Gov't to Provide Holiday Grants to Holocaust Survivors

Jerusalem, 29 September, 2016 (TPS) -- The Israeli Ministry of Finance announced on Thursday that 9,000 Holocaust survivors will receive more than US$ 700 as a holiday grant for Rosh Hashanah. The ministry was forced to act when the Holocaust Restitution Company of Israel (Hashava), a public body that is tasked with distributing welfare and benefits to the Holocaust survivors, announced that for the third consecutive year it would not pay holiday grants ahead of the Jewish holiday season.

“As soon as we heard that the holiday grants would not be paid for the holidays, every official in my ministry did whatever they could to ensure the Holocaust survivors would receive the money in time, as they deserve,” stated Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon.

According to The Foundation for the Benefit of Holocaust Victims in Israel, approximately 189,000 Holocaust survivors live in Israel. The recipients of the holiday grant are 9,000 individuals who are classified as First Circle survivors, meaning they survived concentration and extermination camps.

The Authority for Holocaust Survivors’ Rights, an arm of the Finance Ministry, appealed to Kahlon to supply the missing funds.

“We are talking about some of the neediest individuals in the country,” said Ofra Ross, director of the The Authority for Holocaust Survivors’ Rights. “They haven’t been receiving the funds they were expecting to get from Hashava, so we had to act.”