Every week I write about one of the Wisconsin Plan participants who came to us for help. I do this so you can understand whom the state of Israel chooses to take action against and also in order to share what is going on in our center in Hadera.

To those who read this every week is seems that the problem is that all the people who the Wisconsin plan is dealing with suffer from medical problems and this is the reason they can not find a job and the state of Israel has to give them an allowances.

This is only one aspect and some times the easy one.

Reality, as usual, is more complicated.

The sins of the state of Israel in the Wisconsin Plan are:

- The State chooses to fight the unemployed instead of to fighting unemployment. Instead of creating new jobs, the State is focusing on acting against the unemployed who even when they want to work, can not find a suitable job.

- The State did not sort out the population who receives allowances from those who are able to work and those who are not able, and people who can not work are included in the plan and do not receive allowances.

- The State does not cope with people’s obstructions and does not help them to overcome, worse, the State creates more obstructions.

All the above sins remain also in the new plan.

On Thursday there was a meeting with the head of the Wisconsin Directorate initiated by our Hadera empowerment group. At the last minute they found out that he was bringing with him a representative of company running the program in Hadera, Agens. Because past experience has taught participants that Agens will punish those who complain in any way, only those who are now out of the program met with them, while those members of the empowerment group still in the program waited behind a closed door. Eventually the head of the directorate met with them alone.

Recent Articles by Rabbi Idit Lev

• Rabbis for Human Rights protests against the expansion of the Wisconsin plan - September 26th, 2008
• Rabbis for Human Rights calls on Government not to expand the Wisconsin Plan - September 19th, 2008
• RHR protests against procedural irregularities of Wisconsin Plan - August 28th, 2008
• Volunteers Needed for Wisconsin Plan - August 28th, 2008
• RHR supports Empowerment Group for Women - August 21st, 2008
• RHR fights budget cuts that increases social inequalities - August 14th, 2008
• RHR promotes user friendly forms for Wisconsin Plan participants - August 14th, 2008
• RHR and the iniquities of the welfare to work program - July 18th, 2008
• From Welfare to Nowhere: Promoting Human Dignity for victims of the Wisconsin Plan - July 3rd, 2008
• Demonstration against the Economic Arrangements Law - December 13th, 2007
• Victory in the Regional Labor Court - November 4th, 2006
• Conference of local mayors opposed to the Wisconsin Plan - November 4th, 2006
• Ensure Economic Justice: Help the victims of the Wisconsin Plan - September 29th, 2006
• Re'e: Human Rights and ignorance and abandonment by the government - August 17th, 2006
• The Wisconsin Program: What really happens - August 11th, 2006
• Rabbis for Human Rights activists succeed in influencing changes to the Israeli Wisconsin Program - August 4th, 2006
• Rabbis for Human Rights seeks to secure Social security allowances for all Wisconsin Program Participants - July 21st, 2006
• Rabbis For Human Rights protects the rights of the unemployed - July 13th, 2006
• RHR succeeds in modifying the the Omnibus Law of Arrangements (Economic Arrangements Bill) - June 29th, 2006
• RHR demonstrates for Social Justice - June 23rd, 2006
• Rabbis For Human Rights Opposes the Omnibus Law of Arrangements (Economic Arrangements Bill) - May 22nd, 2006
• Omnibus Law of Arrangements: Background Information - May 22nd, 2006
• Rabbi Idit Lev - May 22nd, 2006
• Finance Minister Abraham Hirchson's Speech to the Knesset Plenum – State Budget and Arrangements Law for 2006 - May 8th, 2006
• Vaethannan: Acceptance of the land, and forgetting God - August 19th, 2005

Categories: Economic Justice
Tags: Features