Good Thursday morning.
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we preview the Jewish National Fund-USA’s Global Conference for Israel in Denver and report on Richard Priem stepping in as interim CEO of the Community Security Service. We feature an opinion piece from Lisa David, Rabbi Anat Levin-Katzir and Rabbi Stacy Rigler about the importance of relationships between Diaspora Jews and Israeli shlichim. We’ll start with a new paper from the Taub Center on how to best help Israelis displaced by the fighting.
Following the unparalleled brutality of the Oct. 7 massacres and the outbreak of fighting in both Gaza and Lebanon, Israel has found itself in another unprecedented situation, with a massive population of displaced people, scattered among hotels, hostels and other temporary housing solutions across the country. A new paper by the Taub Center, one of Israel’s leading social policy think tanks, offers recommendations for how those evacuees can best be helped, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross.
Over 125,000 people have been given evacuation orders by the government, meaning they would be compensated for their housing and some other expenses, while tens of thousands more fled on their own, mostly from communities just beyond the official evacuation zones.
Nearly two months later, many of these people remain displaced by government order at least through the end of the year. While they are farther from physical danger, those still displaced face significant challenges, living in hotels and other makeshift solutions, which are not designed for long-term habitation. (In some cases, whole families with multiple children are staying in single hotel rooms.) Full-time educational frameworks may not be available. Adults may not be able to work, at least not in their normal, full-time positions.
According to the Taub Center, these situations can lead to depression, anxiety, loneliness and domestic violence. “As time passes, the likelihood of these dangerous situations increases and is liable to occur even among those who have never before experienced high-risk social situations,” according to the new report by Romy Volokh and John Gal, the welfare policy program chair at the Taub Center and a professor of social work and social welfare at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, that was released by the think tank this week.
This week, eJewishPhilanthropy spoke with Gal to see how his and Volokh’s research regarding the role of government could be applied to philanthropy and civil society.
“Obviously, in the kibbutzim and places like Sderot that were directly affected, there will be a lot of needs. And certainly, the government won’t be able to deal with all of them, and you can think of ways in which philanthropy can help out,” Gal said. “But also, I want to mention, the communities that were [not directly hit by attacks from Gaza but were] already suffering before the war will have a greater problem afterward, both because of the war and because we are in a difficult economic situation, and many of the government resources will only be devoted to the communities that were directly affected.”
Until communities are able to return to their homes, nonprofits can play a significant role in helping keep evacuees on their feet. “In the meantime, there will be an issue of material needs that philanthropy could play a major role in. Philanthropy could be looking at supporting employment programs, which are crucial for these evacuees, and supporting different sorts of psychosocial support for these communities and working with the communities to help them organize,” Gal said. “And also working in the communities to try and help develop resilience on a community level, which is really crucial, particularly in the communities that were directly affected by the war.”
Read the full report here.
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