Day 7: Netanya and the Forgotten People Fund

Today we met Anne Silverman, chairman of Forgotten People Fund in Netanya, dedicated to helping the Ethiopian Jewish community meet their basic needs.



FPF provides food vouchers for use at their local supermarket to insure that there is enough food in the house for the children to eat. FPF pays utility bills (water, gas, electricity) and city taxes to help the families through their difficult times. FPF pays school fees and provides scholarships for middle and high school students and college and university students, and sends technicians to repair electrical, plumbing and appliance breakdowns as the Ethiopian families’ budgets don’t allow for such emergencies.



FPF is an organization of volunteers. They have no office, no paid workers and no overhead! They operate out of their own apartments and thus are able to keep expenses to 1.5% of income from contributions. This means that 98.5% of the proceeds from donations go directly to their needy families. More important – FPF is a friend that the Ethiopian families can depend on. Having been disappointed so often by the bureaucracy of the social welfare system, they find FPF is a beacon of light in their darkest moments.

To help them with their absorption, FPF has launched a series of Nutrition Courses where the women are taught how to prepare healthy yet economical meals for their families, how to shop at the supermarket and downtown open market for the best value, and how important the combination of the food groups is for the nutrition of their children. FPF also distributes children’s multiple vitamins (kosher) which we receive from the USA and vitamin drops for babies (6 mos. – 3 years) to help ensure healthy teeth and bones during growth spurts.



We temporarily fast forwarded our walk today from Mt. Tabor and met them on the beach this morning, along with about 30 volunteers, to walk 10 km of the Shvil Yisrael as a fundraiser. I'm happy to report it was a smashing success! Many of the volunteers were American, British, and Canadian immigrants to Israel looking to help the poorest members of their community.

Anne made a good point today about the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam, or "healing the world". Frequently we hear about the overwhelming number of Christian and secular NGOs that help the poorest of Third World countries, but rarely if ever do we hear about Jewish charities helping poor Jews. The world seems to assume that the poor Jew these days is a myth, when in reality even in Israel there is crushing poverty many places in the country.

The Jewish approach to charity is always to act locally first. Thus, a Jew is supposed to take care of his immediate family, then his village, his city, and so on in degrees of closeness. The best way for the Jewish nation to fulfill its goal of healing the world is to be unified as a people, and that means taking care of those Jews who are suffering right in front of us.

The world taking notice of how much we care for our own will do more to further this cause than any amount of propaganda could ever do, and only then can we truly be a light unto the nations.

-Jeremy