A Helping Hand for Israel’s Poor

The Fellowship  |  October 17, 2017

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein shaking the hand of another man.
A Helping Hand for Israel's Poor

Today, the world is observing the International Day of Poverty. And The Jerusalem Post’s Rachel Cohen writes how each and every day, The Fellowship and our faithful friends do all we can for Israel’s most impoverished citizens:

Yaakov Zakai lives on NIS 3,100 a month. It is a barebones budget for the 84-yearold whose life is riddled with obstacles.

Zakai rarely emerges from his small apartment in Holon.

Every outing, from a medical appointment to buying groceries, is an ordeal. He relies on his caregiver who comes for a total of 19 hours a week.

When venturing out on his own, Zakai must take a cab, since he is not stable enough for public transportation. The cabs are a luxury he can ill afford.

“Every month I suffer,” a frail-sounding Zakai said over the phone on Sunday.

He believes there should be a nationwide campaign to combat the poverty epidemic in Israel.

“I’m not fighting just for me. This is a fight for all of us as a collective,” Zakai said.

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, founder of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), is a firm believer in eliminating poverty among the elderly. Zakai is just one of those who receive aid from the organization…

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