If there is one thing that we need to rid ourselves of and sell to the gentiles this Passover beside the leavened bread -- preferably to an Eskimo in the North Pole, or to an Aborigine in Australia, or anyone far away -- it may be time to consider doing away with some of the charitable aid organizations. That means the largest of them. This past week, the heads of one of these groups did interviews numerous times a day. I wonder where he finds the time to tend to the needy. Two days ago, he spoke about 900,000 hungry children in Israel. Another poverty peddler put the number at nearly a million.
In recent days, these figures have become more inflated. As each day goes by, the number of hungry children jumps by tens of thousands. One of the charity heads said there was a 47 percent increase in the number of hungry children compared to last year. How did he get that number? Only he knows for sure. And how did that number jump to 47% even when last year there were also "almost a million" hungry kids-
In the last 10 years, we are always told of the "sharp increase in the number of hungry Israelis" every year just before Passover. If we tally up the total number of additional needy children that we are told live here, then the number of hungry kids in Israel would be double that of the entire population.
Yedioth Ahronoth, the newspaper that peddles the "Israel is weak" thesis, said that this was the result of a rise in the price of food. Last weekend, however, in the same newspaper, a new poll commissioned by the newspaper itself showed that the price of food actually dropped in the last year. Food is 10% cheaper than it was last Passover. Here we have a natural phenomenon that is unprecedented: The prices dropped while they went up.
It seems that many of the charities that are supposed to aid the needy actually do much to aid the heads of the charities. The salaries of a few of these charity managers reach tens of thousands of shekels per month. In the interest of full disclosure, it would be the proper thing for them to do if on every receipt they would print, "Thanks to your contribution we can pay our CEO a wage of tens of thousands of shekels per month." A few years ago, the wage of one of the charity CEOs was revealed to the public -- 1 million shekels per year.
This week, they were talking about how the state needs to give them a few more million. Excuse me? Why does a charity whose executives give themselves high salaries need funding?
Jews, be careful in deciding to whom to contribute. In every community in Israel, one can find people who help others on a volunteer basis without taking anything for themselves. These small organizations -- who do not advertise on radio or solicit funds through cellular text messages and do not pay CEOs gluttonous wages -- are the ones who need to receive money. The large charities with the splashy commercials -- no.
On the other hand, the CEOs of these golden charities could present to us the first volume of the writings of Rabbi Alter Druyanov.
"A beggar asks a landlord for a contribution, but the landlord declined. Angered, the beggar began to demand money. The landlord also grew angry and told him: 'A Jewish rabbi who wants to receive a donation should request, and not demand.'"
"Rabbi, landlord, for 30 years I have, thank God, been involved in this trade, and I do not need you to teach me how to beg.'"
Wanted
Every basketball team in Europe is trying to find out who is the security guard that managed to stop Sofoklis Schortsanitis.
Worse than Sudan
Back to the profiteers of poverty. A year ago, as the civil war in Syria was raging, the U.N. release a report claiming that there were close to "one million" hungry children. There are 18 million citizens living in Syria today. The population of Israel is less than half of that number. Since the poverty peddlers here claim that there are close to one million hungry children in Israel, then the situation is twice as bad as it is in Syria, which is in the throes of a destructive civil war.
The population of Sudan is close to that of Israel. According to the U.N., 10% of Sudanese suffer from starvation. In other words, according to the profiteers of poverty, the situation in Israel is worse than it is in Sudan.
Despite the global crisis and the threat of destruction under which people are forced to live, the overwhelming majority of Israelis are doing well. They're doing much better than those in Europe. But according to the charities who ambush you on the radio and television, it's worse here than it is in hemorrhaging Syria and Sudan. If this is what they have to sell us, they mustn't receive any contributions.
Perhaps it would be best to learn from the events as described in the book "Good Deeds in Our Town."
"A landlord from Piatra Neamt invited a poor man to his house for Shabbat dinner. They were served noodle soup. The landlord took a spoonful to his mouth, sipped, and he was burned to the point where he began to tear up.
"The poor man said to him: 'Landlord, why are you crying-'
"The landlord swallowed what was in his mouth, and replied: 'I was reminded that last year my father wandered around the whole country.'
"The beggar put his spoon in the bowl of soup, took a sip, and, he, too, suffered burns that brought tears to his eyes.
"The landlord said to him: 'Dear guest, why are you crying-'
"The guest swallowed and replied: 'I'm crying because your father went alone and wasn't accompanied by his son.'"
Who's the racist-
An official U.N. document release this week determined that Israel is responsible for Palestinian men who often beat their spouses. According to the U.N., the conflict with Israel requires Palestinian men to prove their virility by means of beating women. Two years ago, an Israeli investigator ruled that Israeli soldiers do not rape Palestinian women because they are racist.
If we put both of these studies together, we can reach a number of conclusions. In contrast to the claims that higher education here is on the decline, Israeli researchers are proving that they meet international standards. Plus, unlike Israeli soldiers, the Palestinians aren't racist. After all, they hit Palestinian women. And more important: This is all because of us.
טעינו? נתקן! אם מצאתם טעות בכתבה, נשמח שתשתפו אותנו