Houseowners and other sharks

My house has been sold, the new owner wants to move in, so suddenly, out of the blue, i have to find another flat.
I moved in only 10 months ago, painted the whole place, did a lot of work to it, and now...moving time again.
50 boxes of books, too many little schmontzes, hell.

But, i'm not even there yet. First of all i have to find a new flat.
Newspapers have very little to offer, real estate agents are a pest, therefore the logical choice is "homeless", the ultimate house searching site.

"On line" quite a few places look attractive: "5 minutes from the beach" (yeah right, 5 minutes by supersonic jet perhaps) , in a quiet neighborhood (i guess that's after 3 A.M., when the wedding hall downstairs closes down) or the "kitchen in "as new" state" which relates to a dark windowless hole in which a formica table top and tap above a bucket surely were "as new" some 40 years ago.

The most amazing one is the "lovely 2 room garden apartments" located at the bottom floor of a house at the Jerusalem Boulevard/Ehrlich junction:
Some years ago, when i was looking for a flat, i visited that same place as well. At the time there were 2 little flats with a shared courtyard. A bit poverish, but not bad.
These 2 small flats were turned into 4-5 tiny, minuscule cages.
The "garden" is really what is left of the courtyard, a small paved patch smelling of sewer. There is a shortage of small rental flats, but this is taking "small flat" to a new level.
Cage, doghouse would be more fitting names.

tomorrow i have to see two other flats, i'm getting quite desperate.

Ultra Right Wing Provocations in Jaffa - Rifat (Jimmy) Turk did a great job

The ultra right-wing Herut party decided to provoke Jaffa today: during the night they put up posters and graffitti suggesting the transfer of Jaffa's Palestinian population and later today, the ultra right wingers of Herut came right to the center of Ajami, trying to suggest the same and handing out money to those who want to leave...
Rifat Turk, my neighbor, reacted in a great way, he took the money and handed it out to the people in the street. After all, Jaffa's poor can always do with some extra pocket money. Thus Turk turned what was supposed to be a rightwing political statement into an act in support of Jaffa's poor.
Fighting started. I'm a peaceful person, i don't think fighting can lead to any good, however, when provoking us in such a way, i really understand it is not easy to control oneself.

No, we won't put up with fascists creating havoc and provoking us. Yet answering provocations in a violent way, is doing what the provocateurs want. We should not answer their needs.

Obviously Kleiner was out to provoke, in order to get some headlines for his failing campaign.
We shouldn't give him those.

Special movie screening at the Arab Hebrew Theatre in Jaffa

Invitation to a special screening of the prize winning movie

"Sense of Need"

by the Palestinian director Shady Srour

The screening will take place on Tuesday, march the 21st at 20.00 at the Arab-Hebrew Theatre in Old Jaffa.
The director, Shady Srour, will be present during the screening. He will answer questions afterwards.

For more information about the movie:

http://www.senseofneed.com

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0505/S00109.htm

Entrance is free, but please call us to reserve your places.

Regards,

Shady Srour,

Abed El Rahman Natour 050-6825041

Yudit Ilany 050-7988334

We won a small fight - Postal Saga, the Sequel

We actually did it, the postal services placed a temporary post office right opposite the closed branch, which is still underrennovation, after the floor caved in.
Our (i wasn't the only one to complain, obviously) demands were answered, and Ajami's elderly and inform, as well as us regulars, won't have to walk all the way to Jerusalem Boulevard to buy a stamp or to get our pensions/social security payments.

The Postman Doesn't Ring Twice (in Ajami)

Guess what, I wrote a complaint to our postal services and they answered the following:

"Your complaint has been received and referred to the relevant department for further treatment".
My complaint number is:

36395

Check it out out www.postil.com

Postal services in Ajami? Forget it.

Just a short update.

Remember last week's posting about our ex-post office?
Well today i met one of the postal clerks, a nice and friendly woman, who informed me it will take months (until July 2006) until they will reopen the postal branch in Ajami.

And in the mean time the elderly, invalids and poorer people who treceive their social insurance by means of the postal bank, will have to go to Jerusalem Boulevard, a busride or a VERY long walk away.

In the past, while renovating the branch they had a small caravan outside the branch in which most of the postal services were provided.
I contacted them to see if they can provided services again by the same means.

In the mean time, elderly of Ajami, forget friendly service

The lovely smell of citrus flowers...

Jaffa used to be known as a city of gardens.Surrounded by orange groves, the smell of citrus flowers was overpowering in the season, perfuming the night-air throughout the city.
No longer so. The air pollution in south Tel Aviv is three times as high as that n North Tel Aviv according to a recently published environmental hazards public health survey.

In north Tel Aviv there are three parks for every park in the south. Several southern schools are exposed to dangerous pollution.

"Because the area is a trouble spot" , the Peres Center for Peace

Just a quote of the architect overseeing the construction of the Peres Center for Peace, right here in Jaffa, in Ajami:

"The building is being constructed at 132 Kedem Street, at the eastern end of a seven-dunam lot. It will be about 17 meters tall, and will be built alongside the street. But if we are already talking about symbolism, it will have its back to the east and to Jaffa, and its face to the west, where the entrance will be in a transparent wall facing the sea. The building will be surrounded by a public park being planned by a landscape architecture firm. A central dilemma is whether it will remain open, as is currently planned, or will be fenced in "in order to prevent vandalism and damage to the building, because the area is a trouble spot," as Sheffer says."

No comment...

Police Obstucting BothTraffic and Pedestrians

The presence of the border police in their green jeep, next to Paul's Cafe, our ex-post office and Andre's ever busy icecream parlor have become a street fixture. We almost miss them, when they aer not there. At leats we know where they are and they are not bothering innocent passers by (although they bother quite a few of the young women and girls passing their jeep, with sexist remarks, not fit for quating here.

Yet lately they 've gone a little further. They not only block the pedestrian area, forcing all of us to endanger our lives by having to walk on the street, they now also stop cars right on top of the pedestrian crossing. It appears they really want us to break the law as wel as endanger our lives. The police, "our best friends". Yeah right.

No More Snail Mail from Ajami....

We used to have a small post office on Yefet: 2 friendly employees, a fairly long que waiting at any time, a good time to catch up with the latest neighborhood gossip.

Yet, like our market, the post is no longer, RIP, an ex-post office.
Why? No, this time we are not talking nasty real estate developers, nor collective punishment of Ajamis residents by a nasty bank's management (yes, after our only bank was damaged after a demonstration some years ago, the branch was closed and we have been bank-less ever since).
This time it is due to a typical Jaffa problem, bad infrastructure.
Suddenly the ground opened and where there used to be a floor, there now is a very big hole.
There have been times i wished for such a hole to suddenly open up and swallow me. This was not one of them.

Instead we have a locked door, a nicely worded note that the post office people are very sorry, but services have been terminated until further notice. No indication of when that might be, and what we should do in the mean time, where to get our registered mail in the mean time and generally what the elderly, for who a walk to the far away Jerusalem Boulevard branch is just a little too much, should do when they want to write their sons in the Gaza strip or their daughters in far away Uzbekistan..
There are such things as mobile post offices. All (illegal) settlements in the occupied territories have them.
Perhaps, maybe? Might they not just consider moving in a small postal caravan for the time being?
Come on guys, we need our mail, our social security, our pensions, we need to deposit cash for our relatives held under arrest or in jail, come on, we NEED YOU.

Jaffa Residents - Police Dialogue at AlRabita, Guess Who Didn't Turn Up?

We were there, about 20-25 Jaffa and south Tel Aviv residents,a few members of the press and - ofcourse- your truly.
It was cold, raining cats & dogs outside, yet all of us came, worried as we are, about what is happening in our community. And perhaps more than worried, angry and fed up with police harassment as well as rising street criminality.

After hot drinks and cookies, saying "hi" to old and new friends, we sat down for a mediated talk in Arabic and Hebrew about the police and us.


The police couldn't have been more clear about how they see us: they simply didn't turn up.

"Blessed Rains" - Flooded Houses & Very Wet New Homeless

In Hebrew they 're called "blessed rains - "gishmey b'racha", but after more than a week of them, i tend to call them "gishmey k'lala", cursed rains.

Indeed, there has been an ongoing water shortage for many years now, due to (mostly industrial and agricultural) abuse of that very scarce resource in the Middle East: clean water.
There isn't much of it to begin with, in this areas of the world: The semi-arrid zone, confronted with extended periods of drought. But whatever there is, is quickly and seriously polluted by the industrial waste "produced" by Israel's ever more privatised and globalised industrial giants. In addition, there is over-use, which has lead to brine entering sweet water in the coastal aquifer, thereby rendering it partially useless.
Over the years we have used (and are still doing so) far more water than mother nature holds in stock for us. Our use of sweet water has been out of balance for a long time now.
On the other hand, it does rain, occasionally. And it has been raining in all the coastal plain for over a week now.
Not your gentle winter rains, but floods, a modern Noah worthy: Grey strom clouds, huge amounts of rain coming down in short time spans, dramatic weather, hailstorms fit for staying at home with hot chocolate-milk, under a blanket in a well warmed room (assuming you to have one and being able to pay for heating it, something not quite natural and normal for too many Jaffa inhabitants) with a good book or listening to music.

Good swimming skills are a must if you want to cross the street. Yefet is good for a multi-directional shower: rain from above and muddy rainwater wetting the pedestrian from all sides, whenever a "Dan" bus passes at break-neck speed through the huge fast flowing rivers of what once was , well Yefet street paving.
Jaffa is simply flooded, just like it is every year, only worse, this time.

Given the lack of water, it is a pity the rain water is not collected ofcourse, and the municipality has been doing some infrastructure work, creating a drainage channel in south Jaffa, yet obviously it has not been enough.
True, the rain is strong, yet should this come as a surprise? Why are we "surprised" every year? A few years ago a child drowned in its flooded home not far from here, in the "Pardes Daka" neighborhood. Pardes Daka, in spite of its beautiful name is not a paradise, and the orange trees that once used to grow there, have long since made way for shacks and huts in which very poor people live.
Every year, including this year, homes in south Tel Aviv and Jaffa are flooded, their inhabitants made homeless, their private possessions and furniture made worthless.
But ofcourse, who cares, they are poor people. Not the wealthy ones from North Tel Aviv, where the infrastructure of drainage channels are properly planned and maintained.
Houses in the same area, many of them the same houses, are floooded every year.

"So why don't the people move out?" you ask?. Well, obviously, they would, if they only could....
They have no alternative, as they are too poor and the houses are their only possession, which have become worthless exactly because of the flooding. Thus they are not bale to sell their homes and move elsewhere... (Would you buy a house, knowing it is flooded every winter?).

The houses in Tel Aviv and Jaffa are built on sand. The huge amounts of water move the sand and some of the houses become unstable. Almost every year houses collapse. Yesterday, in south Tel Aviv, in Kiriyat Shalom a 3-story building started collapsing. The people were moved out with the help of the fire brigade and the Tel Aviv Municipal spokesman informed the press they would provide the families with alternative housing for 7 days! How grand. And where shall they go afterwards?
What alternatives do they have? Another few families homeless in another 7 days.

Poor people usually do not have insurance, as they cannot afford to pay the high premiums demanded by the insurance companies for insuring the old houses. They need their small incomes to pay for food, clothing, school fees and study books for their children, electricity to heat at least one room in the house for at least a few hours every day.

My heart goes out to these newly homeless people.

Meeting on Law and Order in Jaffa - January 17th at 18.00 at Alrabita

This time in Arabic and Hebrew only, as it is very local: a meeting at the ElRabita on "Law and Order in Jaffa.
Tuesday January the 17th at 18.00 at the AlRabita Building in Yefet Street, Jaffa.

Paticipants:
Kamal Akhbariaye
Yousouf Asfour
A Police Representative


I'll be there and let you know what happened by means of O C C U P I E D!

המרכז לפעילות יהודית ערבית ביפו
المركز للنشاطات العربية اليهودية في يافا


מזמין אתכם לערב בנושא:
يدعوكم لأمسيه بعنوان:

חוק וסדר ביפו?
نظام وقانون في يافا؟



ערב המוקדש לדיון בפעילות המשטרה ביפו
المساء مكرس للنقاش حول عمل الشرطة في يافا


· האם גורמי האכיפה באמת עוזרים למגר את הפשיעה?
· هل تعمل السلطات فعلاً على كبح الجريمة؟
· מהי המדיניות לגבי מעצרי קטינים?
· ما هي السياسة بالنسبة لاعتقال الشبان القاصرين؟
· מהם הכלים בהם משתמשת המשטרה ביפו?
· ما هي الادوات وطرق العمل التي تستعملها الشرطة في يافا؟
· מה התושבים חושבים על הנעשה?
· ماذا يفكر أهل يافا بالنسبة لما يحصل؟

בהשתתפותם של:

-יו"ר ועד שכונת עג'מי וגבעת עלייה-כמאל אג'באריה
-נציג המשטרה
-יוסף עספור

باشتراك:

- مندوب لجنة حي عجمي وجبليه- كمال اغبارية
- مندوب عن الشرطة
- يوسف عصفور

הערב יתקיים ביום שלישי.01.06 .17
المساء سيقام يوم الثلاثاء 01.06 .17
בשעה 18:00 במבנה אלראבטה, רח' יפת 70, יפו.
الساعة 18:00 بمبنىالرابطه, ييفت 70, يافا.

נשמח לראותכם تسرنا رؤيتكم

למידע נוסף: للمزيد من التفاصيل:

פיה فايا- 0524434697 איהאב أيهاب- 0509495946


ביום רביעי 01.02.06 יוקרן הסרט "גשר על הוואדי". يوم الأربعاء 01.02.06 يعرض الفلم "جسر على الوادي" פרטים נוספים יפורסמו בהמשך. معلومات اضافية ستنشر مستقبلا.

Parading the Streets in Jaffa - Devide & Control?

Over the last few days Jaffa's streets saw several parades:
It started on January 2nd with the Christmas parade of the orthodox Christian scouts, who joined forces with the Muslim scouts, the Jewish scouts, the Catholic (Terra Santa) scouts and -unbelievably so- the police orchestra.
They walked the streets, playing songs, holding flags and it all ended in a joint party at the local Arab Jewish community center.
A few days afterwards (on friday the 6th) another parade, this time that of the other Christian orthodox scouts, festive, colorful, playing carols and handing out sweets and shooting of some fireworks and confetti.

Today, the first day of Eid ElAdha, the Muslim scouts had yet aother parade of their own.
The parades, all of them, are fun. The participating children proudly walk the streets in their uniforms. Their not less proud parents and friends applaud them from the side lines.
The police close off Yefet Street.
The atmosphere is festive, fun very special.

Yet the fact that different parades are held by different bodies over such a short time span, should also raise questions.
Jaffa is devided into so many factions. Each with their own organizational bodies, leaders and activities.
The needs in Jaffa are so big, yet instead cooperating we are devided, much less powerful than we could be, if we only worked together.

If we only could define our needs together and pool our resources, work together to realize our rights and improve the situation. If only...


.

eid
jaffa

Continued Destruction in Jaffa

The heavy noise of a bulldozer, sounds of falling pieces of concrete, building blocks, rooftiles, the dust and smoke smell made it clear even before i arrived at the scene: one more old house destroyed in Jaffa, another piece of history down the drain.

No, the house wasn't particularly beautiful, but it was the last one still standing in the shuk area (the Jaffa Market).
The destruction of our market was started several years ago.
It was done the usual "Jaffa" way. A weathy developer, some say Dudi Appel, but i might be mistaken, suggest a new project, a shopping center, no less.
And ofcourse, some private houses.
Ajami is beautiful, it's close to the sea, not far from the French embassador's house and the fancy Jewish Arab Community Center, in short, prime property, "a good investment", as they say.

Yet the area was home to regular people as well as our market.
Some of the market stall owners were offered money to move elsewhere. Others were made to understand "the Jaffa way", they better move it. When someone explains you something "the Jaffa way", u better grasp it, quickly.
In the end the market was destroyed. There no longer is a food market for us. No more fresh and cheap vegetables and fruit, no longer a place for the poor to gather some free fruit&veggies at the end of the week, no longer a place to meet and gossip, in short, no more market.
The buildings were destoeyed and with it a way of life, our way of life.

Building after building went. Today it was the last sunrise on the one, the last one still standing. A home to a family. It was old, so perhaps a few generations. If i recall corectly it had a lemon tree in the small yard. Lovely old wooden shutters, high celings, old tiles.
Perhaps the inhabitants were given some money in order to move. For sure they have been given lots of promises.

How is this done?
The usual way:
The house is usually owned by Halamish or another public housing company. It was left in 1948. The original owners (or rahter, their children and grand children) are perhaps in a Lebanese refugee camp, in Gaza, in the US or in Europe. The public housing company that took control over the building has refused for many years to properly care for it. The people actually living there, pay the rent, but the company doesn't repair a thing.
Then, over time, the house will start to leak, the walls to crumble, to roof to fall down, bit by bit. The house is declared "dangerous". The company offers the family living there, a small flat in one of the slums. The family has no choice.
It's either that or living on the street, so they move out "of their own free will".

The expensive land is then sold for a big profit to a wealthy owner who constructs yet another villa or closed compound for the very wealthy who are attracted to Jaffa's "oriental" character and by the orientalist promotion material.

Most of the people living in the abominable slums of "Shem HaGdolim" and Mihlol Yoffi" lost their beautiful old houses that way. They got stuck in the slums, and the rich now live in the beautiful old places, sometimes fabulously reconstructed, often newly built.

And all of us no longer have a market...


Public Housing
poverty in Israel

Ariel Sharon, Sabra and Shatila Massacres Remembered

Sharon's stroke keeps the media busy, radio, newspapers, TV, all they talk about is Sharon's health.
Obviously, Israel's-elderly-priminister-just-a-few-months-before-the-elections-hospitalised-after-a-life-threatening -stroke IS news.
Will this stroke leave him capable of functioning as priminister? What about Ehud Olmert, his temporary (?) replacement?
All the media talk/write about, are the results of Sharon's latest head CT-scan, which areas of his brain have been damaged by the massive stroke suffered about 30 hours ago, Sharon's health prior to his hospitalization etc. etc.
Sharon's working too hard, his age, his family's history of health, high blood pressure and serious weight problems etc.

And ofcourse, the coming elections, the leaderless "Kadima" partry, the chances of the Likud regaining some of its former "glory".
Ha'aretz runs a story of Sharon's glorious life, images of the "bandaged hero" during the yom kippur war.
The Gaza strip pull-out orchestrated by Sharon last August: "Only Sharon could have pulled off that one". Which by the way, may well be true. He's even portrayed as a "champion of peace". Forgotten is his visit to the Temple Mount, one of the triggers of the second Intifade and its two-sided blood-trail.
Forgotten is Sharon's role in the instigation of the Lebanon war and its resulting quagmire of violence, which led to the loss of so many lives on both sides. So much blood, so many tears.

Somehow the words "Sabra and Shatila" don't come up.
Are our memories that short? September the 16th 1982 is ofcourse a while ago, but the massacre has left , so i thought, a lasting memory.
Palestinian refugees, children, women and men in the Lebanese refugee camps Sabra & Shatila were murdered by the Christian "falangists", a mission authorized by and known to Ariel Sharon. A massacre which couild have been prevented.

Ariel Sharon was forced to resign from his post as minister of defence by the Kahan commission, which investigated Israel's involvement in the massacres:

• ... draw the appropriate personal conclusions arising out of the defects revealed with regard to the manner in which he discharged the duties of his office" - in other words, that he resign; or, if necessary, that the prime minister exercise his authority to remove a minister from office.

The key paragraphs relating to Sharon's responsibility are these:

• In our view, the minister of defense made a grave mistake when he ignored the danger of acts of revenge and bloodshed by the Phalangists against the population in the refugee camps ... It is our view that responsibility is to be imputed to the minister of defense for having disregarded the danger of acts of vengeance and bloodshed by the Phalangists against the population of the refugee camps, and having failed to take this danger into account when he decided to move the Phalangists into the camps.
  
  
• In addition, responsibility is to be imputed to the minister of defense for not ordering appropriate measures for preventing or reducing the danger of massacre as a condition for the Phalangists' entry into the camps. These blunders constitute the non-fulfillment of a duty with which the defense minister was charged.

People with short memories tend to repeat their mistakes. When those people are powerful politicians, that scares me, a lot.

ariel sharon
sabra shatila

Finally something good about the Tel Aviv municipality or was it too early?

I had noticed them before: big, brown and VERY quick, the Jaffa rats. Usually about at night, suddenly jumping and running from a garbage can or an open sewer.
Recalling horror stories about the plague, i wondered what one was to do.

Then, last week, i met one of them on my staircase when returning during the evening hours, and another one in the early morning when picking up my newspaper in our small yard downstairs. Then another and another and a few more.
Obviously a problem. Rats, fleas on rats, disease, remembering pictures in my history books on the Middle Ages in Europe. Rats, cat-sized and very present.

So i sent a mail to the municipal services, not expecting much of it, as my other mails to them have never led to anything beyond the "we received your appeal and are considering it carefully" and the like.
Once i even received an answer about 4 months after having sent a mail concerning the broken paving and stairs at the end of my street. They answered me they are aware of the situation but as it would cost more then XXXX NIS, it will take time to raise the money. Repairs have not yet been carried out, 2 years after. And the children still play on the broken playground constructions endangering themselves.

Yet, to my great surprise, the very next day someone came over from the municipality and spread some rat poison in our yard, and even put up a notice to keep pets and small children indoors and be careful not to touch the nasty stuff. I just hope the Jaffa rats are not of the reading type.


But then, some days after, the truth came out.
My previous impression of the munipal services record was indeed too good to be true:
True, the municipal pied piper made it all the way to my home. But reacting on a request sent to them last year....
Their quick visit wasn't that quick after all: simply was an answer to a very old request.....

So much for municipality services in Jaffa.

The Jaffa Conference, 2005

This wednesday the Jaffa conference on the social and community situation in Jaffa was held at the local music center.
Organised by the Mishlama (our local branch of the Tel Aviv municipality), it was supposed to function as a place for discussing the many social problems in an open forum of both municipality and mishlama representatives and us, the people of Jaffa and Jaffa's many NGO's.

Ron Huldai, the Tel Aviv (and Jaffa) major, came to say "hi", then left.
I guess that's representative of the municipality's stand towards Jaffa, saying "Hi" and leaving.
Many of the city's reps were not present. Those that were... were not too open to a real discussion.

I suppose the real talks took place during the breaks. The rest of it was not much more of a show and not a very good one at that.

If it wasn't so sad, it would have been funny: to see the Tel Aviv officials deal with the embarassing statistics and other data. Educational professionals trying to convince a 53% school drop-out rate has nothing to do with the "successful" Jaffa public schools.
The presence of the "shahaf" police on Yefet street on saturdays was denied (or rather, put in a strange perspective) by the commander of those chivalrous forces.
Sad, sad sad.

Update: police harassment also during the day hours

Tony the policeman is at it, once more.
Remember Abed's unpleasant experiences with the police in Jaffa? (see post from October 17, September 23 and an earlier post from September the 9th). Tony Boukra, the policeman who harassed Abed before apparently has a good memory for faces. So does Abed.

Yesterday Abed was on his way in South Jaffa, close to the "funny bridge" (Jaffaites know which one i'm talking about and for the rest of you, i promise a photograph, soon) in broad daylight. A police jeep passed by, drove a little slower , then went on. One of the policemen was Tony Boukra, whose details Abed took last time he was harassed.
Abed is used to the practice, nothing special.

Yet then , when he went on, the jeep stopped, policemen came out of the jeep and stopped Abed for his ID.
Ofcourse Abed gave his ID to them. doing otherwise might land him in jail. The police checked it, then told Abed to wait.
Abed waited and waited, about 15 minutes. Finally the police returned Abed his ID.
The police were rude and shouted at Abed throughout the check. No doubt that, had Abed answered them in the same words and tone, he would have been arrested and accused of "bothering a public official in his activites or some such". Abed is aware of that danger, besides, he's never disrespectful of other people, he's naturally polite.

Abed requested the details of the policeman, who asked him why. Once more, the policemen were not wearing name-tags as they are suposed to do.

Abed said that he was tired of being harassed and wants to file a complaint.
The policeman gave Abed his details, a name and a number.
One more event in a long strain. Each single event isn't so problematic, it's the ongoing harassment that makes it so problematic. there is also something in the tone and the aggression in the way the police behave, that make it difficult. Rude is to small a word to describe it.
Israel is not a police state, yet. But we accept it, the police behave in a rude way, giving orders, making people waste their time by stopping them, in the street for unnecessary investigations.
I can in fact imagine a similar affair, stopping someone and checking his ID, in a different manner. Were the police to go about it, in a polite manner, "sorry to bother you, would you mind, have a nice day" etc, perhaps the experience would be somewhat different. In reality the police presence is threatening by itself, deeply unpleasant. It doesn't give me a sense of security at all.

There is nothing particularly suspicious about Abed, just a young man, walking around in a public area.
Or is that, by itself, suspicious?






More blogs about police harassment.

Cutting expenses the quick way: so simple to hurt the poor

One out of every 3 children in this country is poor.
A simple sentence, but what does it mean?
And how does it come about?

As usual, the story is true, the names have been changed.

Maram is 18, a high-school student. Her father died when she was a baby. Her father didn't have Israeli citizenship, so the Social Security did not recognize Maram's mother as a widow.

Maram's mother and father lived in the Occupied Territories. Maram's older sisters were born there. Because Maram's mother has Israeli citizenship, her daughters were and are supposed to receive Israeli citizenship as well.
Only Maram, who was born in Israel, has Israeli citizenship. Maram has lived in Israel all her life. In Jaffa.

Maram has 3 older sisters. One of them, the mother of a 7 year old girl, lives at Maram's house.
The husband of the sister was murdered, during the sister's pregnancy. It happened in front of the sister's eyes and left her severely traumatized, until this very day. Long hours are spent sitting and crying in front of her husband's grave.

Maram's grandmother lives at the same house, a shack really, with an asbestos roof.

The house is very clean. there is little furniture beyond some plastic chairs, mattresses covered with colorful cloths and an old table. The women have done there best with tablecloths and family photographs, to turn the place into a welcoming home.
It's pleasant to sit there at this time of the year, when it is no longer hot but not yet cold. The coffee is strong and sweet. The ice cold glass of water is a pleasure.
There is water in the fridge, but little else.

Maram's mother, who suffers from diabetes and very high blood pressure, works as an office cleaner, 2 hours every morning, 6 days a week. Her wage is 1.200 NIS a month, about 270 US $. She is, for health reasons, not allowed to work more than that and has all the necessary medical documents to prove it.

She used to receive child allowance for Maram. But since Maram turned 18, that has stopped. Yet Maram is a full time school girl, who cannot yet earn her own money. Maram's mother also used to receive an income supplement, which for some strange reason has not been paid for the last 4 months.

Maram's mother went to the Social Security office, where she was told she is no longer eligible, no reason given.
A letter written in Hebrew "officialese" states that, as she is earning 1.900 NIS a month, her income is "too high" to award her a supplement. Yet her wage is only 1.200 (before taxes).
Perhaps a burocratic mistake, but recitifying it may take months, as she will have to go to the labor court. Even if rectified, there will be no retroactive payment for the lost months.

In the mean time, the family (Maram's grandmother, mother, sister with a young child and Maram herself) have to make do with 1.200 NIS a month.
The grandmother's old age allowance is spent on medicine, rental, electricity, water and municipal taxes. The 1.200 NIS salary of Maram's mother is spent buying food, clothing, public transport etc. for 5 women.
For Maram it means never going to the movies, never having new clothes, never buying a coke or an ice cream at the school kiosk, not having all the schoolbooks you need, but worse, not always having something to eat.
A food NGO helps, but the food they donate, doesn't last very long. There is still that much month, when the food has run out.

The fridge is often empty.
So a neighbor sometimes donates a bag of rice, some bread left from yesterday. Maram gets a sandwhich at school. More than once it is the only thing she eats.
That's what it means to be "one out of three" (children are poor).

Perhaps a burocratic mistake, perhaps something which can be rectified, but Maram is often hungry.

poverty israel