Food ration in the Austerity period, 1950s
צילום: פריץ כהן, לע"מ
Back to the austerity period?
Contrary to expert opinion, social affairs minister plans to issue food stamps
Is Israel going back to the 1950s? Social Affairs Minister Isaac Herzog is formalizing a program that would re-entrust the government with the responsibility of feeding needy families by issuing food stamps. Experts in his ministry oppose the move.
Tens of thousands of hungry people gathering by warehouses of various non-governmental, non-profit organizations on holiday eves, asking for food, has become a painful but all-too-often occurrence. And the numbers are only increasing. The social organizations provided food for an estimated one million citizens in 2006.
Recently, Minister Herzog decided to reexamine the government's responsibility for providing food for the poor. On Wednesday, he gave instructions to form an inter-ministerial committee comprising the Ministries of Education, Agriculture, Justice, Pensioners Affairs and Industry, Trade and Labor, and the National Insurance Institute .
The committee's responsibility will be to look into the government's role in helping the poor and will present its recommendations in September. Nahum Itzkovitz, the ministry's director-general, will head the committee.
Officials in the Ministry of Welfare have criticized the food-stamp proposal. "This will send people back to the 1950s, when the government decided for the citizens. Distributing food stamps is akin to saying 'we don't trust the citizens and we decide for them that they need food.' The citizens should get an allowance and they should decide what to buy. Nobody should make these decisions for them," the officials said.
The Israeli Social Workers Union, the organization of welfare managers and the local authorities are also opposed.
"Providing food through the welfare institutions or by issuing food stamps will reverse the welfare services and Israeli society by several decades. Besides, poverty has many aspects beyond a shortage of food. Providing food is treating the symptom, not the problem," said Itzik Perry chairman of the Social Workers Union.
