Israeli winters are sharply cold, with strong winds, haze/dust and rain, as we are experiencing right now.  In the north, Israeli winters mean snow.

While many Ethiopian Jews have integrated nicely into Israeli society and serve in the IDF, police, sports, politics or entertainment, there is still widespread poverty and lack of opportunity.  Many have expressed feelings of being subjected to systemic bias, being second-class citizens or having to constantly worry about harassment due to their skin color (I know many who’ve been harassed).

Wow what a year this was!  You have enabled so much humanitarian aid to be dispersed throughout the Holy Land of Israel, twelve great monthly events, the special large events for Holocaust Survivors and new immigrants, and of course, aid container distributions in huge amounts.  Together we have touched tens of thousands of Israelis! 

Israel Relief Aid recently brought in a container with some great items in it and all the aid centers in the country that asked to receive some, all got a share.  When the aid center then offers these items from the container to the public coming into their aid center, you can see what happens.

This 40-foot container from the Netherlands was just unloaded in Haifa and in Petach Tikvah.  Fifteen aid centers all over Israel were stocked from this one container, and two new aid centers were outfitted.

According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, there are 131,000 “single parent” families . . . almost 31% of single-parent families live in poverty. continue reading →

Thank you to everyone who gave towards feeding the homeless in Israel!

In November, Israel Relief Aid, with the help of its donors, purchased many kilos each of rice, lentils, pasta, cereal, buckwheat, beef, tea and sugar for the Broken Hearts Homeless Café in downtown Tel Aviv

How tragic that the darkness of poverty prevents many Israeli children from experiencing the joy and warmth that we love at holiday time.  Over one million Israeli children are in poverty.  But together, we can put a smile back on these little faces.

Someone asked me today whether homeless people like the life of freedom they are living and are they not living it by choice.