Daily Stormer
November 13, 2015
Haven’t they suffered enough?
JTA:
Rachela Segal and her husband, Strul Segal, elderly Holocaust survivors living outside Tel Aviv, haven’t eaten chicken or fruit for weeks. At the market, they now even find it hard to afford to buy vegetables. “So I buy less, and Grade B. I go to buy vegetables, and 100 shekels flies,” Rachela Segal said.
For dinner that night, the 80-year-old matron prepared potato salad with onions and oil and some white cheese.
Asked why they were forced into such sudden austerity at their age, Rachela Segal said simply, “This month they did not give us money. A week ago my husband called and asked what happened, and they said ‘We’re sorry, there’s no money.’”
The money Segal is not getting is a quarterly allowance provided to 11,000 of the neediest Holocaust survivors living in Israel from Hashava, an Israeli organization set up to locate and restitute assets that belonged to Jews who were killed by the Nazis. The 2,750 shekel trimonthly stipend — equal to $700 — isn’t much, but it allows the Segals and other survivors living at the bottom of Israeli society to get by with some dignity.
Hashava did not transfer money to survivors in November. The organization is in the midst of a bitter legal dispute with a financial firm affiliated with the World Zionist Organization that was set up to support early Zionist pioneers. Their legal battle has upended Hashava’s main mission of restoring Holocaust era assets to their rightful owners.
The fight is being carried out in Israeli courts and boardrooms—and recently over the backs of the most needy and vulnerable Holocaust survivors.
The legal conflict in Israel echoes difficulties faced by restitution activists in Europe who battled, decades after the end of World War II, to enable the return of property, land, art, insurance policies and bank accounts (with interest) that belonged to Jews persecuted or killed during World War II, and to their rightful heirs. In all cases, as is the case now with the Jewish state, the road to implementing the agreed upon principle of restitution has been scattered with hurdles, causing endless delays.
“In a certain sense, Israeli banks did not act very differently than the Swiss banks at the time,” said Michael Bazyler, a law professor at Chapman University who has researched the restitution movement. “It was difficult for Israelis to conceive that they could be culprits in addition to being the victims.”
The Segals survived the Shargorod ghetto in Ukraine and immigrated to Israel in 1963. Rachela Segal worked as a cleaner and sold sweets at a kiosk until retirement. The payments she and her spouse receive from Hashava, alongside a stipend from the German government and a modest state pension, allow the couple to make ends meet.
Segal said she heard rumors that Hashava may have stopped payments as a pressure tactic in its court battle with Otzar Hityashvuth Hayehudim, the World Zionist Organization affiliate.
“It’s disgusting, ” she said. “Why have they left us? They’re not paying us, why? Don’t we deserve it? Haven’t we suffered enough?”
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?
Haven’t they suffered enough?