No forgetting Israel’s south

ANNA HARWOOD ISRAEL MEDIA PLACEMENT

Southern Israel is still suffering from the after effects of years of terror, economic instability and the recent Operation Pillar of Defence. Despite the cessation of headlines from the area, the economic strains of this tumultuous region are still being felt.

Last fall, in response to a barrage of rockets launched from the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defence Forces began its campaign targeting military structures and operatives throughout the Hamas-controlled territory. In response, Hamas shot at least 1,400 rockets into Israel, reaching as far as Tel Aviv and the outskirts of Jerusalem. As the south of Israel was under attack, the sirens wailed day and night and the region shut down. Residents of cities such as Ashkelon, Kiryat Gat, Kiryat Malachi and Be’er Sheva fled to their shelters. Sderot residents on Gaza’s border had long become familiar with the Red Alert warning them of imminent attack, but for those cities located up to 30 miles from Gaza, the operation came as a shock.

During this period, factories closed, transport ceased and citizens took cover. Six Israelis were killed, 269 Israelis were injured and houses, cars and businesses were damaged. For the south, which contains some of the most economically disadvantaged areas in Israel, the operation was yet another blow for their fragile economy. Today, the south still struggles to pick its feet up economically after years of poverty, distress and neglect.

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, in 2011, 31 percent of the region was classified to be “poor.” The research used a new indicator to measure poverty and defined a person as “poor” when his “physical existence and needs distract him every minute of the day and, therefore, most of his economic resources are allocated to food consumption and residence.”

Kiryat Gat lies just 15 miles from the Gaza Strip. During Operation Pillar of Defence, rockets sent residents running for shelter and this already poverty-stricken city was plunged further into despair. “The economic situation in Kiryat Gat is unstable. The operation made it worse; people didn’t leave their houses,” said Maya Naim, whose house in Kiryat Gat was hit by one of the rockets. “My business suffered, my house was damaged and my disabled son’s car was destroyed.”

Naim has received compensation for the damage to her house but the damage to her car was not included. She now spends hundreds of shekels each month on taxis to enable her son to get to work.

Kiryat Gat’s residents struggle to provide for their families’ basic needs, with the average wage being around 50 percent lower than the national average. Though the situation is dramatic and unemployment rates run high, there are organizations and individuals devoted to making a difference in this troubled community.

Esther Richtman is one such shining beacon. She was recently honored with the Citizen of the City award at a ceremony in the city centre. Richtman arrived in Kiryat Gat in 1964 from Romania with her husband Abraham and their first child on the way. Following a long career in the textile industry, the couple decided to spend their retirement giving back to the people of Kiryat Gat. Richtman, who is locally known as Savta Esther, has now become somewhat of a local celebrity thanks to her work with Meir Panim.

An Israeli relief organization, Meir Panim operates two Power of Giving warehouses in southern Israel to distribute furniture, clothes and other necessary household equipment for those who cannot afford to purchase them at regular prices.

Richtman began volunteering at the Kiryat Gat warehouse sorting items and mending donated clothes. “I saw the good that Meir Panim was doing by supporting the poor but, more importantly, how they did it with dignity,” she said. Customers pay a nominal fee for each item so that the aid does not feel like a handout.

Eight years ago, while volunteering in the warehouse, she overheard that Meir Panim was looking for someone to run their after-school facility for some of the poorest children in Kiryat Gat and she jumped at the chance. “Within a week, Meir Panim had located premises for me, provided me with National Service volunteers and we had decorated the club to feel like a home,” Richtman explained. “We are dealing with children whose parents cannot afford to feed them healthy meals each day, who are left to their own devices and who simply continue their parents’ cycle of poverty.”

Together with Meir Panim, Savta Esther is working to break this cycle. The children turn up to school prepared because she delivers school supplies at the beginning of the school year. The children are able to study because they receive two hot meals a day and studying at school is complemented with homework help from the National Service volunteers.

“I’m so grateful that Savta Esther came into our lives eight years ago,” said Chagit Hazan, mother of two participants in the after-school club. “I work long hours in an old age home and try to support my children on my own, but without Savta Esther and Meir Panim I don’t know what we’d do.” Hazan said that there are parents and children queuing up to be admitted to the after-school club.

Kiryat Gat is just one example of a city trying to get back on its feet now that peace has returned to the area, but it’s not easy. “When the rockets stopped falling, southern Israel slipped off the media radar,” explained Goldie Sternbuch, assistant director of overseas relations at Meir Panim. “For those of us who witness this poverty daily, it is clear that help is needed now, as much as ever before.”

Meir Panim is currently building a nutrition centre located in Kiryat Gat that will not only produce the thousands of hot meals that Meir Panim need to feed Israel’s poor each day, but will also provide a boost to Kiryat Gat’s dwindling economy. Getting the south back on its feet after years of trauma caused by rocket fire and economic distress is no easy feat, however, slowly but surely, the future is looking brighter.

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