Representatives of Holocaust survivors met Wednesday with the director-general of the Prime Minister's Office Ra'anan Dinur to discuss demands to raise government allowances for Shoah survivors from the former Soviet Union.
Dinur presented the representatives with a number of initiatives to raise the allowances, but no deal is expected before next week.
The Ministry of Social Affairs recently agreed to raise the pension allowance for survivors. While the details of the raise have not been announced, the ministry said allowances for the survivors will depend on the age and wealth of each survivor.
The government said the raise will be funded from a two-year budget of NIS 1.5 billion ($ 365 million) allocated to pensioners.
Noah Flug, the chairman of an umbrella organization for Holocaust survivors, said the meeting with Dinur was positive and expressed satisfaction that all the pensioners in Israel would benefit from the new budget.
Flug added that 85,000 Shoah survivors from the former Soviet Union will get NIS 300 million ($ 75 million) over the next two years.
In August, the government agreed to grant Holocaust survivors who were freed from concentration camps after the Second World War a monthly allowance of NIS 1,200 ($ 300).
Next week, survivor representatives will meet Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Pensioners Affairs Minister Rafi Eitan and Social Affairs Minister Isaac Herzog to discuss the allowance raise.
RSS
