OUR DECLARATION

Our mission is to provide much needed assistance to people in need whose case requires help the government should provide yet fails to do so; to promote the rights of various members of the Israeli society by supporting and strengthening development of their awareness of their rights, ensuring access to services and opportunities, and establishing effective partnerships with public sector and volunteer organizations.

A. For a few years 54 year old woman worked as a cleaner in several hotels, being an employee of a staffing company. After nine months of working in one of the hotels, she was supposed to become a permanent employee of the hotel or to move to another one. Since they couldn’t find a new hotel for her and the last one wasn’t interested in recruiting her, she was found herself with no work and no Termination of Employment letter which would allow her to apply for unemployment benefits. As a result, she remained jobless, without and income, and psychologically stressed. She applied to Magen Mishpaha for help. Our volunteers contacted the hotel and the staffing company, contacted in parallel the Social Security Office, the Work Office, and assisting her in preparing the needed statements. In a few days all her rights were restored, she received an official Termination of Employment letter, and started a training course sponsored by the Work Office.

B. A family made Aliya from Moscow, Russia. Before the move they were in touch with the Jerusalem Municipal Department of Immigrant Absorption. The Department provided them with flight tickets and the contact details of the local real estate agent since the mother needed immediate hospitalization. However, since a few days prior to the Aliya, the family could not get in touch with anyone in the Municipality (post factum the Department was out for a holiday). They applied to Magen Mishpaha via its Facebook page. Since the application submitted just two days before the Aliya, there was no time for renting a suitable apartment. Our volunteers hosted the family, a couple with a 3 y. o. child, in their own apartment . The hospitalization required an assignment from the HMO, however, it was closed on Friday evening so the patient was taken by ambulance to the hospital. The volunteers did babysitting for a few days; on Sunday, a bank account was established, but the Ministry of Immigration Absorption refused to transfer the Absorption Basket funds since the hospitalized woman was not one of the holders. After mobilizing a hospital’s social worker, the money transfer was made. In parallel, a kindergarten was arranged; relevant discounts received after a proper paperwork. The Absorption Department’s warehouse was out of the most needed items, so our volunteers arranged for a refrigerator, dinner table, a microwave, and a sofa. It is a classical test case of the lack of much needed cooperation among governing entities where our volunteers were able to provide crucial assistance.

C. The Jewish Agency promised to a new immigrant, 60 year old physician, to help with professional employment in Israel. She also received a rental subsidy from the Ministry of Immigration Absorption. However, two weeks later the apartment owner who tried to get advantage of her municipal tax deduction and unlawfully withheld her annual rental payments, expelled her. Her application was accepted at Magen Mishpaha, and our volunteers hosted the new immigrant in their own apartment. It became known that she signed a contract in Hebrew she didn’t understand, and it was a complicated task to cancel it, including the withdrawal of unauthorized payments. The goal was achieved due to the cooperation with the Ministry of Immigration Absorption and the Municipal Department of Absorption. After a few failed attempts, our volunteers found a reasonable apartment for the new immigrant.

To date, Magen Mishpaha has provided compassionate and personalized assistance for to more than 200 Israeli citizens, who had found themselves, through no fault of their own, caught in a bureaucratic entanglements, sometimes with dire consequences. Cases include unjustified removal of children from their families; abuse of new immigrants by unscrupulous officials; manipulative behavior towards defenseless the elderly; and various situations of conflict and misunderstanding between the immigrants and public health system, social security, educational establishment, etc.

Such cases are numerous, and each and every of them has a potential of ruining somebody’s live. In these and other situations, government structures usually fail to provide the much needed quick, sophisticated, and multifaceted solutions. Magen Mishapaha’s expertise is in coordinating between the agencies and simultaneous provision of temporary support for the applicant. It doesn’t mean that the government employees are not interested in helping; however, one of the major weakness of our public service structure is the decentralization of competencies and the absence of one-stop shops which severely hampers their ability to help.