At the next cabinet meeting, after Passover, Minister of Finance Yair Lapid and Minister of Social Services Meir Cohen will submit a NIS 1 billion national plan for helping Holocaust survivors. There are currently 200,000 Holocaust survivors in Israel.
This budget is on top of the NIS 835 million Lapid allocated for Holocaust survivors over the next five years to improve their living conditions. The plan includes ten items, which Lapid intends to submit as amendments to laws during the upcoming Knesset session.
"Israel owes Holocaust survivors a historic debt," said Lapid. "Our mission is to help them in the last years of their lives."
"This is the most important amendment that Israel has done for Holocaust survivors," added Cohen, also of Lapid's Yesh Atid party.
The amendment increases the minimum monthly pension for Holocaust survivors to NIS 2,200; exempts them from paying for medication; equalizes the terms for survivors of concentration camps and ghettoes for Holocaust survivors who immigrated to Israel after 1953, and who have been denied equal rights until now; and provides an annual grant of NIS 3,600 to Holocaust survivors who immigrated after 1953 and are not survivors of concentration camps and ghettoes, instead of the NIS 4,000 remittance to which they were previously eligible every two year. This amendment applies to 80,000 Holocaust survivors, who will receive an annual remittance of NIS 3,600 a year directly into their bank accounts, without the need to submit documentation and receipts.
9,000 additional Holocaust survivors will receive an annual grant of NIS 2,000. Surviving spouses of Holocaust survivors will receive a month pension of NIS 2,000 from the fourth year of the survivor's death.
Holocaust survivors will also receive various welfare services, including home visits and day clubs, as well as psychological assistance. The means testing will be amended to exclude pensions paid by the Holocaust Survivors Rights Authority .
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 13, 2014
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