Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Make a Passover gift and support Jewish journalism. DONATE NOW
Fast Forward

92% of Israeli Holocaust Survivors Upset at Treatment by State

Days before Israel marks its Holocaust Remembrance Day, a newly published survey reveals that 92 percent of Holocaust survivors in the country claim the state does not allocate enough funds for them.

The survey of 500 Holocaust survivors was conducted by the Foundation for the Benefit of Holocaust Victims in Israel under the supervision of Professor Rafi Smith. About 192,000 Holocaust survivors, approximately two-thirds of them women, live in Israel.

Sixty-seven percent of the survivors said they were unsatisfied with the way the government treated them, while more than half (56 percent) said there was no change in the government’s treatment of survivors over the past five years. In June 2008, the Investigation Committee to Assist Holocaust Survivors, headed by Justice Dalia Dorner, published its report stating that Israel was paying Holocaust survivors compensation that amounted to no more than two-thirds of the agreed-upon sum. In addition, 22 percent of the survivors said that the government’s treatment of the survivors had worsened.

The survey asked survivors to state their main difficulty. For 49 percent, it was health problems that affected their day-to-day lives. Twenty-nine percent complained of financial trouble, 8 percent mentioned loneliness and 10 percent cited bureaucratic difficulty.

For more, go to Haaretz

This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.

We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.

This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.

With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.

The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.