3000 Israeli Holocaust survivors march in Israel for higher pensions

Before every holiday, Shmuel Reiner goes to wealthy families in the Haifa area and collects food for other Holocaust survivors less fortunate than he.  Yesterday, the 70-year-old joined dozens of other survivors and some 3,000 other Israelis in a march from the Knesset to the Prime Minister’s Office, to protest the government’s treatment of survivors who, in Reiner’s words, “don’t even have a cucumber in the refrigerator.”  Waving a small Israeli flag, Reiner, who survived the hell of Czernowitz as a child of eight, ascended the podium to address the demonstrators, and declared: “I’m proud of the State of Israel, but ashamed of its leaders. My heart aches over the fact that the government has brought those survivors still capable of standing on their feet to demonstrate here.”  Miriam Yahav, 78, of Be’er Sheva, drew media attention two-and-a-half years ago when, at a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, she screamed from the dais: “Why did they make me an orphan? Why did they burn my family and my people?”  Yesterday, she was once again asking why – but this time, of Israeli governments, past and present.

Source and more at Haaretz.com, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/890276.html