great as they were, and therefore we need not and cannot continue to bear this defense burden. Education and welfare can simply bear no more cuts." Shochat acknowledged that there are many things that must be improved in the economy, "but Netanyahu went too far and too fast. He did not distinguish between those who are able to look for work and those who will have to continue living with the grants no matter what. In any society, there are always those who need to be helped."