2012- 2013

Portrait of one of our young rabbis/rabbinical students:
Nico Sokolovsky
For the past two years, Nico Sokolovsky managed our Rights Center in Hadera. In June 2012 he left in order
to complete his rabbinical studies in the US. Nico offers the following thoughts on the center and on his
experience in the field:
“The center in Hadera is our opportunity to be present in the place where we are needed – it is no coincidence
that Makom [place, in Hebrew] is one of the names of God. The center is an expression of our support for
a population that does not get a hearing owing to its position and location… Indeed in this place we get an
opportunity to be present! “Being present,” after two years in this position, is in my understanding a mitzvah of
the highest importance – maybe it should be included in the Ten Commandments. “I am the Lord your God” is
interpreted by the Rambam as a command to know God; I interpret it as an invitation to be present.
My job gave me the chance to visit and to accompany the sick; to care for the poor, the widow, the orphan,
the weak, and those beaten by the system; and to try to improve on the experiment of realizing the dream of
a Jewish state; to feel that I am engaged in the Jewish-Zionist enterprise; to raise my voice and shout against
the loss of direction that our country suffers from…To leave (if only for a minute) the small closed reality that I
live in and to meet the “other” (in terms of economic status, social grouping, religion, etc.) and – through this
meeting with him or her – to widen my knowledge of my God. As a result of my work for this organization,
my understanding of justice has deepened. Thank you!”
Special Projects
Under the direction of Rabbi Arik Ascherman, RHR has developed a number of special projects. These
projects include our work with public housing tenants to ameliorate public housing; to support the African
asylum seekers; and to advocate for the struggle of the unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Negev.
Public Housing
The initiatives described in last
year’s report have blossomed into
a major program area for RHR.
While affordable housing was
one of the main rallying cries of
the 2011 protest movement, most
of the demands have since been
“buried” in committees. The need
is great. Over 40,000 Israelis are
on the official waiting list for public
housing, many waiting for six years
or more. However, the list does not
reflect the actual need. Inappropriate
criteria leave many like the late
Moshe Silman ineligible for support.
Many of those in need repeatedly
rent apartments they cannot afford
until they are evicted, while others
sleep in cars, on friends’ sofas or on
park benches. The trauma suffered
by children is particularly tragic.
Nothing is done to replenish the
public housing stock, let alone to
increase it. Many existing apartments
are in need of serious repair and
some suffer from potentially lifethreatening
problems. Thousands of
other government owned buildings
are left empty. Money intended
for public housing is diverted to
other uses, while those in need
face an often obtuse and insensitive
bureaucracy.
Last year we described how we
first encountered this issue in Beit
Shean and began to develop our
policy recommendations together
with public housing residents
in the city. At the time, the local
branch of Amidar, one of Israel’s
semi-governmental public housing
companies, seemed utterly
unresponsive and sometimes even
hostile. With the guidance of Rabbi
Arik Ascherman, Rabbi Kobi Weiss
has reversed this situation. Realizing
that the root of the problems in
Beit Shean is the difficulty
that individuals face when
standing alone against a
powerful bureaucracy, Rabbi Weiss
opened lines of communication
with Amidar. Students from RHR’s
Jezreel Valley College Human
Rights Yeshiva, and area volunteers,
including some who live in public
housing, he has helped resolve
debts, avoid eviction, obtain repairs,
find appropriate apartments, etc.
This past June, Jezreel Valley College
chose the work of human services
student Rivka Yones with RHR’s
public housing advocacy program
in Beit Shean as one of the two
outstanding projects of the year, out
of 130 competing projects. Since
September of 2011, we have helped
85 tenants, successfully resolving 25
cases and assisting in the resolution
of an additional 20 cases. We are
continuing to work on most of the
open cases. Our challenge is that most
of the tenants with open cases have
problems related to policies decided
at the regional or national level;
we are drawing on the issues these
cases raise as we move forward with
efforts to change national policy (see
below). It is not our goal to remain in
Beit Shean indefinitely: this year we
are focusing on empowering tenants
and local volunteers to support each
other and to resolve problems on
their own.
While in Beit Shean we work mainly
with public housing tenants, RHR
works in Jerusalem with those who are
not even deemed eligible for public
housing due to unrealistic criteria.
The protest encampment initially
sponsored and sustained by RHR
in 2011 has become a collective of
activists and those in need of public
housing called “the Ma’abarah”
(echoing the name given to transit
camps for new immigrants to Israel
in the 1950’s). Long after the middle
class protestors folded up their tents
in the fall of 2011, the Ma’abarah
was one of a handful of low income
groups that continued the struggle.
With many members literally having
nowhere to live, the collective
broke into abandoned buildings (an
activity not sanctioned by RHR), set
up new encampment sites or lived
in donated office space, until the
Municipality eventually provided
supplementary funds allowing those
in need to rent. However, these
funds have now run out, and some
members of the Ma’abarah are again
in danger of eviction.
The Ma’abarah has been one of
the groups continuing with high
profile protests highlighting the
unresponsiveness of municipal
and national officials. For example,
during the Sukkot holiday the
Ma’abarah built a “Sukkah on
Wheels” representing needed
homes, and paraded from Jerusalem
Mayor Nir Barkat’s public Sukkah
to the home of Prime Minister
Netanyahu to a large public gathering
of Kurdish Jewry in Sacher Park.
These protests elicited a defensive
reaction from outgoing Housing
Minister Ariel Atias. While he didn’t
change the problematic way his
Ministry operated, Atias made some
proposals to replenish the supply
of public housing. The proposals
constituted an insufficient step in
the right direction, but they were
not adopted by the government. In
some cases demonstrations were
met with police brutality and arrests.
The Ma’abarah has waged several
campaigns on behalf of individuals
faced with eviction, most notably
waging a successful campaign
against Amidar to prevent the
eviction of Ovadia and Miriam Ben
Avraham. In a very powerful Tisha
B’Av Mincha service and program,
RHR and the Ma’abarah drew links
between the loss of our national
home mourned on Tisha B’Av and
the housing insecurity facing many
Israelis. We also built on the theme of
emerging hope which characterizes
the Tisha B’Av Mincha.
In May 2012, the Ma’abarah entered
a former kindergarten abandoned
for three years in the low income
Katamonim neighborhood, where
the need for public housing
is particularly acute. It
turned out that this property
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