A comment from Eppie of Mevasseret

Eppie, who works for MetroWest in our Jerusalem office writes:

Gary, just wanted to say something about the clothes scattered all over the streets in the Mevasseret Absorption Center. It is not due to the fact that the Israeli's don't worry about them and try to provide the olim with clothes etc...but quite the contrary. Because of the excess, the Ethiopian olim throw half of what they recieve out and the other half put under their mattresses.

It is true that we, as a whole, can do much more for the Ethiopian olim, which is what the Federation of MetroWest is doing in Operation Atzmaut in Rishon Lezion, but clothes - they have.

My response:

I didn't mean to suggest that Israelis don't care or that the Ethiopians are not from a third world country. Rather, my concern is that treating them with dignity should lead to finding a better way to distribute clothes to them than leaving clothes on the street.

Eppie, whose husband tells me always gets the last word, says:


Actually, we tried doing that a few times. We gathered a rather large group of veteran Mevasseret Israeli's and a large part of the absorption center's population and had a couple of 'cleaning days'. It was nice while it lasted, but not for too long....

My reply...I concede.